Gardening and computing have not been good bed-fellows before, but that’s changing with the introduction of the USB-based EasyBloom “stake sensor”, a device that will be able to tell you in plain English why your prized pumpkins or extraordinary orchids aren’t growing as they’re supposed to. Well, maybe not orchids, as many of these are not actually grown directly from the soil, but certainly a wide range of plants and trees.

The EasyBloom can be clumsily described by this writer as a “soil evaluator”, and it works by analyzing the patch of soil you stick it in for minerals, composition, porosity, water absorption and the like. It can then connect to your PC and tell you, the aspiring green thumb, what it has determined to be the best kind of plant or tree that will be able to grow in that same patch of soil, taking into consideration all of the factors already mentioned, and more.

                                             The EasyBloom can be used to diagnose an ailing plant.

The company has all bases covered with its extensive online listing of plants, drawing from this list to tell the buyer which plants will be able to grow in a particular climate, which if the recent crazy weather here in Manila is anything to go by, will probably be something like an aquatic form of cactus that thrives in alternating super hot and super wet conditions. The EasyBloom can also be used to tell the story of a sick plant – just stick the EasyBloom into the soil near the plant’s roots to determine what’s lacking (or what there’s too much of).

                                              The device must be stuck into the soil for at least 24 hours for it to provide a proper recommendation.

So, if you’re a gardener and you’re looking to improve your plant-growing ability, this is a good find. On the other hand, if you’re a typical computer user who goes online for any kind of research and relies on the ‘puter a lot, the EasyBloom is a whole new form of distraction – it’s like Sims Gardening, only with real plants and the EasyBloom instead of a mouse and keyboard as your tool.

                                             There's something deliciously incongruous about a plastic plant sticking out of your sleek laptop's USB port.