At last I’ve gotten myself a greenhouse. This was supposed to happen in march but here we are. Since it is so late in the gardening season in Sweden I’m not in a hurry to set everything up.
The vision:
The greenhouse is quite small but I want to control atleast watering systems and lighting via Homey. Since I currently don’t have any electricity planned for it I would like to invest in some kind of solar power and if possible some low powered watering systems that can be powered by the solar panels. The water is in that case taken from existing water barrels.
For lighting I aim for a small led strip, nothing too big and flashy.
Is this vision possible somehow?
If possible, what hardware should I look into?
Should I aim higher and invest in other stuff to promote better yield/harvest?
I am very green in this subject and that doesn’t include the fingers.
Hey @Henrik_Ekholm ,
I recently done just that. I built a compact vertical herb garden. It fits perfectly on our tiny narrow balcony. It features:
• A vertical garden with room for 18 plants;
• An Ikea Hyllis rack with Cover so it can be turned into a greenhouse in winter;
• A R/B Grow Ledstrip connected via a Fibaro Wall Plug that is fully automated to follow the natural rhythm of the sun, but ensures that the plants always get a minimum of 8 hours of light;
• A Gardena Holiday Watering set that is configured to the individual watering needs of each plant, also connected via a Fibaro Wall Plug;
• A Xiaomi Mi Flora HHCC soil moisture sensor to trigger the watering automatically. It’s strategically placed in one of the coriander plants.
The herbs grow like crazy and the garden produces more than enough for our needs. We are currently growing: Rosemary, Tarragon, Sage, Oregano, Thyme, Chives, Cilantro, Mint, Parsley and Basil.
These are all the devices needed:
This is the flow that waters the plants automatically:
water the plants flow;
This is the flow that automatically turns on the grow lights based on the position of the sun. It either turns the lights on when the morning golden hour ends, and turns off when the evening golden hour starts. Or, when that would result in less than 8 hours of sun, it will turn them on 4 hours before noon, and off 4 hours past noon.
I also programmed a watchdog to make sure I receive a warning when something is wrong with the plant care sensor.
Gardena also has a version of the watering system that can run on solar. I don’t know how well this one is programmable via Homey though. Also this will not fix your lighting. My led grow strips are very efficient, but they do consume about 65 watts when they are on. So you need quite a substantial solar panel to power them. Especially during winter.
Hope this helps!
Perfectly inspirational. Thank you!
This is an eye opener for sure
