[wiresurfer]

I've been burnt out with the current state of work. I work for a japanese cloud robotics company and have been witness to a great long term idea being plagued by bad management and strategy.

To manage my headspace, have been doing the following

1. Writing. Realising the value of communication for teams, have been writing up a lot of my learning into a series of documents which talk strategy and decision frameworks for CXOs. I share with a close-knit group of startup founders and product managers in Bangalore. The problems seems pervasive in Indian startups in their growth stage after their series a. specially with the funding spree and the need for hyper-growth. So talking to peers and collating knowledge has been the only way to stay sane :)

2. Gardening and hydroponics. Health in general, but the issue of getting good produce for a clean diet has always been a neglected aspect of my life. My wife and I decided we wanted to spend some time disconnected from devices. Gardening just happened and we haven't looked back since. Its become a routine thing and there is satisfaction in plucking your produce and tending to it.

3. Reviving some of the projects I had worked on in the past but got shelved and opensourcing them.

  - Low cost IoT WiFi connected 4 node Energy Monitor + Switch.  This was a PCB design + firmware + plus the Backend + Frontend+Analysis service + ML models to detect anomalies as well as predict usage. 

  - A self hosted algolia alternative for User Docs.

[jasondigitized]

Any guidance on getting started in gardening and hydroponics?

[wiresurfer]

Sure. So a lot of what you want to grow depends on the weather prevailing in your area. If you have warm and humid climate with atleast 60% sunlight days. you should be able to grow about anything.

Top 3 suggestions 1. start small. preferably with herbs. Their time to harvest is low and as with anything, you need iterations and immediate gratification to keep you going. If this is your first time gardening, then i would say, go with plain gardening and graduate to hydroponics with the healthy plants from your first produce coriander, cilantro, lettuce are good first candidates.

2. There are hydroponic starter kits with plumbing pipes, and minimum hardware. If you want to hit the ground running, then go for these. Otherwise, DIY is possible.

3. Use grow lights if you have variability in sunlight in your area.