Automated Herb Garden

An overengineered solution to a simple problem: keeping herbs alive on a Truckee porch. A hands-on excuse to learn embedded systems, MQTT, and Raspberry Pi orchestration.

• May 10, 2026 V0 In the beginning... The conception of my build. Nine herbs planted across one porch in Truckee, with the brain of the system on the way.

• Pi arrives, gets set up indoors with the OS, MQTT broker, and orchestrator app running
• ESP32s get programmed to talk to the Pi over WiFi
• Wire up a relay and a single light bulb to fake a valve while the firmware matures
• Click a button on my laptop, watch the light turn on across the room — proving the architecture end to end
• Install actual valves, pump, plumbing, solar panel
• The system starts watering the porch on a schedule