In short, yes.
Having your own weather station may sound a little redundant to a lot of people, however, if you want to set your garden up for success, such a device is practically a necessity.
Weather forecasts are too general for something as delicate as gardens, especially if you live in a capricious climate. Relying merely on them will likely doom your garden to failure, or at the very least cause you to spend much more energy on it and reap far less in return.
Here are some of the ways in which a weather station equalizes the odds and helps you harness the climate instead of battling it.
Specific, Localized Forecast
Weather forecasts are meant to be rough guidelines for people, not gardens that need much more specific conditions to thrive. While weather forecasts focus on entire regions, the only region your weather station is concerned with is your backyard, treating it as the ecosystem that it basically is.
This way, the data you obtain is far more localized, accurate, and in-depth than it would be if you solely rely on the TV and your own observations.
Planning
With knowledge comes power, and in the gardening world, power usually refers to the ability to plan and prepare for the unexpected weather conditions. The comprehensive data that a weather station can provide helps you decide when exactly to pick your produce and how to plan out your gardening activities by hours rather than days.
In a sense, a weather station is almost like a handy assistant, storing all kinds of necessary information, sorting it out in neat folders, and helping you organize your schedule around it as effortlessly as possible.
For example, a weather station will help you figure out whether the time is right for planting, weeding, or harvesting, depending on the weather over the last few days and the one to come.
Even better, with the accumulation of both specific and historical, all-encompassing data, certain weather patterns will start to emerge, helping you make predictions and streamline your gardening operation even further.
Soil Temperature
Soil temperature is another crucial factor that is hard to gage without additional, specialized help.
The ranges of your soil temperature should directly influence the choice of plants you are going to plant. Furthermore, you get notified when the temperature is optimal for germination.
Soil Moisture
Without knowing the moisture of your soil, watering your plants is basically a shot in the dark – you might need to water them more, less, or not at all.
The weather station stores data on times and quantities of rainfall, so you can get a close estimate of the rain, or drought, to come. Some stations can gather up to a year’s worth of stats. Combine this with the current moisture of your soil, and the watering options are suddenly much more narrowed down.
Going Back to the Drawing Board
Gardening is a process that spans more than a growing cycle. Besides identifying weather patterns, these stations can also help you detect patterns within your own practices and methods and how they relate to certain climates and conditions.
In that regard, weather stations can serve as a drawing board or a bird’s-eye view, revealing the bigger picture and the various pixels it’s made up of. You will be able to see more clearly what has worked and what hasn’t, and why, and what steps you need to take for better results.
Avoiding Unexpected Damage
Weather stations allow you to stay up-to-date with incoming dangers by sending you alarms directly to your phone. This way, when freezing temperatures or dangerous winds are on the horizon, you can react quickly enough and protect your garden.
It may not seem like much, considering that weather forecasts account for extreme conditions, but when it comes to gardens, timing is of the essence. Being late even by just a couple of hours can cost you months’ worth of work, planning and dedication.
Furthermore, besides wind speed, weather stations can measure wind direction as well, which can help you reinforce your garden even more strategically. Generally speaking, even slow wind can be a relentless force that dries up your soil over time. To make matters worse, wind is elusive in nature and hard to gage. A weather station could help you define a much more accurate profile of the wind in your area and prepare adequately.
Additional Features
Some other beneficial features of certain weather stations worth mentioning are measurements of humidity and amount of daily sunshine, UV and leaf moisture sensors. Depending on your priorities and budget, you can determine the weather station that best suits your needs. The most crucial features to look out for are reliable water and temperature sensors.
Even for those just dabbling in gardening, a basic weather station can help them get the most out of both the yield and the overall experience. Just like games are much more fun when you’re good at them and understand their idiosyncrasies, so is gardening, and nothing helps you do that more than a weather station.
