harvst Harvster User manual

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Harvst user manual
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Introduction
Harvst is not just a product, it’s everything needed to build a productive growing space at
home, on an allotment or in a school yard.
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It’s a combination of greenhouse, automation technology, advice and community to help
small areas of cultivation become more productive. Whether that’s an existing raised bed in
a large allotment, or a small corner of an urban backyard.
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Your Harvst setup could just be irrigation hardware in a polytunnel or greenhouse, or one of
our fully automated “Harvsters” - smart greenhouses or cold frames designed for
automation, with built-in rainwater collection, irrigation, cooling, heating and lighting.
Giving your plants the environment they need
Plants grow best when they are given a protected environment with the right temperature,
and the right amount of water. The Harvst mini-greenhouses provide shelter from the cold
and wind, as well as a built in irrigation system to do the watering for you. If your Harvster
is near a mains electricity connection, it can provide extra heating and grow lights to extend
your growing season, and even grow greens all year round.
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The control box connects to your home or garden WiFi network so that you can monitor
conditions in your Harvster, greenhouse or polytunnel, and change settings from anywhere.
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The Harvst control system can run off grid, powered by a small solar panel. Off grid power
is sufficient to run all sensors and irrigation. If you choose to add heaters or grow lights,
then you will need a mains electricity connection.
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An internet connection is required, which means that the Harvst system is not suitable
for a remote allotment location, unless you can provide a local wifi hotspot using an
off-the-shelf 3G/4G system. The Harvst WiFi antenna works well up to 50m
line-of-sight. If you are in any doubt that your WiFi signal is strong enough, please
request a WiFi signal test device which we can loan to you before you purchase a full
system.

Step 1 : Choose where to put your Harvster
The Harvster needs to be as level as possible, so that the rainwater collection system
works. A slope of 5% (1 in 20) is just about OK.
Sunshine
Put your Harvster somewhere that gets as much sun as possible; grow lights will help
germinate seeds and provide a bit of top-up light, but they are not a complete substitute for
the sun. The solar panel (if you’re running off grid) can be placed up to 3m away from the
main unit.
Power
Mains power is not needed unless you add heaters and/or grow lights. If you do add mains
power, you will need to work with a registered electrician to install an outside power
socket, or position your Harvster within 5m of an indoor power socket. The mains powered
Harvst control units come with 5m of cable.
Water
If you have a garden hose, you can run a tee’d connection to your Harvster. It can be as far
as you like from the tap.
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If you don’t have a hose, you’ll need a pump, and a water tank of some sort. You can use
the Harvster tank, or a water butt if there’s one within 2m of your Harvster. If you live in an
area that doesn’t get much rain, you might want to consider running a gutter offshoot from
another roof onto your Harvster to collect more rainwater.
Base
Harvsters can be placed directly on the ground, on an existing raised bed, or on one of our
Harvster raised beds. Consider how much soil depth you want to have for your plants. At
least 25cm (10”) is wise for many vegetables that are suitable for growing in a Harvster.
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A 40cm raised bed under the largest Harvster (1.2m * 2m / 4’ * 7’) will take about 500kg of
soil / compost. That’s about 10 wheelbarrows full - this will vary based on the type of soil
you get and how moist it is.
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Containers are great for growing in; the Harvster is designed to take standard 600mm euro
stacking crates. 

Step 2 : Build your Harvster
Your Harvster will arrive flat-packed, with a list of components. The lids and end panels
come as a complete assembly.
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Log in to the Harvst app to run the interactive build and setup guide. You will have
received an email from us when you bought your Harvster with a link to the app.
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You’ll need:
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- 8mm ring spanner (or open spanner, but a ring spanner is the easiest)
- 4mm allen key
- Pozidrive (Phillips) screwdriver size PZ2
- A pair of pliers
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Allow a half day to build your Harvster, fit the irrigation, wire up the control unit and load it
with your growing medium.
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Irrigation
Your Harvster comes with a built in irrigation system.
Sprinkler system
Along the bottom of the front shelf bar is a sprinkler hose. This delivers a good spray of
water for most uses.
Mister system
The mister bar is under the main ridge of your Harvster, and is intended to keep seedlings
damp. It works well in conjunction with moisture wicking capillary mat to keep the bottom
of the soil damp too. Each yellow mister can be turned off individually.
Pump and water tank
If you have a water pump, it will need to sit inside the tank you are using. You can have up
to 2 metres of hose between the pump and the solenoids. Any more and you will lose
pressure and spraying performance.
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Put the water tank on the right hand side of the Harvster, drop the pump into the tank and
run the pipe through the hole in the right hand panel, to the water filter which is connected
to the inlet of the solenoids. If you need to extend the hose to your own water butt, you can
use any 13mm hose, with suitable elbow fittings to go around corners. Don’t let the pipe
kink.
Water hose
If you’re using a hose for your Harvster, simply plug it in to the right hand side of the unit.
Make sure all the hose clamps are well secured before turning on the water.
A tip ...
Don’t plant anything yet. You’ll be playing around with the watering system a fair bit while
you get the hang of things, and you don’t want to drown your seeds or plants.
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The control system
Control box
The plastic box with the big sticker on the front is the control unit that is the brains of your
Harvster. It fixes on the right hand side, just under the lid. Screw it to the back panel with
any short self tapping screws.
Power (mains)
If you have a mains powered Harvster, it will come with a power supply already wired into
the control unit. Run the mains cable through the notch in the base of the right hand panel,
and across your yard to a suitable power point.
Power (solar)
You’ll have a solar panel which needs to be positioned somewhere that will get as much
sun as possible throughout the day. It can be up to 3 metres away from your Harvster.
Mount it securely, and run the cable into your Harvster appropriately based on where
you’ve mounted the solar panel.
Soil sensors
Your Harvster comes with two black dual-purpose sensors, which will measure soil
moisture as well as soil temperature. These are best placed in an area where the
temperature and moisture doesn’t change too fast; such as a large container of soil, or the
ground. It’s best placed horizontally, just under the surface.
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The first soil sensor is what drives the irrigation (and optional heating) for zone 1. The
second sensor (with the red band around it), is used to monitor zone 2. We recommend that
the top shelf is one zone (watered by the mister bar) and the bottom of your Harvster is the
second zone (watered by the sprayer bar).
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The soil sensors plug into the 4-pin connector on the control unit, via a Y-splitter. Do not
plug or unplug while the control unit is turned on.
Air temperature sensor
A silver temperature-only sensor comes pre-wired into your control box. You can use this
to monitor any temperature; typically it’s used for outside air temperature, and will show as
“air temp” on the app.

Water pump
If you have a water pump, it plugs into the middle-sized 2-pin connector on the control unit
(the large 2-pin connector is for power, and the smaller one is for the tank level sensor).
Water solenoids
The water solenoids are electronic taps, which determine which zone will be watered when
the pump turns on (or your hose is connected). The manifold wire is plugged into the three
pin connector on the control unit.
Tank level sensor
If you have chosen to use water from a tank, you’ll be supplied with a water tank level
sensor; which triggers an email and/or SMS message when your water tank runs low. The
sensor can be fitted to the built-in tank in a Harvster, or your polytunnel / greenhouse water
butt.
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If you’re using your own tank or a water butt, drill a 3.5mm hole and push the sensor in.
The sensor is supplied with 1m of cable. Extension cables are available. The tank level
sensor plugs into the smallest of the 2-pin connectors on the control unit.
Heaters
If you have a mains powered unit, there will be three connectors on the left hand side. The
top two connectors are for heaters; zone 1 at the top and zone 2 below it. Into these
connectors you can plug either Harvst heated seed trays, or heater pads to put into a grow
tub. You can use up to four heaters per zone (unless you are also using grow lights, in
which case use the maximum power tables at the end of this guide).
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You might want to set seedling trays at 20 °C to germinate peppers, and salad grow tubs at
15 °C, perhaps. The bigger the tub you try to heat, the slower it will heat up, and the more
heat will be lost at the same time as heat is being put in, so you have a lower achievable
maximum temperature. A single heater pad should be able to keep a large grow tub at
least 10 °C above ambient temperature (even when the outside temperature is freezing).
The pads can reach a maximum theoretical temperature of 40 °C, so it’s possible to get a
small amount of soil very warm.
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Place your temperature sensors somewhere sensible so that they report the temperature of
the soil you’re heating, rather than the temperature of the heater pad. Keeping one or two
large tubs in the base of your Harvster warm will also keep the air temperature in the
Harvster to a reasonable level. Put any heated tubs on an insulating layer of wood, if
possible, to keep them off the cold ground.

Grow lights
Grow lights plug into the bottom connector on the left hand side of the control unit. You
can fit up to four grow lights, using a y-splitter cable. Grow lights clip onto the side of seed
trays or grow tubs. We recommend grow lights for germinating seedlings, so fit them on
the top shelf of a tall Harvster, or the right hand side of the shelf of a wide Harvster.
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Getting connected
Now that you’ve built your Harvster, plugged it into water and power (or set up the solar
panel and filled the water tank), it’s time to turn it on and put it to work.
Log in to your Harvst account
When we shipped your Harvster, you will have received an email with details of your online
account. Log in now, so that when your Harvster comes online you can see the data and
control the watering. Your account is at https://app.harvst.co.uk
Configure wifi details
1. Plug in the power and turn on. Your Harvst control box will spend 5 seconds trying
to connect to the previous wifi network it was on, if any.
2. If, after 5 seconds, it fails, connect manually:
3. Find the “Harvst-wifi” network on your phone or laptop and connect to it. You’ll be
asked to log in … and will be taken to the wifi setup screen at http://192.168.4.1
4. Click to “configure wifi”.
5. Click the name of your wifi network and enter the password. Click “connect”.
6. If the connection was successful, the beeper will go quiet.
7. After 60 seconds, if no wifi connection has been set up, the unit will exit setup
mode. No irrigation will happen and you won’t be able to access the control panel.
Turn the control unit off and on again to restart the WiFi connection process.
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When your Harvster connects for the first time, you’ll get a text message with a link to your
dashboard.
Testing
Mains powered units will be on all the time, so you can connect directly to the device and
turn the water on without any delay. Solar powered units will be asleep most of the time,
and only turn on every 15 minutes when they need to send an update. To wake a solar
powered unit, press the yellow button on the left hand side until you hear a beep. It will
stay awake for 5 minutes.
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When your control unit is awake, you can click “access device” to view live data. Here’s
where you can also press the green buttons to water immediately. Run a test pump for
each zone to check that the water is coming out as you wish. Watering manually like this
does not affect your timing or moisture driven watering cycles.
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Adjust the pumping time for each zone based on how you choose to automate (see our
website for tips on irrigation settings).

Understanding your online account
Your Harvst control unit will send data to your online Harvst account every 30 minutes so
you can see what’s going on throughout the day and night. Here’s a typical day with two
temperature lines, and blue spikes when it’s watering.
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Access your dashboard at https://app.harvst.co.uk
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Your dashboard is also where you manage your Harvster settings. The settings are first
saved to the Harvst servers, and are only collected by the control unit when it next sends
an update, which can be up to 30 minutes after you save the settings. Your dashboard will
tell you if your Harvster has not yet updated with the latest settings.
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If you are on your home network (the same network that your Harvst control box is on) then
you can click “Live data” from the dashboard to visit the control unit itself and click “get
settings”, to update settings faster. There are also buttons here to boost the watering
without any delay.
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The control unit needs to be awake to access it directly; to wake it up, press the button on
the side. You’ll see the light on top flash and hear a beep when it wakes up. It will stay
awake for 5 minutes.
Irrigation controls
Harvst can water your plants based on a timer schedule, using soil moisture, temperature,
or a combination. You can choose to water two zones using different methods.


For example:

1. You have a salad bed that needs a spray of water twice a day, and then an extra
boost on hot, sunny days.
2. You want to water your tomatoes twice daily, using a soil moisture sensor to give
them an extra boost when it’s dry.
3. You have a seedling tray which just needs to be kept damp with a few seconds of
water each morning.

Change the settings for your Harvst on your app control panel which is accessed via
https://app.harvst.co.uk
Heating controls
If your Harvster is connected to mains power, then the control unit can run heaters to keep
zones within the box (or the whole box) at a specified temperature. Heaters are an optional
extra.
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Heat can be provided to two zones, which are associated with soil sensors 1 and 2.
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Configure the minimum temperature for each zone (the point at which the heater starts
running) on your app control panel. If you don’t want the heaters on, set the minimum to
zero. The heaters will turn on and off based on the temperature of the sensor, so you’ll see
a wavy temperature line on your dashboard.
Lighting controls
If your Harvster is connected to mains power, the control unit can turn on grow lights to
give your vegetables an extra boost as the nights draw in. Grow lights are an optional
extra.
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 
We’re currently testing the best configuration for grow lights in a Harvster. It takes a
while for plants to respond and we’re continually iterating. Let us know if you’d like to
be part of this pilot group and we’ll ship you some parts at cost price in return for some
feedback and tasks for you to complete.

Loading and planting
Every gardener will have their own way of doing things, but to help you get started with
the unique growing environment in a Harvster, we have some tips.
Main crops
The bottom of the Harvster is where you’ll grow your main crops; the ones that need the
deepest soil, and will grow the tallest. If you have your Harvster on the ground, you have
the soil right there. If your Harvster is on brick or concrete, you can add height with our
raised beds, or you can use deep containers.

The Harvsters have been designed to take standard 600mm euro crates, which we can
supply or you can get your own. We use the ones around 220mm (10”) deep.
Salads, herbs and mid level crops
The shelves of the Harvster are where you might want to grow crops that don’t need as
much height or as much soil depth. Perhaps salads, herbs or micro-greens. In a tall
Harvster, this would typically be the middle shelf. In a wide Harvster, you might want to set
one side of the shelf for mid-level crops and one side for seedlings.
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Typically the mid level crops are sown directly in the tubs that they will grow in.
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The shelves are designed to take tubs or trays up to 100mm (4”) deep. You can slide the
front shelf bar backwards and forwards to fit the boxes you’re using. Make sure you choose
a position that holds the tubs securely; when they are full of soil they will be heavy, and
you don’t want them to fall off and destroy the crops below.
Seedlings
Your main crops can either be sown directly where they are going to grow, in the bottom, or
you can start them in seed trays on a shelf. Even if you’re sowing your main crops directly,
it’s a good idea to do further sowings of the same crop in a seed tray, so that when you
harvest your main crop, you have some strong seedlings ready to transplant.
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Seedlings are started on the shelf of the Harvster; the top shelf if you have a tall Harvster,
or one side of a wide Harvster. Our heated seed trays and grow lights are a great way to
get seeds to germinate at any time of year, if your Harvster is connected to mains
electricity.

The top shelf of the Harvster is watered aswith a misting spray. You can turn off each
mister individually if you don’t have a tray under it.

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Hydroponics
You can use the Harvst control unit to power your own pumps; there are three useful 12
volt outputs which can each provide up to 2 amps:

1. Pump
2. Solenoid 1
3. Solenoid 2

Get in touch with us if you want to explore other hydroponics options.
Regular maintenance
- Clean the water filter
- Clean the spray nozzles with a toothbrush to dislodge any grit. If one is completely
blocked you can remove and use a pin or wire.