I'm reminded of that adage "Given the opportunity, players will optimise the fun out of a game". A fully automated setup is cool, but if it's working well, there's not much to do. You're not gardening any more.

I have a bunch of plants on my window sill, and considered getting moisture sensors and automating watering, but I realised that kind of defeats the point of looking after the plants myself. On top of the satisfaction of manual work, I recently realised that it's taught me an intuition - the quirks of how much water each plant wants at different times of year (even cacti are thirsty in summer!), and how soil composition and pot size affects water retention. It's probably not generally transferable knowledge, but it was fun to realise I'd come to know my plants really well.

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asr a day ago | parent | next [-]

Th author spent however long on setup and wrote up a blog post. They are doing something different than you, but it’s clear they are also having fun. There is room for two approaches, and I’m not going to tell anyone else their approach “defeats the point,” because we really don’t even have to agree on the point! Glad you enjoy your approach.

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fxtentacle a day ago | parent | next [-]

Or the author is doing this for SEO. He’s the founder of the AI platform all of this is running on. Or maybe he enjoys the technical tinkering more than the gardening ;)

	▲	gopalv 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> maybe he enjoys the technical tinkering more than the gardening Por que no los dos? For me, gardening switches between being an old testament god with a spray bottle and a general process god who sets everything in motion, then takes eternity off. Both are fun, but different kinds of fun.

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mihaaly a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I assume a comment here is very frequently an opinion not a normative statement. One way of consideration from among the many. His opinion, that this way defeats the point, is very well in line to say this way, we shouldn't even hint to shut up about it. It does not and cannot hinder anyone having alternative approach to the matter, it was not even implied here, as far as I can see, the room for alternative is there.

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vidarh a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't like gardening, so that sounds like a win to me. I can kill any plant. I don't enjoy that. I enjoy having nice plants around me.

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pvaldes a day ago | parent [-]

> I don't like gardening

heressy!

> I can kill any plant

Hum, suddenly you have exactly the most skill wanted in gardening. People will pay for your magic touch on all those stinking needles and weeds out of control. If it works also with moles, people will make queues at your door with marry me proposals.

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vidarh a day ago | parent [-]

> heressy!

Maybe I'd feel differently if I didn't have a growing history of plant murder behind me.

> Hum, suddenly you have exactly the most skill wanted in gardening.

Unfortunately, I believe a necessary pre-condition for my skill to work is that you need to have a genuine desire for the plant to survive first.

It seems near certain it will die shortly afterward.

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pvaldes a day ago | parent [-]

Every gardener is a cereal murderer; almost as the same level than bakers. One of the best secrets of gardening is that most plants are clones, so is like exploring a video-game with infinite lives. After killing exactly the same plant five times, it starts improving.

	▲	vidarh 21 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The problem is that I most certainly does not have the patience for that. I'd rather have automation, or hired help, do it for me.

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sirtaj a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We have a gardener who comes to do our garden. I love my garden. I'm totally useless at gardening and while I like the idea of learning it, the opportunity cost against my other ADHD hobbies makes it impractical. So I just walk around and enjoy my garden.

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gofreddygo a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> You're not gardening any more.

You are though. Its the automation you garden now.

the curse of automation

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ash_091 a day ago | parent [-]

Some might call it the joy of automation.

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Applejinx a day ago | parent [-]

You could get more of that out of Factorio…

	▲	ssl-3 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sure. But we can eat the product of our automated Rube Goldberg gardening automation, while the only thing that Factorio produces in the real world is singing birds.

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rob74 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As someone with not much of a "green thumb", I would rather say this lets you keep the pleasant parts of gardening (planting, harvesting and generally enjoying your plants) while automating the chore of regularly watering them.

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marky1991 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There is always weeding. I would enjoy automated watering.

The fun part of gardening is planting something and watching them grow. I can do that without watering, watering brings me no joy and I still have lots of other things to do in the garden.

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navane a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think he's farming now.

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hackersnooze1 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

maybe he likes automating more than gardening