No Green Thumb? No Problem. Here’s a Robot to Help …
April 10, 2022
As Debbie and I were running some errands this weekend, we noticed a lot of activity at a local nursery. It got us talking about our outdoor and landscaping plans for our new home project. Part of our plan includes planting a small vineyard toward the back part of the property. Thinking about this reminded me of other gardens we’ve planted and grew pears, lemons, oranges, tomatoes and a variety of other vegetables. I never minded the planting and harvesting but the work in between like weeding and fertilizing was sometimes confusing and difficult.
So along comes another smart home robot to help with that. Meet the Tertill- the tools, tech and support to grow your best garden ever.
It shouldn’t be so surprising that something like this is being introduced to yet make our lives that little bit easier by eliminating our need to manually weed or fertilize our gardens. After all, scores of products initially developed but entities like the US Department of Defense have been adapted for private and commercial use. There’s a really interesting platform currently in use by the NBA and its teams to track the movement of players and the ball during games through optics that was initially developed as a missile tracking system.
Farmers have been using soil analysis and automation for decades to make their farms more productive and easier to run. Now Tertill brings that technology from the field to your backyard. And it comes from the co-inventor of the Roomba. She’s also been involved in the development of the iRobot 510 PackBot, a life-saving IED-detecting robots and technology that is currently roving on Mars.
Tertill is designed to help you grow vegetables — without all the weeding. It basically lives in your garden, runs on sunshine and prevents weeds every day. It’s solar-powered and weatherproof so it can stay in your garden from spring through fall.
It kills pre-emergent weeds with its specially designed wheels. It generally uses height to tell plants from weeds but to protect your sprouting garden you will need to install plant and row guards (included) to prevent Tertill for mistaking them for weeds. For larger weeds, it chops them down with a string trimmer like a traditional weed wacker. It’s been proven as effective as hand weeding by the Cornell School of Agriculture. I’d imagine as the AI improves with the device that it will eventually be able to distinguish between young weeds and vegetables.
One of the best aspects of the Tertill is its ease of setup. There’s no programming or mapping of your garden like with many robot lawn mowers. You can learn more about robot lawn mowers and other backyard gadgets in my recent post Backyard Smart Home Tech to Save You Time and Effort. You simply place it and push the button.
Tertill will generally cover up to a 200 square foot garden. It does require at least a 4-inch high barrier all the way around the garden to keep it from wandering away. Metal, wood and masonry tend to work best and are usually used in raised gardens anyway. And the garden needs to be a relatively flat surface that has been raked fairly smooth to remove large rocks and ruts. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a garden that didn’t look like this anyway.
The garden plants and rows will need to be 9–12 inches apart to give the robot room to work as the Tertill can only weed where it can reach. Luckily it’s not very big (compared to a Roomba) so this shouldn’t be a deal breaker regarding your yield or how many vegetables you can plant.
Depending on how weedy your garden is it weeds in 2–5 minute intervals for 1–2 hours a day. It may not outwork you but it can generally clear a 200 square foot garden of weeds in less than a week. But the outworking thing can be deceiving as it will weed your garden every day, rain or shine. I don’t know about you but weeding every day has never been on my ‘To Do’ list — ever, regardless of conditions. And dealing with flies, mosquitoes, the inevitable back ache — forget it! For those simple facts I’m a fan.
And for those of you who may be new to the backyard gardening scene they have a Garden Program to help you grow like a pro. The program includes a free soil test every three years and a step-by-step customized fertilizer plan based on data from your soil, location and plants. This takes the guesswork out of what kind of fertilizer your garden needs, when, how much and how to apply it. They ship the packages of the right amount of the right fertilizer, at the right time, right to your door.
The Tertill is available on their website or on Amazon. Both sites charge $349 for the device. If you include the Accessory Kit it’ll run you $399. There are a few different options with the Garden Program ranging from $59 for a single raised bed garden to $99 for three raised beds. The Tertill Garden Program includes free standard shipping anywhere in the continental US. Their Customer Support is also available if you have a gardening question or to help you follow proven gardening best practices. There’s also a free Tertill app for Apple or Android to help organize your garden data. Unfortunately there are no other details on the app like real-time status of the Tertill or integrations with voice assistants.
With eco-friendliness becoming a more important factor in our living situations, outdoor smart devices will play a bigger role moving forward. The power of smart devices like this is not that your technology overpowers nature or saves you hours in the yard, but instead that these solutions integrate within their surroundings. The Tertill will help you live more sustainably while also improving your garden’s environmental awareness.
The Tertill is an interesting device. As I’ve mentioned before, Debbie and I like to spend time working in our yard, but it’s not as easy as it used to be. So with Mother’s Day and Father’s Day right around the corner this would certainly make an unexpected gift. Regardless, the Tertill has me thinking this may be just the right tool to keep the beds around my little vineyard clear of weeds and regularly fertilized.
For our smart home enthusiast friends out there we’d love to hear your thoughts on the Tertill. Do you see yourself using anything like this — ever? Or to eliminate time-consuming weeding or difficult fertilizing chores? What similar products or devices are you currently using to accomplish the same tasks? How long have you used them and what do you like best about them?
Let Debbie and I know in the comments, DMs and emails as we really enjoy hearing from you. Thanks again to all those following Debbie and I through our home building journey. It’s great to hear your success stories and suggestions as we move through the process. And if you like the content I’m posting each week, don’t forget to ‘Like’ and ‘Follow.’ Until next week …
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