The ugly side of winter and Parrot Flower Power

Typically winters in the upper Midwest are snowy, with many bright days and surprisingly bright nights, when the snow reflects all of the light and makes midnight look like daytime. This is especially pleasant to view if you have an outdoor hot tub available.

But this winter we have had some oddly warm days followed by normally cold temperatures, resulting in melted snow turning to ice.

The low spot in my yard collected all of the melting snow and then froze into a solid mass of dirty ice (unfortunately, I have to cross this twice a day to check on the hens-- Yaktrax really do help).

It's hard to believe it with the mini glacier in my yard, but planting starts next month (indoors) so I've started working on my planting plan. (A sneak peak at the 2017 season will be in the blog next week!)

For now, my new toy!


Parrot Flower Power

The Flower Power is a small, waterproof, indoor/outdoor sensor that gives real time (as well as historical) information on a plant's growing environment. I decided to try one out because we needed temperature information under the indoor lighting system. There is a slick app to run this Bluetooth enabled device, so I can sit in the living room and watch tv while checking on the plants. Not only does it track temperature, it also monitors light intensity, fertility, and moisture. The only thing it's missing is the ability to monitor humidity.

The Flower Power is set up to monitor the conditions for a specific type of plant. In the app, the user designates the plant type and the advice given is species-specific.

The app's display is easy to understand and the reminders to water and fertilize are handy.

The Flower Power has been fun to play with, especially with my tomato plant. The light I'm using isn't really bright enough for tomatoes (they need very intense light), but it's good enough that I do have some baby tomatoes-- fingers crossed some of them mature! Luckily, the lights work great for growing baby salad greens!

Baby tomato and a flat of salad mix.

Baby greens with some lovely organic tomatoes from the co-op. A 10" x 20" flat of densely seeded salad mix gave us 10 side salads. And the baby greens are so cute! I've never seen anything like them for sale.

So for now, I'm thinking ahead to spring weather, but keeping my fingers crossed for some nice, new snow for fat biking before the winter is over. I'm also enjoying my last 45 flexible winter days, because once I start growing transplants, the fun doesn't stop until fall!