My garden is dying, so I created an app for that

When I returned to my computer five minutes after giving Gemini a lengthy prompt, I had two things: a running application in the preview window, and a message about an error.

“~The channel is irrecoverably down and will be eliminated!” It looked bad! But right below it was a button to fix the bug. It’s very strange that I just had a computer build an entire application for me with one prompt, but it required me to click a button to fix an error. It did so anyway, and within 233 seconds, Gemini reported that it had succeeded, using words like “obstacles” and “race conditions.” I didn’t understand a bit of it. It was exciting.

This was my second or third attempt at coding an app, depending on whether you count one that I never made it out of the preview phase. The project, which was never fully launched, was a web application with one function: checking whether an upscale local grocery chain was running its annual Peach-o-Rama event. So far, no peaches. Whatever your point of view, the project at hand is more ambitious: an app that will help me get my unruly garden under control.

When my husband and I moved into our house eight years ago, we didn’t think much about yard work. Sure, you’re mowing the grass and stuff, but don’t the shrubs and trees pretty much take care of themselves? We ignored the yard until the weeds moved in. Soon the flower beds adjacent to the house and the borders of the yard were filled with weeds of biblical proportions. Clearly this “yard” work was more than we expected.

We won a couple of battles with weeds but eventually lost the war and called in a landscaper. His one-time visit allowed us to leave the yard mostly on autopilot for a few years. It worked, but then the weeds started creeping back in and the bushes showed signs of distress. When the weather started to turn spring this year, I decided to find out what was going on in our garden.

I had a rough idea where to start, but I wanted some help along the way and a way to organize the tasks that needed to be done. Why not make an app for that?

I tried to be as descriptive as possible in my prompt, which was basically a list of demands: Help me manage a long list of yard care chores; making recommendations; Take the weather into consideration; Use image recognition to help diagnose problems with plants. I entered all of this into Google AI Studio with the goal of creating an Android app that I could load onto my phone and bring outside. You know, where plants live. I figured it would take an hour or so, and I could spend the rest of the day documenting the condition of my garden and doing whatever the app asked me to do.

My calculus was a little off. Sure enough, I had the app running in the preview window within a few minutes. It’s organized logically, with sections for managing different plant areas and an AI-powered “plant doctor” where I can upload photos from my phone. But he had a big problem with the color scheme.

For some reason, Gemini decided to use dark mode for my app, with dark purple and brick red accent colors. The text was illegible, but it was also hideous. I suggested a white background with shades of light green, pink and blue, and reminded her of the interest in human readability. She came back with something more satisfying and an enthusiastic greeting at the top of the app’s home screen: “Welcome back, Gardener!” Honestly, I like the adventurous quality of the word “gardener,” so I kept that part.

I kept the basic structure that Gemini came up with as well. I’ve made some tweaks, like incorporating live weather data instead of some weird climate presets the AI ​​came up with. Gemini clearly thought that I could just choose the right “profile” to match the weather conditions of the day and it would adjust its watering recommendations accordingly. It seemed like an odd choice when it’s easy to connect to live weather information via an API, and this wasn’t the last time I’d have to remind Jiminy of the difference between the physical world and the theoretical world. Other than that, I sent it to my phone and started using it as quickly as I could, and I was so excited to ship my first app that I didn’t bother repeating.

Except for a few important things I missed when I glanced at the app on my laptop screen. I couldn’t edit routines once they were created, or schedule them for specific days. I could create profiles for individual plants and group them by region, but I couldn’t associate them with specific tasks or… really do anything with them. There used to be separate tabs for individual and recurring tasks, but every chore I added to the app seemed to ignore that sorting and land on the recurring tab.

This turned into a lot of hard work back and forth. I requested the update, waited for the Gemini app, deleted the old version of the app on my phone, and replaced it with the new one. I might notice that something else doesn’t work, like a date picker that doesn’t actually let you choose a date, and then you have to go back to the chatbot. Instead of just a wild arena, I now have a wild app to take care of as well. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, I’m sure.

The AI-based plant doctor, on the other hand, was very effective right out of the box. It’s basically just a “Hey Gemini, find out what’s wrong with this plant” button and you upload a photo of a sick rhododendron. After a minute or so, a detailed report card is issued on the plant’s health (very bad!), potential factors contributing to the problem, and some action items I can add to my chart with one click. Which It was exactly the kind of help I needed in the yard.

Our landscaping fix was to cover the flower beds with landscape fabric and river rocks. He claimed that this would solve the weed problem for a long time, and that the existing plants would be fine. In addition, he offered a discount if we paid in cash. Done and done.

Now, years later, it was clear that something was wrong. The leaves on a bush near our front door had turned yellow and flies were constantly buzzing around. The rose bushes grew large and the flowers were sparse.

Gemini is quick to blame the fabric and rocks recommended by the landscaper. He said it was suffocating the root system, which was also drying out, as the landscape fabric had likely become clogged with dirt over the years. Moreover, the sun-burnt rocks cooked the roots from above on hot days. No wonder our garden looked like dirt; It was actually a wonder that any of them were still alive at all.

At that point, it was too late to start the process: saving the rhododendron. After all that hard work creating my app, I was able to waste an afternoon writing nice weather prompts in the chat window. Every time I hit enter and sent Jiminy on a new programming task, I’m sure I was chewing through the electricity equivalent of a microwave dinner in a data center outside of Spokane or wherever. The irony is not lost on me.

Although my app was not yet perfect, I put my feature requests aside the next day and decided to act on Dr. Gemini’s urgent recommendations for rhododendrons. I spent a sweaty afternoon with a podcast in my ears, picking up river rocks and cutting up landscape fabric, as well as pruning some twigged parts of the shrub. Next, I turned my attention to another bed of rocks, covered in weeds that were beginning to grow summit Of cloth. Quick tip: Don’t put a bunch of landscape fabric in your garden.

It was exhausting work in the full sun, and as soon as I approached the spiky Himalayan mulberry vines invading the yard, the curses started flying. But here’s the secret to yard work that I didn’t know eight years ago: It’s extremely satisfying. That feeling when you put your tool under a big weed and it pulls everything up, roots and all? Or when you put your shovel under a blackberry bush and rip it out of the ground and send it to hell? There is nothing like it. Weeding sucks, but it’s also addictive. Once I get going, it’s always easy to convince myself to stay out for another 20 minutes when I really should be packing.

I finally finished the day, opened my app, and crossed out some of the chores I had finished. After spending several hours weeding in my garden, I had a new list of feature requests in my head. I wanted ongoing help from Gemini as I worked to revive my plants, not just a one-time diagnosis. As much as the idea of ​​organizing my garden by zones appeals to my Type A nature, I’m not sure it will do anything useful for me. I tend to a small suburban backyard, not like Central Park. Could this app be just Gemini’s chat and to-do list in Google Keep? probably.

I don’t think my “Gardeneering” app will ever make it to the Play Store, but making it is very useful. It’s hard to express how amazing it is to watch a computer turn your text prompt into a functional program – sort of The “tell someone about your dream” situation.. But you need to go in with a crystal clear vision of the problem you want your app to solve. I could have saved myself a lot if I had done more work up front to focus on my needs before I started launching claims.

My adventure in dynamic programming also made clear something I knew logically, but didn’t fully understand: AI has no idea about the real world. She did not hesitate to place black text on a dark purple background, because clarity is not a concern for the computer. I tried to get my interest in generalized weather information rather than real-time weather information, because what even is real-time weather to a computer? Even when I was working on Is It Peach-o-Rama Yet? Application, Gemini tried to pass the version that would He claims to check the grocery store’s website and social channels, but really you’ll just be comparing today’s date with the fact that Peach-o-Rama typically starts in mid-July. I had to insist that it actually mattered whether Peach-o-Rama actually happened.

I haven’t given up on yard yet, but the correct version is probably much simpler than the one I started with. As for the advice I received from Jiminy, it seems the AI ​​was spot on. It’s only been a few days since I pulled the rocks and fabric off the rhododendron, but I can already see some new leaves coming on one of the branches. Maybe there is some life left in my garden after all.