I learned a bunch of useful things while doing this project and I wanted to make sure I captured them here for you. Hopefully I've written them all down because they are mighty handy:



Plants:

When it comes to plants remember that they are indeed alive. They are also tasty, not just to you but often to other things as well. My first plants were eaten by cats and then destroyed by spider mites. I never would have thought about this during the planning stage of the project and it definitely cost me a few extra bucks to replace them.



Lighting:

Plants need light and it can be tough finding the right set of lights. There is plenty of information out there about lights for growing plants but it turns out to be incredibly difficult to find these lights at a local hardware store. It took me a while but after asking around I was directed to a Hydroponics Store. You know the kind (wink, wink), and they hooked me up in no time at all. Pun partially intended. The people were great at the store and definitely reminded me of why I like to buy local when possible.



Water:

You've got to be really careful when you get started with automatically watering your plants. The soil resistivity will change dramatically as you first start to water it, meaning your calibration of the sensors will be difficult. I found this out the hard way when my pump decided to water not only my plant but my entire kitchen. It's better to program in some safety catches in the software to prevent this. My plants will only water for up to 30 seconds at four different times in the day and no more. It may be different for you, but be warned.



Wireless Programming:

You may have set up your arduino to be wirelessly programmed. I did and I found the only annoying thing is that I'd reset my arduino when I reset my computer. Turns out I was flipping the reset line on the arduino via the Xbee. The easiest solution to fix this was to disconnect the reset line whenever I didn't want to reprogram. I could still leave the other electronics in place, but removing the reset line fixed the problem without having to disassemble anything else.



Final Comments:

I had a lot of fun building this project. I learned a lot along the way and I hope to have some delicious plants for eating after all this work. I hope you found this project interesting and useful for upgrading your own Garduino. If you do follow any of the upgrades in this project let me know and tell me how they worked out for you.



You can always ask for more information or check out my website for more information. I keep a blog, a project wiki, and an svn repository with the latest code. I also have a set of photos you can look at. Hopefully it's all up to date and full of resources to help you out. Good luck with your project!



PS - If you like this project please vote for it in the "Arduino Contest" and help me win!



