Locations and Substrates¶

Locations describe where your plants grow — from your entire garden down to a single pot slot. Substrates define the growing medium. Both concepts form the spatial foundation for all other features in Kamerplanter.

Prerequisites¶

• A Kamerplanter account with at least one tenant (created automatically during onboarding)
• For substrates: at least one location already set up

Understanding the Location Hierarchy¶

Kamerplanter organises locations in a tree structure with three levels:

Site (facility)
  └── Location (area)
        └── Slot (plant spot)

Site is your top-level facility — for example "My Garden" or "Berlin Apartment". At the site level you store the water source, climate zone, and total area.

Location is a concrete area within a site — for example "Grow Tent A", "Raised Bed 1", or "South Balcony". Locations can contain further locations: you can model "House" → "Living Room" → "South Window Sill".

Slot is a single planting spot — for example "TENT01_A1" for spot A1 in grow tent 1. Slots are always the bottom level and can be assigned to exactly one plant.

Creating a New Site¶

Step 1: Navigate to Location Management¶

Click Locations in the left navigation. The overview page shows all your sites.

Step 2: Create a New Site¶

Click Add Site (top right). A form opens.

Step 3: Fill in Basic Data¶

Available site types:

Step 4: Configure Water Source (optional, Intermediate and above)¶

If you use tap water or a reverse osmosis system, enter the water values. The system will automatically calculate your EC budget (EC = electrical conductivity, a measure of the nutrient-salt concentration of your solution — see Fertilization for details), CalMag requirements, and mixing recommendations.

Tap Water Profile¶

Additional Options¶

• Has RO system: Enable this if you have a reverse osmosis unit. The system will then calculate mixing ratios for tap and RO water.
• Measurement date: Date of the water analysis. Kamerplanter warns you if the analysis is older than 12 months.
• Source note: Free text for the origin of the values (e.g. "City Water Report 2025").

Step 5: Save¶

Click Save. The site appears in the overview.

Adding Locations and Slots¶

Adding a Location Within a Site¶

1. Open a site by clicking its name.
2. In the Locations tab you see the location tree.
3. Click Add Location.
4. Select a location type from the list (see table below).
5. Enter a unique name.
6. Optional: Select a parent location (for nested structures).

Available Location Types:

Setting Frost Exposure for a Location¶

Whether a plant counts as frost-exposed normally depends on the type of the parent site: Outdoor, Greenhouse, and Balcony are automatically treated as frost-exposed, while Indoor, Windowsill, and Grow Tent are not (see Available site types). For each individual location within a site, you can override this classification in the Frost exposure field — useful, for example, when a single location differs from the rest of the site.

The form for creating or editing a location offers three options:

A location's frost exposure determines both whether plants at that location receive an overwintering plan and whether they're covered by season automation — winter approach, dormancy care, and spring reactivation. Both follow the same classification consistently: a location that counts as frost-exposed gets the full automation, even if it sits on an otherwise indoor site; a location classified as protected is never put into winter dormancy, even if other locations on the same site are frost-exposed.

Adding a Slot Within a Location¶

1. Open a location by clicking its name in the tree.
2. Click Add Slot.
3. Kamerplanter automatically suggests a slot ID in the format AREA_POSITION (e.g. "TENT01_A1"); you can adjust it, and it is automatically converted to uppercase on save.
4. Enter the capacity — the maximum number of plants this slot can hold at once (1–20, default: 1).

Managing Substrates¶

A substrate describes the growing medium in which your plants root. Kamerplanter distinguishes between 14 substrate types, supports custom substrate mixes, and manages concrete batches of a substrate (e.g. "Organic soil, mixed March 2026") separately from the general substrate type.

Creating a New Substrate¶

1. Navigate to Locations → Substrates.
2. Click Add Substrate.
3. Select the substrate type (see table).
4. Enter a name (German and English, e.g. "Organic Soil" / "Bio-Erde").
5. Optional: Enter base pH, base EC, water retention, air porosity, and buffer capacity.

Available Substrate Types:

Creating Custom Substrate Mixes¶

Instead of using a single substrate type, you can combine several existing substrates into a custom mix (e.g. 70% soil + 20% perlite + 10% vermiculite):

1. Click Create Mix in the substrate overview.
2. Select at least two existing substrates (pure mixes cannot themselves be mixed again).
3. Distribute the shares in percent — Distribute Evenly splits them automatically. The total must add up to exactly 100%.
4. Click Preview to see the mix's calculated properties (base pH, base EC, water retention, air porosity, etc. — each as a weighted average of the components).
5. Enter a name (German/English) and click Save.

Substrate Batches (Reuse, Assignment)¶

A batch is a concrete, physical quantity of a substrate with its own history — for example, a specific bag of soil reused across several growing cycles. For each batch, Kamerplanter tracks:

Preparing for reuse: After completing a growing cycle, check whether a batch can be used again:

1. Open the substrate batch in the detail view.
2. Click Check Reusability. The system compares the batch's history against the substrate type's allowed reuse cycles.
3. If preparation is needed, Kamerplanter shows the required steps (e.g. flushing, re-fertilizing) along with an estimated duration and the earliest date the batch will be ready again.
4. Click Prepare for Reuse to log the preparation step.

Tips for Location Structure¶

Frequently Asked Questions¶

See Also¶

• Tank Management
• Planting Runs
• Fertilization
• Growth Phases
• Weather Sources per Location
• Season Automation — how a location's frost exposure drives the season automation
• Overwintering — the automatically created overwintering plan per plant
• Plant Identification by Photo — assign a site, area, and slot directly when creating a plant