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Muki Plant v1.0

Goal: The simplest no-code watering tracker built in Notion.

I wanted to start with the simplest, quickest version of what I needed to cancel my Plant Care app subscription. Something I could build in one afternoon. (It took me a few more hours to add all my plants)

I chose Notion (Free Plan) because it's the tool I'm most familiar with, and for future ideas, the linked databases make more sense than starting from scratch elsewhere.

Building the Core Database

To start, I focused on the minimum properties I would need:

• Plant's name [text field]
• When to water [date]
• Water frequency - days [number] (fixed for now)
• Watered [checkbox] to mark the task as done and repeat the event
• Picture [media] It would be nice but not mandatory for watering so I didn't include it.

I originally planned to use "When to water" as a date field with a recurring event, but Notion has limitations for setting this up so I made these changes:

• When to water → Last Watered
• New property Next Watering [formula] dateAdd(Last Watered, Water frequency (days), "days")
  This adds [Water frequency - days] to the Last Watered date. This way when the last Watered date is changed I'll get a new Next Watering date.
• New property Needs Watering [formula] dateBetween(now(), Last Watered, "days") >= Water frecuency (days)
  This is not mandatory for generating the Next Watering date but serves as a visual cue (checkbox by default) whether that plant needs to be watered. It will show `true` (checkbox checked) if the difference between Today and Last Watered is equal to or greater than the Water Frequency.

With these changes the tracker was working but to make it simpler I added a new property called Watered [button]. This runs an automation that updates "Last Watered" to today's date. No manual date entry.

A few small additions

Room tracking:

As I added my plants, I realized I needed a "Room" property. I have lots of the same plants in different rooms (cuttings from the same parent), so this helps me identify which specific plant needs water.

I used a select property with all the rooms in my house.

I could have also added pictures or put the room in the plant name, but this was faster and gives me future flexibility for room-based filters and characteristics.

Focused view:

Using the Needs Watering property, I created a filtered view showing only plants that need watering. In this view I also hide some properties that were not relevant for me when watering my plants, they were still displaying in the full view.

When I water a plant, it disappears from the list. (I might update this to keep it visible briefly in case I accidentally click it.)

Shortcut for mobile:

I used Shortcuts to create direct access to the Needs Watering view in the database. I customized the Icon and Add it to the Home Screen.

It was very hard not to start adding features that would be "nice to have."

But for V1, this is it.

What's Next

• Gallery view for mobile (horizontal scrolling for the button is annoying)
• Plant pictures (because yes, finally)
• Scientific name and common name fields for easy search.
• Water type, how I water each plant based on their requirements.
• Change the watering checkbox for a different message.

Future ideas (lower priority):

• Watering history tracking (not saving history yet, but thinking about it)
• Additional events: fertilizing, repotting, care guides
• Plant care guide collection.
• Formula to generate water requirements based on multiple factors.

Clone the project in Notion →

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