If you dig gardening, you know it's often a months-long guessing game. Plant seeds, water them, make sure they get the right amount of sunshine, and then just maybe you'll sprout some greenery that will survive until harvest time.

But why do all that work for an uncertain payoff? This is 2016, and in 2016 everyone puts chips in things. This planting season, let technology keep watch over your garden.

Several sensor-laden products can monitor your soil, then pass that information to an app on your phone. Irrigation systems can use weather forecasts to hone your watering schedule. And most of these devices connect to the Internet, so you can dote on your green friends from anywhere.

Talking to the Flowers

The smartest gardening tech uses sensor systems designed to help gardeners understand what's going on. Take the Edyn Garden Sensor for example. Jab the spike-shaped solar-powered sensor into the ground and it reads soil conditions, light frequency, moisture levels, and weather data, then sends it all to the Edyn app on your phone. Guesswork begone.

Parrot's Flower Power sensor goes in a potted plant or the ground and, like the Edyn, provides data on plant health, like temperature and whether it needs water or fertilizer. It uses a battery, which makes it a better bet for indoor plants.

Equally important to knowing how your plants feel is knowing what they want. Both Edyn and Flower Power feature extensive digital dictionaries indexing the compatibility, preferred conditions, and seasonal watering needs for thousands of plants.

If you've already packed your garden with tech, try using a hub to tie it all together. The Green IQ connects to other smart devices on your spread, letting you control watering or lighting systems from a single app. Gro app for iOS offers another way of harmonizing all that hardware. It offers advice for specific plants and can gather data from sensors and irrigation systems as well.

Water You Doing?

Watering isn't easy. "The single biggest human cause of plant death is overwatering or incorrect watering," says Mike McGrath, expert gardener and host of the nationally syndicated public radio show You Bet Your Garden. "If you water a plant all the time its roots won't grow because roots only grow in search of water."

Thankfully, there's an array of smart systems to alleviate the confusion around watering. Blossom, Rachio, and Lono are sprinkler controllers for preinstalled sprinkler systems. Aside from letting you program your watering schedule from an app, these devices monitor local weather data from the Internet. If it just rained, a network-connected sprinkler following the forecast would know, and will refrain from soaking your lawn or your garden. Your water bill won't needlessly inflate, and it cuts down on waste. According to the EPA, about 30 percent of domestic water use goes to lawns and gardens, and about 50 percent of outdoor water use is wasted due to evaporation, wind, or poorly designed systems.

If you have one of those solar-powered Edyn sensors, check out the Edyn Water Valve, a solar powered controller that connects directly to a garden hose, turning any backyard spigot into a Wi-Fi connected irrigation system. The valve takes readings from the Edyn sensor, so it knows just how much water to dispense.

This new wave of irrigation control is building upon previous attempts at automated watering systems, which historically haven't been great.

"In my thirty years in this business I've never talked to anyone who is happy with their sprinkler system," McGrath says. Most current systems rely on adjustable timers in a little controller box that's mounted to the side of your house. These new app-controlled systems bring all the controls—and the data they can collect—onto your phone, so you can study and adjust your watering schedule from anywhere.

Loathsome Varmint

Installing a dozen tiny networked computers in your garden isn't going to deter the deer and rabbits. "My number one defense against mammals is the motion activated sprinkler," says McGrath, who recommends the ScareCrow system.

Whenever a critter wanders over to chew on your vegetables, the ScareCrow shoots a couple of cups of water at it. You place the sprinkler near the plants you wish to protect, and it blasts any animal that ventures too close. It's much cheaper and easier than installing a fence.

Deer aren't easily deterred, and the average deer can eat six to eight pounds of vegetation a day. Try installing a Wireless Deer Fence, which administers an annoying but ultimately non-harmful shock to drive them away.

Don't Alienate Your Garden

These devices automate much of the work in cultivating plants, flowers, and crops. With smart gear monitoring the soil, deterring the pests, and handling the watering, you may wonder what's left for you to do.

It's very important that you don't automate your way out of the garden. To be a good gardener, you must spend time in your garden. Cross-referencing your data with real-world observations will make you smarter about your backyard ecosystem. In fact, if you really want to be a good gardener, the best way to learn is probably by being a bad one for a few seasons first.