Category: City Gardening

There were frequent “rain showers” inside our home as I finished up expanding our homegrown automated plant misting system into three separate zones. An ultraviolet water purifier minimizes the possibility of Legionnaires’ Disease from inhaled, contaminated droplets.

Just noticed that, in my absence yesterday, my water bottle had been repurposed for plant propagation. Occasionally, with permission, Dwight comes home from his volunteer job at a greenhouse with cuttings that would otherwise be composted.

Took delivery of a wheeled, recycled plastic industrial pallet for our indoor garden. Dwight will come up with a system of risers so the plants can be at different heights. I’ll be concealing lights, irrigation tubes, wiring, and electronics inside the pallet.

Spent the afternoon soldering sockets onto cables for moisture sensors for our indoor garden.

Looked up at the ceiling of our “indoor garden.” Up-lights were projecting shadows of palms, gently swaying in the breeze from the ceiling fan.

Boxes of irrigation parts waited to be taken downstairs to the mail room. I upgraded our houseplant irrigation system and sold the old parts on eBay to benefit Doctors Without Borders. Everything went. Boxes and packaging materials were rescued from a dumpster.

Spent my Sunday afternoon with a crimper, a heat gun, and a soldering iron. Built the wiring harness for up to seven capacitive soil moisture sensors for a 3-level rack of houseplants. The box holds a microcomputer that wirelessly communicates with our home automation hub.

Circuit boards mimicked a fern as they waited for their red, moisture-resistant coatings to cure.

The prairie grasses on our balcony are looking happy. Today I upgraded the irrigation system electronics: it delivers water via 48 micro-drippers; moisture is measured by capacitive sensors in the soil at three points; the system communicates wirelessly with a Hubitat hub.

Did a science experiment: measured soil moisture with an inexpensive (as little as $2 apiece) capacitive sensor wired to a cheap Arduino computer which communicates wirelessly with our home hub. If I deploy this system, the biggest expense will be waterproofing the circuitry.