If I don't dust tomatoes or cover broccoli/etc I will lose almost everything.
Something that skimmed/raked the surface lightly at regular intervals between rows to frustrate slugs and disrupt weeds would probably help me, but not sure how it could reliably account for varying plant types, sagging leaves, wayward tomato vines, etc.
The energy costs for indoor climate / light regulation can quickly become outrageous compared to super market veggie prices. Therefore, I think this type of tech is for rare exotic plant, maybe historical even.
Imagine buying a piece of tech for growing historical coffee plants in your basement where you set the climate control to Kenia or Hawaii (buy the soil addon?) and which guarantees (as in `likely it will yield') you 2kg of your own personal coffee harvest per plant. This stuff has urban hipster $$$ written all over it.
If you could control climate and soil to that degree, I can think of a certain plant that you could grow that will yield much more profit than a coffee plant: http://botanycentral.providence.wikispaces.net/file/view/coc...
Also, I seem to have a pest problem as well, I think rabbits, as all the leaves on my bean stalks have seemingly been chewed off.
Broccoli leaves get decimated by caterpillars if they aren't protected from moths laying eggs on them. Same happens to cabbages, bok choy, etc. A fine net with 10mm gaps works fairly well. I use petal poles and arches of pipe to make a removable frame.
Looks a bit like this: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_OJlKX8cCges/SoKz6rQJ3bI/AAAAAAAABx...
For slugs/snails, I use pellets but apparently you can use copper tape if you have raised garden beds.
Most timers are either battery-operated, or have to be wound once a day. To me, that sucks, and I don't want to have to route power to the garden system. With the slow drippers, I can leave this for weeks without issue.
Weeding is entirely unnecessary and often does more harm than good. Plant a cover crop and leave it be. Gardening can already be as simple as 3 tasks: plant, harvest, spread compost. It is just that people are very set in their ways and don't ever think to explore better ways of doing things.
Because I read about it (I asume you mean permaculture), tried it out - and dismissed most of it.
Permaculture is indeed great as a concept, but is in no way as easy as people tell you it is. Most of what people tell you about is close to scam (even if it is wishfull thinking)
In a small backyard garden you might need to pull out a couple dozen weeds over the entire growing season.
You'll also be able to reduce your water use significantly because you've eliminated most of the open/broken soil that loses water to evaporation.
Thistles are a real pain here (South Australia), as are soursobs (oxalis). I have an entire catalogue of weeds.
I might try some black plastic on one bed.
My soil is very good quality, having been improved with chicken & horse manure and composted chicken litter. The problem is I live on a windy hilltop and seeds from all over land where I'm planting. I've even had a wheat stalk show up.
If you did that properly and still got thistles, then we're doomed!
One thing to try might be two layers of clear plastic with air trapped between - maybe 15-20cm gap. That further raises the temperature of the soil underneath. It's a method used in greenhouses too.
And I do use permaculture principles in my garden, but if someone tells me, no weeding is ever needed - then they either do gardening on a different planet, or are just lying.
Are you telling me, that you don't have to do weeding, like OP said, at all?
So not in the protected greenhouse, but out in the open gardens, where there are seeds coming from everywhere?
The dirt will get covered in plants, but you don't have to pull up everything you didn't plant yourself.
What about them? A weed is simply an unwanted plant. If they do no harm, why do you want to spend time removing them? Again, plant a good cover crop and don't weed. Your soil will be better, you will use less water, and there's no downside.
>(and snails)
Nothing about permaculture says you can't deal with snails. You can still deal with snails/slugs however you like. The obvious being simple copper wire or beer traps.
>Are you telling me, that you don't have to do weeding, like OP said, at all?
Correct. The only plants I pull out of the ground are root vegetables.
>So not in the protected greenhouse, but out in the open gardens, where there are seeds coming from everywhere?
Yes. Again, seeds coming from everywhere doesn't matter, because a dandelion in your potatoes doesn't hurt anything.
I agree wholeheartedly. If. Unfortunately, if I ignore the thistles and many of the other unwanted plants, they will outcompete the plants I do want and completely overwhelm them. I'm not a big fan of doing unnecessary work. I know from experience that if I don't weed, I get almost zero yield. Squashes and potatoes are the only plants I have that survived.
OTOH, a few minutes here and there spent weeding (get them while they're small) and I get more veggies than I can eat.
This year I'm experimenting with using discarded heavy plastic bags as mulch to suppress the weeds. I'll see how that goes.
But unfortunately ducks are not an option, even though I also would love their eggs.
They'll always eat part of your harvest.
Side-note, duck eggs are great for baked goods. Nice, fluffy cakes and brownies. But fried they're a little gross.
Plus its scalable - just extend the raised bed if you have space and it allows manual intervention because it can be moved out of the way easily.
For watering yes I agree its complete overkill.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00E1HXYQA/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00K0TKJCU/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B006LYHG42/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid...
Drip emitters are the kind of thing I should be 3-d printing but at $5 for 50 or whatever the going rate is...
I have a garden. It uses a drip line that's buried in the ground. It's $10 worth of tubing from Lowes with a few holes where plants go. It's on a $15 timer that waters automatically once a day. I do, however, have to take a few minutes to put seeds in the ground.
That said, I would be throwing money at the monitor right now if this thing was smart enough to identify weeds and remove them. (Maybe that's in the plans? They have a part for weeding shown.)
But I love all these new ideas around farming. The most interesting is hydroponics considering how much more resourceful it is with water (sometimes using 90% less water per equal amount of harvest).
Edit: for those asking, all I used was half inch black tubing (the kind they use for automated sprinkler systems), drilled small holes every 12 inches, buried it, hooked it up to a spigot with a timer, and that's it.