Show HN: Grow your own with the Raspberry Pi

by alexellisuk • 5 years ago

123 27 5 years ago

We have 28 people participating now, with live-previews, lots of Twitter activity and prizes to give away for folks who complete the various parts of the challenge.

The code is open source and includes a data logger and Grafana dashboard that's fun to use even if you are not growing things.

iancmceachern• 5 years ago

My wife and I founded Open Agriculture Supply (www.openagriculturesupply.com) years ago to support the mit open agriculture initiative that ultimately fizzled out. We'd love to support in any way you need!

alexellisuk6• 5 years ago

Thanks Ian, do you want to get in touch via email? alex@openfaas.com?

unwind• 5 years ago

Meta: I think the title would work better if it said "your own food".

stevekemp• 5 years ago

That was a very confusing title, especially considering that I dug up some wild raspberry bushes this morning, to plant upon my balcony!

throwaway744678• 5 years ago

As a non-native english speaker, I first confused the title with the expression "grow a pair". I wondered how a Pi would help in that case.

knicholes• 5 years ago

Maybe it could monitor testosterone levels and inject you with some when low.

Sophistifunk• 5 years ago

As a native english speaker, I assumed it was about weed, so it's confusing to all.

tailspin2019• 5 years ago

Yeah I was confused by this title last time (this post seems to be a repeat from a week or two ago)

Edit: seems that the link is different from last time. The GitHub README that this links to gives a much better introduction to this project than the previously linked website [0] does (in terms of quickly understanding what it is).

Plus it looks like a really great project.

[0] https://growlab.dev

alexellisuk6• 5 years ago

It's a very common phrase in the UK: "Grow your own" means food. But I can get that updated for our international speakers.

Thanks for commenting.

https://github.com/alexellis/growlab.dev/commit/a349972b977b...

lucideer• 5 years ago

For context: GYO & GIY (Grow Your Own / Grow It Yourself) are common acronyms in permaculture/biodiversity/grower circles.

But yeah, probably not widely recognised. Worth clarifying.

coolgeek• 5 years ago

Hah! I assumed it meant grow your own weed

na85• 5 years ago

I love stuff like this. I recently[0] put some raspberry pis and beaglebones to work monitoring my plants (though my own solution is not as smooth as this, and I didn't opt for photo capability).

My robogardeners alert me via push notification on my phone when e.g. my basil needs watering, and I can issue them commands to set water/dryness thresholds via IRC.

[0] https://0x85.org/raspi.html

civildude• 5 years ago

is a raspberry zero?

alexellisuk6• 5 years ago

Sure, you can use a Raspberry Pi Zero. That's part of the build instructions in the repo

bartmika• 5 years ago

This is amazing! So excited a community like this exists. I started doing something similar last year. Here’s my progress:

https://bartlomiejmika.com/post/2021/red-mulberry-growlog-2/

And here are the open source libraries I’ve written to support it:

- https://github.com/bartmika/sparkfunweathershield-arduino - https://github.com/bartmika/tstorage-server - https://github.com/bartmika/tpoller-server https://github.com/bartmika/treader-server - more to come...

I hope to submit in the future!

bobsmooth• 5 years ago

growlab

I think they're called gardens.

notdang• 5 years ago

Once you add a camera to it, it's called a lab.

bernardv• 5 years ago

Not clear if one needs to buy >your< kit, or any kit.

alexellisuk6• 5 years ago

We have _no kit_ for sale, so it's clearly any kit :-)

We do have open source code available for you to use for free, and three varied experiments you can take part in. Feel free to browse the code and README

mastrsushi• 5 years ago

No one ever really needs to buy >a< kit.

borski2• 5 years ago

Funny story - I recently bought a Gardyn[1] but they didn’t have an open API, so while reversing it discovered that under the hood it’s just… a raspberry pi haha

It’s a fantastic device tbh, but I LOL’d

[1] https://mygardyn.com

alexellisuk6• 5 years ago

Fancy trying out one of the experiments we have listed? Like the data logger or live preview?

borski2• 5 years ago

Actually, it would be fun to try and pull data off the device. I’ll play with it tomorrow!

openthc• 5 years ago

Super excited to see more Pi powered growing. IME It works great for medium scale operations. One of my next objectives is a community sized greenhouse for veg, and a bunch of Pi automation.

Show HN: Grow your own with the Raspberry Pi

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