With Possible Food Shortages on the Horizon, Now is the Time to Get Smart About Greenhouse Garden Growing

Growing vegetables, flowers, and exotic plants indoors isn’t a new idea. Even the ancient Romans understood the power of sunlight magnified through their hand-blown glass panels and directed onto plants protected from the cold and climate of outdoor conditions. More modern greenhouse designs appeared in 17th century Europe and then the later invention of large, durable polyethylene sheets and other advances in the last century created the greenhouses we’re more familiar with today, both commercially and privately.

With the development of smart technology, today’s greenhouses are more advanced than ever before. What’s more, you don’t have to be a commercial grower to enjoy the advances of smart tech for greenhouses. If you have a backyard greenhouse or the space to add one to your backyard — somewhere between your backyard grill and the shed where you keep your grass seed and riding lawnmower — you can grow your own vegetables year-round. And all you need for smarter growing is a good smartphone, some smart sensors, and today’s automated technology.

All-in-One Smart Sensors

A simple wireless sensor like the RuuviTag can measure the humidity, temperature, air movement, and air pressure. It acts like four smart sensors in one small device. You can also use multiple tags for large or commercial greenhouses. With a smart Bluetooth sensor like RuuviTag, and the companion app on your smartphone, you can enjoy real-time information on these critical conditions inside your greenhouse no matter where you are. It also keeps tracking logs of the information so you can look back at patterns, check the current temperature, and receive alerts when temperatures rise or fall outside of your preset limits.

Other smart sensors for measuring temperature and humidity include the Govee Hygrometer Thermometer, the Mocreo WiFi Hygrometer and Thermometer, and the ThermoPro.

How Smart Sensors Save Energy

Besides saving your plants from unfriendly conditions and optimizing your yield, smart sensors like the RuuviTag and others also save you energy on your greenhouse operation. Why run ventilating equipment, fans, irrigation systems, heaters, and humidifiers in your greenhouse if you don’t have to? By using smart sensors to monitor the environment inside your greenhouse you won’t waste energy because you’ll know exactly what you need when you need it, and when you don’t. Smart technology makes your greenhouse much more energy-efficient, which is an important consideration with today’s rising energy costs. Even better, if your greenhouse includes automated technology, you can make changes to automatic settings remotely by checking conditions inside your greenhouse from any location.

Try using automated technology inside your backyard greenhouse like the Goldoon watering system, or the Gardyn Home Kit to control conditions inside your greenhouse without leaving your favorite recliner or pausing your favorite binge-watch series.

With today’s rising costs and limited availability of fresh produce, adding a greenhouse can guarantee your family fresh foods year-round. By taking advantage of high-tech sensors and automation, growing your own garden greens and juicy tomatoes has never been easier.

Resources— GrowLink, UVM, Deprolabs

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