Arduino Homesteading Projects

March 6, 2013

How-to

...red on this blog. I’ll keep updating this list as I hear of more projects. Chickens Chicken coop controller Gardening Garden Bot (information about “an open source garden monitoring system). Includes links to other Arduino based gardening projects. Gardening moisture sensor/watering controllers An Arduino waterer that tweets! DIY Hydroponics Weather station Homebrewing Homebrewing Automation With Arduinos (Homebrewing.com article) Arduino Controll...

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Our Keyhole Vegetable Bed: What Worked and What Didn’t Work

Mr. Homegrown

April 17, 2013

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

10 Comments

...ed looked like yesterday just before I fed the remaining vegetables to our chickens and the compost pile. Ignore the large pot–that’s a future solar powered fountain that will be incorporated in a new vegetable garden we’re working on. Here’s what the keyhole bed looked like just after I installed it back in October. Note the compost repository in the center of the bed. I used straw wattle (available where professional irrigation supplies are sold...

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Defining a Garden’s Purpose

Mr. Homegrown

July 8, 2013

Garden Design, Gardening

13 Comments

...people had lush grass and maybe a pool. Some had vegetable gardens, a few chickens and goats. One enterprising person, somewhere between Bakersfield and Fresno, had a walled garden protecting lush marijuana plants. Other than the food gardeners (a small minority even in rural areas) there was little evidence that people ever went into their yards. It confirms what a UCLA anthropology team discovered when they placed cameras in 32 Los Angeles home...

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Pierce Disease Resistant Grape Vines for Southern California

Mr. Homegrown

July 11, 2013

Gardening

7 Comments

...rape–slightly critter chewed, but still tasty. At the risk of counting our chickens before they’ve hatched, I think we finally have grape vines that are immune to Pierce’s disease. Pierce’s disease is a fatal condition spread by sucking (and sucky) insects known as sharpshooters. Once a vine get it there is no cure. Pierce’s is why your glass of California wine may one day be genetically modified. Over the years we’ve lost too many vines to Pierce...

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Alektyomancy: Divination by Rooster

Mr. Homegrown

August 8, 2013

Animals, Chickens

4 Comments

We’ve blogged before about the Roman practice of using chickens to tell fortunes. It turns out the Greeks had their own chicken oracle method: The Pythagoreans inquired about the posthumous fate of their recently dead by using an uncommon method of divination called alektyomancy. On a table were traced squares containing the letters of the alphabet, and in each square seeds were placed. After proper incantations, a white rooster was released, and...

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