What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’ve been thinking how can I combine my love of gardening with electronics and route my controlling nature into a useful venture?  Then I thought about the game Farmville.  Who the hell thought that people would go online and grow virtual vegetables?  Yet they did.  So why not buy a vacant lot, bring in good dirt and do a real Farmville?  So, lets do it.  Lets get the land, set up a camera, a remote control system for watering, a sensor to prevent overwatering, maybe even a loud speaker to shoo away the crows. I’m serious.

My experiment begins with a property search of small vacant lots in my hometown of Louisville, KY.  Using the free Open Data GIS (Geographic Information System) provied by the city of Louisville I plotted every vacant lot in the city.  The city has a great incentive program for vacant lands where you agree to maintain the property in exchange for a low price. In this case $450.00.

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