When you start off playing Stardew Valley but end up playing Factorio/Satisfactory.

Ah, the Minecraft Modpack methodology.

You've described most of Eastern Europe for most of the last 100 years and many parts of Asia. I came from a Polish city of 100,000, and everybody I knew (who didn't completely surround themselves by concrete) grew at least some type of fruits and vegetables in their yards, no matter the size. We knew the next big disturbance is just around the corner. Outside of vegetables and fruits directly planted in our yards, we also raised pork, and at different times, chicken, turkey, ducks. Our neighbours raised rabbits. Most people "leased" a small plot on the outskirts of the city (in our case for strawberries). Community gardens were everywhere. Now, things are slowly starting to change to mimick the West. People are even starting to grow lawns for some reason. Sad state of affairs. It seems humans believe that progress means you outsource all of the labor to somebody or something else. In my opinion, the labor itself, is the lesson. The folks that need assistance in their gardens would generally get it from family, friends, and neighbours.

Community gardens.

I’m working on a different farming robot. Since my office is at the farm and half of my work is doing something outside with the machine, it’s a pretty idyllic setting for a job!

I thought the same thing. I could care less about the robot but a good garden planning app would be nice and let you track when you water, plant, harvest/ yield of crop from year to year

For a small bed like the one in the demonstration, surely that's more simply managed with a drip hose and maybe a timer?

Drip hoses are also better from a water consumption point of view since it goes straight to the soil— you don't lose any to runoff or evaporation.

But automatic watering is a solved problem. You can set up an automatic drip irrigation system very cheaply.

Fair enough! I work at a robotics company, and I already feel guilt for not putting more effort into my existing homeassistant and networking setup. But if you were wanting to scratch an itch, I could definitely picture this being rewarding.

Maybe you wouldn't get a garden otherwise if you've got no skill, no experience living on a farm. This way you get to have a garden without know how to do it and without a choir part like watering regularly. Now you can water whenever you feel like it.