Grow-in Schedule feature

post by Thomas_Lerman on Apr 26, 2025

I read about this new feature just recently and thought I would try it on my garden after starting to plant seeds.

1. From Schedules, Create Schedule
2. Grow-in
   1. Runs multiple times a day
   2. For seed grow-in, turf establishment, and overseeding
   3. Garden Grow-in
   4. Select my Garden zone
   5. Select start and end dates
      1. Repeats yearly
      2. Select Start Date: Apr 26
      3. Select End Date: Jul 26 (or Never)
      4. Notify me one week before starting or ending a schedule
   6. Set watering interval
      1. Run schedule every 1 hour (other options, 2h, 4h, & 6h)
      2. Run between 6:00 and 18:00 (default 22:00)
   7. Set watering duration
      1. Adjust all durations by time/percenter 0
      2. Garden: 10m

I left most things by the default, not sure what I might change them to in the future. It looks like everything is editable after creation. This seems pretty cool for its intended purpose. I wish I had this when I reseeded instead of setting up a set of interesting schedules . . . four schedules that I would modify mostly the time, some duration (21m / zone), and disable schedules all as needed. Having one schedule to do the whole thing seems so much easier.

post by franz on Apr 27, 2025

@Thomas_Lerman Glad you like it! We should have had this in years ago 😉

Better late than never?

post by Thomas_Lerman on Apr 27, 2025

@franz, True that, better late than never. Suggestions:

1. I like to get notifications when all of my schedules go on and off, but maybe not this as it can be too many.
2. Why no freeze or wind skip (that is okay on my drip) at this time? Could see these as useful and wanted, if possible.
3. Why limit the interval to a small preselected list of hours?
4. Why no relative start/end times such as an hour after sunrise?

post by dane on Apr 28, 2025

Hey Thomas!

I’m glad that you found the new feature useful! I’ve noted your suggestions in our backlog.

post by Scythe on Apr 30, 2025

I’ll add that a start time of sunrise and an end time of sunset would be fantastic (both for this type of schedule and as building blocks for other types of schedules!)

post by Thomas_Lerman on Apr 30, 2025

I would like it relative to sunrise & sunset so that I can start it, for example, 75 minutes after sunrise, etc.

post by Scythe on May 2, 2025

Other notes from real-world usage today - we got 1/2 inches of rain overnight that ended at 5:45am. Things are quite damp, but as the grow-in schedules don’t interact with rain skips (nor have the option to do so), the schedule had my sprinklers firing up at 6am. Definitely a waste of water and, potentially more worrisome, increased the risk of washing away new seed.

One other thing: there’s no possibility to skip specific waterings that are part of a grow-in schedule. On a day like today, I would have liked to have skipped the waterings during the morning, but then have the schedule resume normally in the afternoon after things have started to dry out. That’s not a possibility as of right now, so I had to disable the entire schedule to keep it from watering and I’ll need to remember to manually enable it later.

Love the idea of the overseed schedules, but there’s definitely some rough edges in the implementation that can hopefully be polished quickly.

post by TiredTata on May 17

Just wondering when I should turn off the grow in schedule? When grass starts appearing or when the whole area is covered in new grass?

post by Thomas_Lerman on May 17, 2025

It might depend on the weather, time of year, area, and the type of grass seed. When I have done this, I asked the sod company that I got the seed from. I think it was something like the following:

• Weeks 1–3 (Germination): Keep the top inch of soil consistently moist by lightly watering 2–4 times a day. The goal is to keep the seeds continuously damp until they sprout.
• Weeks 3–4 (Transition Phase): Once the seedlings reach 1.5 to 2 inches tall, start scaling back to once-a-day watering. Gradually increase the duration so the water penetrates deeper into the soil.
• Weeks 4 and Beyond (First Mowing): Once your new grass hits 3 to 4 inches tall, it is time to do the first cut. After this first or second mow, you can fully exit the grow-in schedule.

The biggest variables in the above are the weeks (factors: fast/slow growing variety, temperature) and frequency (factors: temperature, precipitation). Actually, so is the length (factor: variety). It gives you a rough idea though.