How much you picked
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**Watering is never asked about**, because nobody standing there with a hose knows whether they put on one gallon or two, and a guessed number is worse than none. For a harvest, a feed or a thinning you are asked how much, with the handful of amounts people actually pick on big buttons, in whatever that crop is counted in — fruit for a tomato, pounds for potatoes. Anything not on the row is still typeable. The entry is saved the moment you tap, before the question appears, so skipping costs you nothing. If you say an amount in your own words it is still recorded — the app just will not ask you for one.
The entry is saved before the question appears
This is the part worth knowing, because it changes what skipping means.
Tapping Harvested writes a harvest to that plant immediately, exactly as it always has. The question about how much slides up afterwards. It is not a form standing between you and logging something — it is a second, optional question about a thing that is already recorded.
So skip freely. A harvest with no number is still a harvest, and it still tells you the date, the plant and the year.
Built for somebody holding vegetables
Whoever is answering this is standing outside, one-handed, other hand full, probably with dirt on their fingers, squinting at a screen in the sun. A number pad is the wrong tool for that person.
So the answers you are most likely to give are large buttons, and the keyboard is the fallback rather than the path. For a tomato that is 1, 2, 3, 6, 12 or 25 fruit. For watering it is half a gallon through ten gallons. One tap and you are done.
The app also knows what to call the thing you picked, because it knows the crop. Garlic comes in bulbs, lettuce in bunches, apples in fruit. That is read from the plant record rather than a list somebody has to maintain.
Why a number without a unit is not a measurement
Six and two are not comparable if one is tomatoes and the other is pounds. So every amount carries what it is in, and the app never adds across units or converts between them — converting would mean guessing what one of your tomatoes weighs and then presenting that guess as a measurement.
It matters more than it sounds. The journal has always been able to spot your biggest picking of the season. Comparing bare numbers, it would eventually have called six fruit a bigger harvest than two pounds and put a little milestone on the wrong entry. Now it compares like with like or says nothing.
What it adds up, and what it will not claim
Wherever you are looking at a plant's history, the summary line now says what the pickings came to, not just how many times you picked. 3 harvests — 4 lb. Two units stay two facts: four pounds and six fruit are written as both, never merged into one number.
And when some of those harvests had no amount on them, it says at least. Three pickings where you answered the question twice is not the season's yield, and a total that quietly leaves out the ones you skipped is worse than no total — nobody re-checks a number that looks finished.
What this does not do yet
It adds up what you are looking at. It does not yet report. There is no screen that shows you this year against last year, and no chart of when your best pickings come — and there cannot honestly be one until there are seasons of numbers to put in it.
That is the right order, and it is worth being plain about: the recording has to come first by a long way, because an amount can only ever be captured at the moment it happens. Nothing we build later can go back and fill in the summer you did not write down.
If tapping Picked once seemed to freeze the page
On a plant’s own page this went wrong, and it is fixed as of 26 August 2026. Tapping Picked recorded the harvest and then opened the question about how much — but the question opened far below the bottom of your screen, roughly three thousand pixels down. You could not see it and you could not scroll to it.
What you saw was the page going dim and stopping responding. The question was open the whole time, just nowhere you could look, and because it is a question that holds your place until you answer or skip it, nothing else would take a tap.
Your entry was never at risk. The harvest is saved the moment you tap, before the amount is asked — so what was lost was the chance to add the amount, not the record. If you tapped Picked on a plant page recently and thought the app had hung, the harvest is almost certainly there in your journal without a number on it, and you can add one by opening that entry.
Common questions
- It asked how much water and offered the amounts in fruit.
- That was real and it is fixed. Watering is the one job with two answers that do not convert into each other — **a watering can is gallons, a hose is minutes**, and nothing can turn one into the other without knowing how fast your tap runs. So the app deliberately picks neither and asks you. What it did instead was fall back to the answer it uses for a HARVEST, which is a count of the thing — so "how much water?" came with **1 fruit, 2 fruit, 6 fruit** and no gallons anywhere. The rule had been written down correctly all along; the screen was not reading it. Now the two units come from the job itself, so watering offers gallons and minutes and nothing else.
- I said I ran the hose for 20. Does it still ask which?
- No, and it should not. Nobody measures a hose in gallons — you do not know how many came out and you never will — and nobody measures a watering can in minutes. So the moment you name the tool, the question is already answered: a hose, a sprinkler, a soaker or a drip line is minutes, and a can, a bucket or a jug is gallons. It only asks when you gave a bare number and no tool, because then a can and a hose are both perfectly ordinary and guessing would be inventing. It never guesses from the job itself — only from the thing you said you used.
- I said two cans. Why did it not put 2 in the box?
- Because two cans is not two gallons. A watering can holds anywhere from one to three gallons and yours is not labeled, so we know the unit is gallons but not the number — putting 2 there would be a real number attached to the wrong thing, and nothing about a 2 looks wrong later. It sets gallons for you and leaves the number blank.
- I said 'a good soak'. Is that wrong?
- Not at all — the watering is saved exactly as you said it, on the right plant, on the right day. There is just no number in that phrase, and we will not make one up: your good soak and somebody else's are not the same amount, and the entire value of a recorded number is that somebody actually measured it. If you want that bed's water to add up over the season, tap roughly how much. If you do not, nothing is lost.
- Why does it not ask how much water I gave?
- **Because almost nobody can answer it honestly.** Somebody standing there with a hose does not know whether that was one gallon or two, and a watering can is not labeled. That leaves three ways out — skip it, guess, or stop and think — on the job you do more often than any other. **The guess is the one that does damage: a guessed number is worse than a blank, because a blank is honestly empty and a guess looks exactly like a reading.** Everything the app later works out about your watering would then be built on numbers people invented to get rid of a panel. *Watered it* is the whole log, and the useful fact was always which plant and when. **If you do want to say an amount, say it and it is kept** — see the next answer.
- I said I watered for 10 — ten what?
- It keeps the 10 and works out the unit from what you said you used, and if it cannot it leaves the number unattached rather than guessing. Watering is the one thing with two answers that are both right and are not the same: a watering can is gallons, a hose is minutes, and there is no way to turn one into the other without knowing your water pressure. Say "2 gallons" or "ran the hose for 10" and it just takes it. **This is only about words you volunteer** — since 17 August 2026 the app does not put up a panel asking, because a number you were prompted into is usually a number you made up. Everything else has one sensible unit and is never in doubt: you do not feed a plant in minutes.
- Do I have to answer it?
- No. The entry is already saved before the question appears — that is deliberate. Tap Skip, put your phone away, lose signal, drop it in a bed: the harvest is recorded either way. The amount is a bonus, not a toll.
- Why does it ask at all?
- Because without it your journal can tell you that you picked tomatoes on August 5th and nothing else. It cannot tell you whether this was a good year, whether the bed you moved them to did better, or when your best picking usually comes. Those all need a number, and a number can only be recorded at the moment it happens — nobody can go back in December and remember how many beans they picked in July.
- What units does it use?
- Six, and no more: how many, pounds, ounces, cups for what comes out of the garden, and gallons or minutes for watering. The app picks the likely one for you — a tomato is counted, raspberries are cups, beans are cups — and changing it is one tap.
- Why is there no 'a handful' option?
- Because a handful is not a measurement. It feels friendlier and it is useless the moment you want to compare this year to last, which is the whole reason to write anything down. Everything the app offers means the same thing every time you use it.
- Why gallons or minutes for watering, and not inches?
- Inches per week is what the universities recommend and it is the right unit — but you cannot measure it without a rain gauge, so asking for it would get you nothing. A watering can is about two gallons and everybody knows roughly how long they stood there with the hose. We would rather record the thing you can actually answer.
- Will it add up six tomatoes and two pounds of tomatoes?
- No, and it will not convert between them either. Six and two are not eight of anything, and turning tomatoes into pounds would need us to guess what one of your tomatoes weighs. Totals are kept separately per unit, so what you get back is what you put in.
- I picked from three plants at once. Why did it not ask?
- Because one number cannot describe three plants, and splitting it evenly between them would be inventing three measurements out of one guess. When a job covers several plants the app records the harvests and stays quiet about the amount. Open a plant and log it there if you want the number on one of them.
- Does it ask on every kind of entry?
- No — only where an amount exists. A harvest, a watering, a feed and a thinning have one. A note or 'I looked and it is fine' does not, and prompting for a number that does not exist is how you teach somebody to swipe every prompt away, including the ones that matter.
Shipped 2026-08-05. Last checked 2026-08-26. Something here wrong or out of date? Tell us — support docs going stale is a bug.