The cone containing my Italian Parsley got very moldy very quickly after moving it to the new tub, so I threw it, as well as its peers, into the compost bin. I think it may have got too much light, or the pH balance was too low. C’est la vie. I’ve decided that I’ll wait a little bit before planting new stuff as the aeration pump is quite noisy and I’d like to have it in a different room soon. For now, I’m mostly concerned with the bonsai tree I started a few days ago.
Because bonsai, especially young bonsai, are so particular, I need to work more on controlling the environment within the tent. For right now, I want to keep a closer eye on the temperature. To that end, I picked up an analog thermometer/moisture gauge from the clearance rack at Lowe’s and dug out my Raspberry pi and accompanying GPIO thermometer that I ordered several years ago and forgot about.
Disregard the mat and the mess of wires. I rigged all of that up to the breadboard while following an online guide only to realize that the little green thing contains all of the necessary circuits and resistors and such to prevent frying my pi. Once I fired it up and started getting a read on the soil temperature, I realized that the soil temperature is a whopping 73.5 degrees (F). This is not good, because the Black Spruce wants a soil temp of 65 degrees.
To rectify this, I’ve ordered a fan to keep air flowing inside the tent. I’ve also got some pulleys on the way that I can set up to raise and lower the lights, I’ve also turned off one of the lighting panels, and turned the brightness way down on the remaining one. I’ve neglected all of these controls up to this point, but this is something that has a big impact on my plants’ ability to grow. Hopefully, in the next update, I’ll be able to share that I’ve controlled the weather in this little 2’x3’x1.5’ space.
-The guide I used for setting up the thermometer is here: https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-temperature-sensor/
-The python code, which I will likely modify to only show the REAL metric for temperature, can be found here: https://github.com/pimylifeup/temperature_sensor
-The thermometer can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087JQ6MCP?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
If you have any questions, or advice regarding python, raspberry pi, bonsai trees, gardening, or anything that you think I’d be interested to know, don’t hesitate to email [email protected].