As a fellow backyard raised bed hipster, part of the point for me is going out and tending it. I struggle to see the value in this unless it’s about scaling.
For me, playing with tech is part of the reason I have a backyard farm. So far I've just played with very basic things like sunken hose irrigation with timers hooked up to a rain gauge so it only waters when there's no rain, but I'd love to have the time to look more into the robotics side of things.
For those of us who sling CRUD sites all day long, the opportunity to dig into more machine/computer interaction is just fun.
Fair enough! I work at a robotics company, and I already feel guilt for not putting more effort into my existing homeassistant and networking setup. But if you were wanting to scratch an itch, I could definitely picture this being rewarding.
As a tech-crazed wanna-be hipster gardener, the value is pretending to do it "better" than the backyard raised bed hipsters.
Observe: "Using the manual controls, you can move FarmBot and operate its tools and peripherals in real-time. Scare birds away while at work, take photos of your veggies, turn the lights on for a night time harvest, or simply impress your friends and neighbors with a quick demo."
Maybe you wouldn't get a garden otherwise if you've got no skill, no experience living on a farm. This way you get to have a garden without know how to do it and without a choir part like watering regularly. Now you can water whenever you feel like it.
You've described most of Eastern Europe for most of the last 100 years and many parts of Asia. I came from a Polish city of 100,000, and everybody I knew (who didn't completely surround themselves by concrete) grew at least some type of fruits and vegetables in their yards, no matter the size. We knew the next big disturbance is just around the corner. Outside of vegetables and fruits directly planted in our yards, we also raised pork, and at different times, chicken, turkey, ducks. Our neighbours raised rabbits. Most people "leased" a small plot on the outskirts of the city (in our case for strawberries). Community gardens were everywhere. Now, things are slowly starting to change to mimick the West. People are even starting to grow lawns for some reason. Sad state of affairs. It seems humans believe that progress means you outsource all of the labor to somebody or something else. In my opinion, the labor itself, is the lesson. The folks that need assistance in their gardens would generally get it from family, friends, and neighbours.
My dream is to make gardens under geodesic domes. In UK there is Eden project with 2 domes: one has mediterranean climate and another tropical. Imagine being able to grow mangoes and pineapples almost anywhere (it maybe too expensive in some climates, but maybe just growing strawberries there would be nice). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWr67v620kY
I'd love to figure out how to do this in such a way that some or all of the warmth for them could come from waste-heat sources. Seems like such a waste to build a dome for growing local food and then have to heat it through the night with conventional fuels.
On a side note, check out forest gardening, namely "Plants for a future" is an excellent reference/book pfaf.orgyou, the author whom I had the luck to meet had a "huge" garden nearby in Cornwall
I’m working on a different farming robot. Since my office is at the farm and half of my work is doing something outside with the machine, it’s a pretty idyllic setting for a job!
I thought the same thing. I could care less about the robot but a good garden planning app would be nice and let you track when you water, plant, harvest/ yield of crop from year to year
Large farms put the hoses in the ground - the water never touches the air (well I assume some will seep to the surface, but not much), instead it is applied only close to the roots. You need to be very careful to apply your seeds just above the hose, but this is a solved problem: modern farming can place each seed to within 2cm of where intended over large fields even when the tractor is planting 50 rows at a time at 20km/h.
