It looks like garden service is coming to the plethora of things Amazon offers you. Simply by uploading a photo of your garden, the application will identify your crops. A good thing if you don’t know what is growing out there. But for most, the recipes for using your harvest will certainly be of interest. Of course, it will suggest marketplace items you need to make that dish.
Some will think this a natural progression now that they own Whole Foods. But they filed the patent application in 2014 but wasn’t granted until this October. Unless Amazon had long-range plans to buy out Whole Foods over 3 years ago, that is. The more likely focus is a desire to corner some of the massive annual spend in the lawn and garden market. Which, of course, exists right next to your outdoor living spaces.
Don’t get the idea that the Amazon garden service is just a fun little app. It could become something very robust. For starters, the user enters more information than an uploaded picture. According to the patent document, the programming could apply your geolocation and the orientation of the garden to what you’ve got going on in the garden. So, it instantly knows your climate and could integrate that with daily and weekly weather forecasts. Add a specially designed soil probe, and Alexa could turn the irrigation on and off as needed. I say could, because at the moment it’s not that robust. Give them time.
Along with knowing what you’ve got growing, the Amazon garden service can identify problems the gardener isn’t aware of. Such as tall permanent elements, like trees and structures, casting too much shade every day. In which case, the program can offer suggestions for plants more suited to the limitations of that space.
And since Amazon and its vendors sell seeds and plants in the marketplace, it’s not too much of a stretch that they will design the actual program to help you with garden planning and planting layouts. It could help you get more from the space by assisting in crop rotation planning for successive harvests if set up correctly.
At the moment, Amazon’s garden service is a smartphone app’s functions that aim to help new gardeners get more out of their garden. It uses algorithms and image recognition to evaluate your personal conditions and recommend things you will find useful. And like everything else Amazon does, their garden service app will recommend other useful things from the marketplace. Along with the seeds and ingredients, what kitchen things will help whip that recipe up… faster and easier? Bringing those crops to harvest calls for excellent garden tools, fertilizers, and soil conditioners. Perhaps some organic insect and fungus protection.
Although they haven’t announced a launch date yet, with spring just 4 months away, I’d say it’s coming soon. This app could attract a lot more plant nurseries to sell in Amazon’s marketplace, both mail order and local. It also sounds like it might apply to flower gardening and landscaping with the right plant libraries and algorithms in place.