AUSTIN (KXAN) – Two brothers from central Texas are back at the crossroads of agriculture and technology.
You’ve gone from helping people working in a box at home to developing a new app to help you garden.
Brothers Luke and Nathan Heath launched their app called “Smart Garden Assistant” later this month on Earth Day April 22nd.
(KXAN Photo / Todd Bailey)
“What we’ve found from our customers is that they don’t want to be a farmer, they just want to enjoy a red tomato,” said Nathan.
“They assume they have a brown thumb of death and it’s not true, it’s just that they had the wrong information – the right watering, the right soil, the right fertilization – I mean there is one Lot of things to know. If you miss a few of these, you’re going to have a bug, ”he said.
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Cultivate brothers and co-founders saw a fundamental problem that they were able to solve – growing vegetables at home is difficult. Everyone noticed that little to no progress had been made to make things easier for the average person.
“There is this big knowledge gap now because so many people are non-agricultural,” said Nathan. “[People] would search the internet and find the wrong advice for their region, or worse, just find wrong advice. I knew there had to be a better way, ”said Nathan.
Nathan, who sells vegetables to chefs in Austin from his family’s vegetable farm in central Texas, has spent more than 20 years in the farm and combined it with Luke’s knowledge of developing technology for some of America’s largest companies.
“[We] started talking and came up with the idea of a ‘Smart Garden Assistant’, ”said Nathan. “A bit like a farmer in your pocket. There hasn’t been much innovation in home gardening for a long time. We want to change that. “
Users can enter their zip code and the app will give you specific garden plans for your microclimate in that area. You have access to a garden grid that you can adjust to the size of your property, as well as a list of recommended seasonal plants that will grow well in your zip code. The brothers will then send you the garden plan free of charge. They will also send you the seeds if you want.
App Tech and “hardiness zones”
The brothers’ app leverages software intelligence and more than a billion weather data points, Luke said. That way, they can recommend the ideal plants to everyone based on their location, season, and preferences.
He said the app is very innovative with its own weather data model with six years of collected information from every zip code in the country. He also built his own proprietary plant database to combine with the data.
“Right now, when it comes to which crops to plant, where, and what time of year, the USDA hardiness zones are the best, and there aren’t very many in the country. Maybe 10 in the United States, ”he said. “The problem is, it paints with a really wide brush, so it puts Texas in some of the same areas as the east and west coasts. As anyone who has been across the country knows, the weather is actually very different. “
Hardiness zones refer to “how cold it gets there,” Luke said. “It totally ignores the heat.”
“With all the gardening apps or services there are, everyone uses the hardiness zones. The problem with this is, you have to plant broccoli here in Texas in July and stand no chance. It will die, ”he said.
Nathan believes there are more benefits than growing vegetables.
“That’s a very small part of it,” he said. “It’s valuable to go out there when you have a family, do it with your family, friends, or share the food and then harvest and cook it. There are just tons of things that happen. “
The brothers are organizing a food ride on Saturday, April 24th, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. to accompany the launch of their app. People in the US will be able to use it. More information about the app and Food Drive can be found on the Cultivate website.
