Growing your plants in Bermuda’s ever-changing environment is challenging.
Too much rain here and too little sun there can make your growing dreams difficult to come true.
Then when you factor in our stiflingly hot summers and our ageing bodies … well it’s lucky we have technology to help us in the garden.
Smart technology, devices, apps and new techniques can help us make our vegetable patches more vivacious and flower beds more fanciful. From lighting and irrigation to mower and weeders, technology in the garden can save you time, enhance your garden, help save your back and make your outdoor space productive.
Those who are tech savvy and up with the trends can get a lot of work done just by pressing a button, thanks to tools and equipment that utilises apps.
In our Bermuda summer, when temperatures hit the 90s, with humidity to match, nobody wants to be outside cutting the grass – so let the robot mower do the work for you!
The AnthBot robotic lawnmower can mow up to ¾ of an acre and offers precision boundary and zone options without having to set up perimeter wires.
It can avoid obstacles, manage up to 24-degree inclines, and can adjust to mowing schedules, seasonal changes, location and weather conditions. From your grass garden paths to your backyard, it does the work for you scientifically.
The FarmBot Genesis, meanwhile, is a farming machine that helps you grow food for yourself, your family, your school or your community.
It can perform weeding, drilling, soil surface milling, watering, plant seeds, allowing you to cool off in your airconditioned living room without having to get your hands dirty.
They don’t come cheap, but you may consider it a worthy investment depending on how much food you intend producing.
Our scorching summers might be beautiful for our beach-loving tourists, but they can be the greatest enemy for our gardeners.
Feeding your garden with the rainwater from your water tank might ensure your vegetable patch stays healthy – but that’s not much consolation when you’ve got nothing left for a shower at the end of your sweaty day.
The Rachil 3 Smart Sprinkler system is here to help. This app ensures your plants get the amount of water they need while conserving water by tracking the weather – so that you’re not needlessly using your supply after the heavens finally open.
To really get to grips with Bermuda’s unpredictable conditions, consider the Ecowitt Weather Station, a solar-powered device that monitors and collects accurate weather data.
You can tack temperature, humidity, air pressure, rainfall, wind speed and direction and UV index, and more.
No more guessing about how you got that bumper crop of tomatoes – you’ll know exactly how it happened.
Another highly recommended device is the Sonic Bloom system from Dan Carlson, which uses sound and organic foliar feeding to bring plants and their growing space to life.
This invention increases nutrition, produces greater yields using less water, helps make plants more resistant to disease, with extended growing seasons.
It comes with a home gardener’s starter kit – or, if you’re feeling lucky, the solar-powered Commercial Sonic Bloom Box serves up to 200 acres. I’m taking donations.
Simple gadgets that help in the garden include the Maxbit, which attaches to your existing drill and creates small holes for easy transplanting of your seedlings. Save your back by leaving the digging to the devices. From nasturtiums to cedar seedlings, you could truly make Bermuda bloom!
The Mars Hydro Grow Tent Kit, available at Animal and Garden House, provides growing space, lighting, water and more in one convenient kit, and you can customise it by contacting them online or by phone.
Animal and Garden House also has an Indoor Garden LED grow system aimed at making growing easy for budding enthusiasts.
Information on what to grow – and when to grow it – in our mid-Atlantic environment is more accessible than ever before thanks to the never-ending supply of online sources.
Did you know, for example, that by growing plants that help the bees and are also endemic to Bermuda, you are helping the local bee and human population?
Consider flowers and herbs like the Bermudiana and fennel, shrubs like hibiscus and Japanese honey suckle, and trees like golden shower and citrus to give our fuzzy friends some precious resources.
Online planting guides are available through the Bermuda Government and electronic magazines, to supplement what you can glean from experts at places like Bermuda Green Thumb, Aberfeldy Nurseries and Wild Island Apiaries.
For those of us who don’t naturally have green thumbs, smart gardening is here to save us. We don’t even need to rely on the gardener’s instinct. Get growing with tech!
