there are 2 things that make it possible for me to grow plants at all
people have been cultivating the these plants for thousands of years. they are generally pretty pleased to grow in an environment where people are also comfortable. there is one very big gotcha though. plants will put their needs ahead of yours. like lettuce, kale, and other brassicas will "bolt" this means they switch from leaf producing directly to flower and seed producing. these can be very touchy and if you want to get any leaves for your salad you need to keep them happy.
javascript is what glues all of these tools to the web. so i can water my plants, collect and visualize their data. I use 2 sensors. a soil moisture sensor and a photosythysis sensor. the coolest thing is the photsynthysis sensor because it tells me how healthy they are. i put this sensor together largely from parts out of my first arduino inventors kit. they cost about 2$ (13 rmb) each. probably even less in china. so you can put one on each plant or one over each square meter of garden
NDVI is a value that relates to a plants health. Its like the appetite of the plant. if its photosynthesizing well most of the red light will be absorbed and most of the nir will be reflected i read about it first on public lab. these folks were using balloons and drones to take these pictures and report the health of their local ecosystms
i made it to carry around with me like a tricorder but for plants. but now i just leave it and others pointing at my plants and read data every minute to plot how they are doing througout the day.
npm is here to support the community. To help us build whatever we dream up. Stick your javascript, html, css, electron, python, c++, typescript, es2020, whatever. in the registry and we'll make sure folks can download and install those dependencies. i havn't figured out how to make npm directly grow my garden but i couldnt imagine building the programs i needed without it.