Walking on autopilot
I walked past the same beds every day without really seeing them. The tomatoes were there, the courgettes were there, but my eyes stayed on the path. I had a vague intention to check on things, but there was never a specific reason to stop.
Without something pulling my attention, I kept moving. The garden became background noise.
The nudge that changed things
One morning, a small prompt appeared on my dashboard: “Tomato - Roma VF - Is it flowering?” The system had predicted that my tomatoes might be ready to enter the flowering stage. It was asking me to go and check.
I went outside to look at the tomatoes specifically. But once I was standing in front of them, I started noticing other things. The soil looked dry. The path beside the bed was full of weeds. A support stake had come loose. None of this was on my list, but now I could see it.
The nudge gave me a reason to stop. Being there opened my eyes to everything around it.
Why this works
A specific question lowers the barrier. “Just go check one thing” is easier than “do the garden.” There is no pressure to address everything at once, just a single reason to be present.
Once you are physically there, you see more. The nudge creates the moment. The moment creates awareness. You go out for one plant and come back having noticed three other things that needed attention.
It is not about answering the question. It is about creating an opportunity to look.
What this changes
My garden now gets small, consistent doses of attention instead of occasional bursts of effort. Problems get spotted early, before they spread. A dry bed gets watered. A loose stake gets fixed. A weed gets pulled before it seeds.
Some plants used to be “set and forget” for me. Cabbage, courgettes, things I would plant and then barely look at until harvest. But now that I get nudged to check if they are progressing through their stages, I find myself paying attention to them too. They stopped being invisible.
It feels lighter too. I am not trying to tackle the whole garden at once. I am just responding to one nudge, and the rest follows naturally.
What this means in practice
The system does not make me a better gardener. It just gives me more chances to notice. Each nudge is a small invitation to be present, and presence is where the real care happens.
Small prompts, bigger picture.