PCB as a Capacitive Soil Moisture Sensor

Electronics enthusiasts have been designing ways of automating plant care for decades, with mixed results. A traditional weak point of these installations is the resisitive moisture sensor, that is inaccurate and prone to degradation. In this post we will design and fabricate an inexpensive capacitive soil moisture sensor out of a printed circuit board that exhibits none of the weaknesses of its resistive brethren.