New garden app from the Royal Horticultural Society

04/22/2010

0 Comments

 
The Royal Horticultural Society now has its own app and it’s FREE. Grow Your Own is designed to help you choose fruit and vegetables for your garden. Although it’s designed for UK gardeners, I could resist the temptation to download it and try it out. 

This app allows you to browse and select fruits and vegetables to your virtual garden. Each plant profile has advice on planting, cultural requirements, harvesting tips, and pest control suggestions. The information is written by RHS experts and can be quite handy if you’re out in the garden and you don’t want to drag your laptop with you. The ‘Help me choose’ section offers plant choices based on how much space and time you have and how green your thumb is.

I’d love to see a Canadian version of this app. Maybe one is out there and I haven’t found it yet. I guess I should spend less time searching for new word games and brain teasers and search for a few more garden apps. I’ll keep you posted on my search results.
Picture
Add Comment
 

Tweeting houseplants

03/23/2010

0 Comments

 
Picture
Have you ever wondered what you’re houseplants are thinking? Well, thanks to this cool gadget, your houseplant can now tweet. By using Twitter, your houseplant will communicate with you via the Internet.   The Botanicalls DIY Plant Twitter Kit easily translates all dialect of ‘houseplant’ to English.

So how does it work? The original breakthrough was made when the chief scientist at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) was trying to communicate with a patch of catnip by using a super computer.

“I CAN HAZ TWITTER?” said the plant. This confused the scientist, but his granddaughter was able to figure out that the plant wanted to Tweet!  Plant who tweet don’t have much to say, but they do request that you water them and thank you once you have.

Fact or fiction? Who knows, but this fun toy is perfect for a techie gardener who is feeling stir crazy during the long winter months!
Originally published on http://www.canadiangardening.com/blogs/
Add Comment
 

Cool gadget - time lapse garden camera

03/18/2010

0 Comments

 
Picture
I stumbled upon this nifty garden device the other day while I was surfing the web. The GardenWatch Cam is perfect for gardeners who love gadgets. Maybe this is something you’d like to add to your wish list for Santa – I know, I shouldn’t be thinking about the ‘C’ word already, but Santa’s elves needs time to build all the toys you know!

The GardenWatch Cam by Brinno is designed to be placed outside in your garden to take photos at specific predetermined time settings. Simply put, you can record your flowers blooming, speed it up, and then watch it on your computer. It’s not like sitting on your deck watching the grass grow in real time. The time-lapsed images are sped up so you can watch seedlings sprout, a morning glory climb up a trellis, bees pollinate flowers, or capture the sneaky garden gnome who mysteriously manages to be in a different spot in your garden every morning.

Housed in a weather resistant plastic case, the GardenWatch Cam blends into the garden so you won’t even notice it’s there. At the end of the season, you can download the images and play it back to watch your garden bloom all over again. Take a peek at some of these videos filmed with the GardenWatch Cam.

Seedlings sprouting

Hyacinth blooming

For bird watchers trying to catch a glimpse of visitors to your bird feeder, be sure to check out the BirdWatch Cam.

Originally published on http://www.canadiangardening.com/blogs/
Add Comment