The Garden Planner: your whole plan for the rest of the year, and the time it takes

Common questions

What do Most plants, Least work and A bit of both mean?

Three ways to weight the same plan, and you can switch any time — each one remakes the plan on the spot. Most plants spreads each place across up to four different crops. Least work gives each place one crop, so there are fewer jobs and less time across the same weeks. A bit of both sits in the middle at up to two crops a place, and it’s what the Garden Planner opens on. None of the three changes your places or your frost dates — only how hard the plan leans toward more planted or less to do.

I’m on GardenTrack Free. Why won’t my plan save?

Because the Garden Planner is part of GardenTrack, the paid plan, which opens on Jan 5, 2027. On GardenTrack Free you can still open it and see a plan worked out from your own garden. The save buttons don’t save, and the bottom of the screen says so: A preview from your own garden. Nothing here saves on GardenTrack Free. Under that, Tell me asks for a note on the day it opens. Nothing is charged and no card is asked for. Your Garden Plans and the plans saved there don’t open on Free. The one exception is the plan GardenTrack makes when you first set up your garden, which opens on its own Garden Plan screen. What still fits on your Calendar is open too. On the beta, the whole Garden Planner is open.

Why do the hours say “about”?

Because the minutes behind them aren’t all measured the same way. Six kinds of job have a published time study behind them and are timed close. Everything else is a house estimate — our own honest best guess. So the price gives you a floor and a ceiling rather than one confident number: “about ¾–1½ hours a week,” never “53 minutes.” It’s a workload estimate, not a stopwatch reading — and it compares plans on work and time, never on how much food either one grows.

What does “tight” mean next to a planting?

The day is real, but there’s little slack left in it. Every crop has its own planting window, and the plan can still fit a sowing or a transplant in during the last few days of that window instead of the middle of it. When it does, that line ends — tight, so you know to get it in on schedule rather than let it slide.

Why does the job count leave out watering?

Because you can count the jobs it does show. From 12 October 2026 the number is the jobs you do once — sow, start indoors, plant out, stake — the same jobs a saved plan’s Schedule lists, one each. Before, it counted every watering and every check all summer, so two beds of tomatoes read as hundreds of jobs. Watering and checks are still in the hours a week under it, and a swap says what it changes in the same jobs. A plan saved before 12 October shows its old count in Your Garden Plans until you save it again.

What happens when I tap Plan it, and can I undo it?

Every planting the plan shows gets written at once, the same as adding them by hand — each one dated the day the plan picked, and each one marked planned, so it draws outlined on the Calendar until you confirm it’s actually in the ground. The button says how many before you tap it: “Plan it — 14 plantings,” say.

Right after, one line offers Undo for a few seconds, covering the whole batch rather than one planting at a time, and “On the Calendar now ›” takes you straight to where they landed.

I don’t have any beds yet — what do I do?

Open the Garden Planner anyway. With no growing spaces on file, it opens on Let’s build your garden instead of a plan: pick what you have (raised beds, in-ground beds, pots and containers, seed trays), say how many of each, then go through them one at a time — a name, a size, how much sun it gets, where it sits, and what’s already growing in it, if anything.

Each place is written the moment you finish it, so the plan behind the flow starts filling in as you go, and a one-line confirmation says what just got added: “Raised bed 1 added — 4×8 ft, full sun.” Finish the last one and a summary lists everything you added, with Add another or See my plan. Rather just say it? Ask Rafe sits at the bottom of every step, and opens the chat with a sentence already started from whatever you’ve chosen so far. It all works offline. Nothing is sent anywhere until you use Talk.

Can I swap one crop for another?

Yes — tap swap on the row. You get up to three other crops that still finish in that place, each with what it changes in the plan’s own units — “5 fewer jobs”, “about ¼ hour a week more” — and a last choice, Nothing, which leaves the room empty. Pick one and the price on top moves with it. Every number comes from remaking the whole plan with that one change, never from a guess. Undo swap puts it back, and nothing is saved until you tap Plan it.

Can I save a plan without planting it?

Yes — tap Save for later. It goes on your list under Your Garden Plans with its posture, jobs, hours and the day you saved it, and nothing is planted. From the list you can open a plan again (it remakes itself from your garden as it stands, so a bed that filled up since is honest), clone it to try a different version, compare any two on jobs, hours a week, the busiest week and the first job — never on how much food, which we cannot count — and plant one when you are ready. Delete has an undo. Saved plans sync like everything else, so the one you made on your phone is on your desktop too.

Can I plan next year’s whole season?

Yes — tap Plan next year › beside the frost line under the header. The plan then runs from ten weeks before your last spring frost to your first fall frost, and every crop goes in on the first day of its own window — hardy greens a few weeks before the last frost, beans and tomatoes a week after it — never on the plan’s first day. A crop you start indoors shows its sowing day too, weeks ahead of planting out, and that sowing is the first job in the price. Annuals standing in a bed this year count as finished by next spring, so the bed reads as free; perennials stay put. With fewer than three weeks left before your first frost, the Garden Planner opens on Next year by itself.

Fixed on 7 October 2026. Before then, tapping Plan next year more than three weeks before your first fall frost planned the rest of this year instead. Now it plans next year in any month, and a fall crop like garlic goes in this fall as the start of next year’s season.

Changed on 12 October 2026. A fresh plan used to put garlic in every bed, even when you had never asked for it. Now garlic goes in only if you starred it, in one bed, and its row shows the day it is ready to dig.

The Garden Planner opens on “Here’s your yard. Anything missing?” Why?

Because setup only asks about your first bed. Setup asks where your first bed is, never how big, and plans it at 4 × 8 ft. So before the Garden Planner makes its first plan, it draws every bed and pot it knows about, with what’s planned in each. A size setup guessed reads 4 × 8 ft? Fix. Tap a bed to fix its size or remove it. Tap + Raised bed, + In-ground or + Pot to add the places setup never asked about.

Then it asks: Building anything for spring? Not this year plans only what’s drawn, and says how many of your crops won’t fit. I know what lets you add each bed you’ll build — a 4 × 8, 4 × 4 or 3 × 6 ft raised bed, or a 3 × 12 ft row in the ground — and the plan fills it. Size it for my crops works out how many new 4 × 8 ft beds the rest of what you want to grow needs. Beds to build are drawn dashed.

Tap Plan next season and the plan covers all of it. The beds to build are listed under To build. Save the plan and its By bed view gives the day to build each one by. It asks once, from 12 October 2026; a bed you add later is one you told it about.

Rafe says my bed has room for 40 of 53 carrots. Which number does the plan use?

The 40, from 9 October 2026. The plan works out how many of a crop it wants, then draws the bed to see where each one goes. When the drawing can't seat them all, the plan keeps the ones that fit. The saved plan, What to buy, the count on the Garden tab and the weekly hours all use that number, so you never buy seed for plants with nowhere to go.

It still tells you it wanted more. The line reads Carrots, 40. Bed 2 has room for 40 of 53. Make the bed bigger, or move something out, and the number goes up.

If the drawing can't fit any, the crop moves to Later and says There's no room for carrots yet. Nothing is planted or bought for it.

My new bed is going where the lawn is now. When do I start?

The Garden Planner gives you a date. Plan a new in-ground bed on lawn and it shows the least work that still has the bed ready for its first planting, and the day to start by: “Lay cardboard on the lawn by Oct 29,” a dark tarp, clear plastic (summer heat only), or, when there’s no time left for those, cutting the sod a week before you plant. The times come from university extension guides: cardboard and mulch take about 17 to 26 weeks to kill the grass, a dark tarp 6 to 8 weeks on a cool-season lawn and 14 to 16 on bermudagrass. A raised bed on lawn skips all of it, because its soil goes on top.

Once you save the plan, the date stays on your plan’s By bed view, ahead of the day to build the bed, and Today shows it from two weeks before. Tick Cardboard down (or Tarp on, Plastic on, Sod cut) and the bed keeps the record. If the date goes by first, the card moves to the next way that still has the bed ready in time.

What if I am away for part of the season?

From 29 September 2026, tell your Garden Plan and it works around the trip. Tap Away any time next season? and pick the days you are gone on the calendar. Anything due while you are away moves to the day you are back, if that is still inside its window, and the sheet says so before you save: Back May 10? Tomatoes, beans and pumpkins go in that day, all still in their window. If the day back is too late, it goes in the day before you leave instead, or the sheet tells you it would miss its window.

A harvest it cannot move is named, not hidden. If a planting-out day can shift so the first pick clears your trip, it shifts. If it cannot, the sheet says so: tomatoes will need picking while you are away.

Your plan shows the trip. It reads Away May 1 to 9 · the plan works around it, and tapping it lets you change the days or clear them, which puts every date back. No trips planned takes the question away.

My Garden Plan draws my yard at 30 × 20 feet. How do I give it the real size?

Tap How big is the back yard? under its drawing, from 29 September 2026. A place nobody has measured is drawn at 30 × 20 ft until you say. The sheet asks for a width and a length in feet: tap the minus or the plus, or type the number. A big step is about 3 feet, so you can pace it out. The drawing changes as you go, and Use these sizes keeps them.

New beds move to fit; yours stay put. A bed the plan suggested that would now sit outside the yard, or on top of another bed, moves to a free spot inside it. A bed you have built never moves. If the yard is too small for all of them, the sheet says so before you save: There is not room to draw them all; some sit past the edge.

A yard deeper than it is wide is drawn turned. The longer side always runs along the bottom, the way the Garden map draws it, so each side of the drawing says which number it is: Width · 15 ft, Length · 20 ft.

Measure later leaves it as it is. Measure the yard at the foot of your plan asks again, one place at a time, until every place has a size.

It asks before you save a new plan, too. When a new plan puts something in a place with no size, tapping Save my plan asks the same question first. Measure later saves straight away. Use these sizes saves with the new beds laid out in the real yard, where the sheet drew them, unless one no longer fits. Then it doesn't save, and the plan says what doesn't fit, for example At 20 × 12 ft there's no room for the pumpkins. Tap Save my plan again when it looks right.

Can I change a bed from my Garden Plan?

Tap it, from 29 September 2026. A sheet opens over your plan with the bed lit behind it: its size, its crops, and the days they go in, for example Lettuce sown Apr 1, tomatoes out May 6. The season's dates run along the bottom, with the bed's own days marked.

Tap the size to change it. Width and length in feet, minus and plus or type the number, then Use this size, and the drawing behind redraws the bed to scale. The plan's plant counts for that bed stay as it worked them out.

To move it, tap Move it on the map. That area's map opens ready to drag, the way the Garden tab does it. Open the bed goes to the bed's own page. A pot or a tree still opens its own page when you tap it.

To put a crop in another bed, tap Move a crop. If the bed holds more than one crop, pick which. Every other bed in your plan shows its room: Room for all 6, Room for 3 of 6, No room, or Size not set. Tap a bed with room and the crop goes there with its dates and everything planned for it. Your Garden Plan, By bed, the Schedule and Today all follow, and Undo on the note that follows puts it back. A bed that can't take the whole planting is shown but can't be picked, since part of a planting doesn't move. A crop you've already started, sown or planted stays where it is.

Can I swap a crop after I have saved my plan?

Yes, in a bed you already had, from 29 September 2026. Tap the bed on your Garden Plan, then Swap a crop. If the bed holds more than one crop, pick which. The sheet shows up to three crops that fit that bed, each with how many and its own day, or Nothing here to leave it empty. Swap changes your plan, Today and What to buy together, and Undo on the note that follows puts it all back.

Some crops stay put. One you have already started, sown or planted says so: Tomatoes are already started. A new bed the plan suggested does not offer a swap yet, and neither does a fall planting like garlic.

What is the painting at the top of my Garden Plan?

A painting of your garden, made from your plan, from 30 September 2026. It shows your beds and crops at the height of the season in a landscape like your region’s, never your town or address, and it paints once per plan and stays on your phone, so it shows offline. Until it is ready you see your garden drawing. The painting comes with the full Garden Planner; GardenTrack Free doesn’t paint one.

Can I send my Garden Plan to someone?

Yes, from 29 September 2026. Tap Share at the foot of your plan. You get one picture, made on your phone: your garden drawing, the season, the day you start seeds, the day you first pick, up to eight of your crops, and Planned with GardenTrack.

Tap Share again to send it. If your phone can share a picture, its own share sheet opens. If not, the picture saves as my-garden-plan-2026-27.png. Backing out of the share sheet is fine and changes nothing.

It never shows your address. No street, no ZIP, no map point. Nothing about the picture is stored or sent anywhere by GardenTrack. It's made on your phone and goes where you send it. Your plan needs at least one crop before Share shows.

What does my Garden Plan say once the season is over?

From 30 September 2026, it says Season over. That happens once every date on your plan is behind you, usually the day after your first fall frost. Your dates stay where they were, in muted type. And it stops asking about that season: no did you start the peppers?, no did the tomatoes go in?, no frost card, and nothing opens by itself.

Tap Plan next season › under the dates. It opens the Garden Planner on next season, started from this season's plan. If you've already saved a plan for a later season, the line reads Next season's plan › and opens that one instead.

Can I just tell Rafe what I want next season?

Yes, from 7 October 2026, on a paid plan. Tap Tell Rafe on next season. Say it all at once, the way you would out loud: a couple of raised beds, a strip along the fence, some watermelon. Rafe turns it into a list under What I heard, and any line is one tap to fix. A size he had to assume is marked Assumed, and a word with two readings gets one question with both answers.

Your season sorts each want into this season, this season if something happens first, or later. Say yes shows the hours, the soil and the shopping list before anything changes, and right after you say yes, Undo puts your garden back. Each message to Rafe uses your weekly credits. Fixing a line, sorting and saying yes use none.

What does next season open on?

From 8 October 2026, on a paid plan, a draft of it. Open the Garden Planner on next season and the top of the page says what the draft keeps and what is worth a look. Kept as is names the beds, pots and trees it leaves alone, and the season drawn below says Kept as is under each of them too. Worth a look lists the jobs your garden already has before next season starts, each with its dates: a winter prune, a leaf curl spray on a peach, a potted orange to bring inside when a night is forecast under 50°F. Tap a line to open that plant. In a first season with nothing logged, it says it was drafted from your garden as it stands. If you already saved a plan for next season, from setup or from the Garden Planner, it opens on that plan just as you saved it, headed with the season it’s for, and Your plan › opens it on your saved plan. Nothing is drafted over it. If you did a season recap, a crop you marked Grow again comes back into the draft, a crop you marked Not again stays out, and your own notes for next year show word for word under Your notes for next year. If you logged anything on last season's plan, Logged on last season's plan says how much: how many of its crops you logged going in, starting indoors and picking, out of how many the plan held. A step you didn't log just isn't counted. It's never called late.

Under that, Change one spot lets you pick one bed or pot and choose what goes in it instead. Your season then shows when it goes in, or that it has to wait. Make it better shows two ways to grow more next season, side by side. More ground adds one new 4 × 8 ft bed of crops you don't grow yet, with the bags of soil it takes and when to buy them. More from your beds puts a second crop in a bed after its first one comes out. Pick one and it goes to Your season like any other change; if a version can't be made for your garden, its card says why. Tell Rafe is there for saying everything at once.

Why is there a crop in my plan I didn't pick?

Setup added it to use the room. When your picks leave space in a bed, setup fills it with a crop or two, and the plan it saves remembers which. From 14 October 2026, they say added, with a Remove button: under the crop in By fall on your plan, and on its row in the Garden Planner.

Tap Remove and the crop comes off your plan everywhere at once: the drawing, By fall and What to buy. The room stays open; nothing moves in to fill it. Undo puts it back for a few seconds. Next season’s draft leaves it out and says so after Left out, and Size it for my crops never plants it again. Star the crop and it’s back.

Can I plan next season from this season's plan?

Yes, from 30 September 2026. Open the Garden Planner on next season and it starts from your latest saved plan: the same beds and the same crops in the same numbers, plus any crop you have starred since. A crop you marked Not again is left out, and so is a perennial that is still growing, and a crop setup added that you removed. The foot of the list says which, after Left out. From 14 October 2026, so is any crop the draft could not plan, with why: the bed went to your other crops (your own picks go in first, ahead of anything setup added), or nothing to pick from it this season.

When two beds are the same size and get the same sun, the draft swaps their crops if that keeps a plant family out of the bed it grew in last season. The row says where it moved from, like Moved from Pepper bed · rotation, and you can move any crop back.

Under each crop, one quiet line says what you logged last season, like Last season · In by May 9 · First pick logged Jul 20 · Grow again. It only states what you logged. It never fills in a day you did not log, and it does not say why.

Tap Start fresh › under the header to plan without it. Swaps are off on a draft. Save my plan saves it as next season's plan and leaves last season's plan as it was. Your Garden Plans lists both, each with its season.

What happens if frost is forecast right after my planting-out day?

From 29 September 2026, the plan moves it and tells you. When your forecast shows a night at 35 °F or colder in the first three nights after a frost-tender plant is due to go out, like tomatoes, peppers or basil, the Garden Plan moves planting out to the first day with three clear nights ahead of it. It says what moved and why: Plant-out moves to May 10 · 34 °F on May 8 and 9 · first tomatoes about Jul 7. Today shows the same card, with Got it and Keep May 7.

Keep puts your day back, and it stays put. The plan will not move it again for that cold spell. If a newer forecast warms up before the day, the plan puts your original day back on its own.

Why 35 °F and not 32 °F. The forecast is for the weather station, not your bed, and a clear night runs colder near the ground. Freezing plus a small margin is the same floor the app already uses for seedlings going outside.

What never moves. Seeds sown straight into the ground, and hardy crops like lettuce, peas and garlic. Cold nights that only slow a plant down, like basil below 50 °F, do not move anything. That is the Cold nights card's job.

Does What to buy tell me how many seed packets to get?

For sixteen crops, yes: tomatoes, peppers, leaf lettuce, bush beans, sweet corn, pumpkins, cucumbers, carrots, summer squash, peas, spinach, and now onions, kale, watermelon, okra and broccoli. The row reads 1 packet · sow in the bed Apr 10. The count comes from two numbers we looked up: how many seeds the smallest packet we found holds, from the seed company's own page, and how many seeds you sow for each plant you keep, from a university extension guide. Carrots, for example, go in two or three to the inch and get thinned to one every inch or two.

Every other crop shows the number of plants instead. That's when we haven't found both numbers from a source yet, and we'd rather show plants than guess at packets. Potatoes always show plants: they go in as seed potatoes, sold by the pound, not in packets.

What if I miss the day to start my seeds?

From 29 September 2026, your Garden Plan asks. When the day to start seeds indoors goes by and nothing says you did, the Garden Plan opens on one question: did you start the peppers?

Yes, I did records the sowing on the day it was due. Not yet moves the start to the last day that still makes your planting-out date, and says what that keeps: start them by Mar 18, out May 13, first peppers about Jul 18. Undo puts it back.

Once that last day has passed, it says so. Too late to start peppers. Buy 3 plants for May 13. Add to What to buy switches that crop to plants, and What to buy lists them. Or skip it this year, and it comes off the plan, with an Undo for a few seconds.

Today asks the same question on its own list, and its answers do the same: a yes records the sowing, and not yet moves the start the same way, with an Undo. Once the last day has passed, Today says what the Garden Plan says, too late to start peppers, buy 3 plants for May 13, with the same two answers: add them to What to buy, or skip them this year. Answer it in either place and the other one knows.

Will the app remind me to order seeds?

Yes, on Today, two weeks ahead. When your plan has crops you grow from seed, Today shows Order seeds by Feb 18, three weeks before your first seed day, with the crops it’s for. See the list opens What to buy when your saved plan holds those crops. Tick Ordered and the card goes away, and each of those plants’ stories says Seeds ordered. If the date goes by first, the card says Order seeds now until your first seed day. Before the card shows, Today’s Next up line names the date when it’s the next thing to do.

Will the app remind me to build my new bed?

Yes, on Today, two weeks ahead. A new bed in your saved plan shows as Build Bed 2 by Apr 29, the same day your plan’s By bed view gives, with the bed’s size and, when it’s your only new raised bed, about how many bags of soil it takes. Tap it to open By bed. Tick Built and the bed keeps the record, and By bed says when you built it. A new bed going on lawn waits until the lawn job is ticked off.

Where in the bed does each plant go?

Each row says its spot — front row, left end, back row, across, the middle — before you say yes. The spot comes from the same placer the garden page uses for every new plant, judged the same way (what grew there before, the bed’s sun, what would shade what), with each planned row taking its place before the next is placed. Plan it puts every row exactly there, so the bed’s own drawing then shows what the plan showed. A pot has no spot to name. A row the bed can’t seat at the spacing you’d actually plant says no spot at this spacing instead of a place that wouldn’t be given.

Can I open one bed on its own?

Yes, from 13 October 2026. Tap a bed’s name on the Garden Planner, or Why here? on the garden map, and the bed opens on its own page. It shows the bed’s size and kind, the goal it was laid out for, the bed drawn with every plant, and a line for each crop saying why it stands there, back row first. From 14 October 2026, a crop one row can hold is spaced evenly along it: two tomatoes in an 8 ft bed stand 24 in from each end, unless spacing them out would leave another plant no room. A ready-made bed it is close to shows under it. Use this layout saves the plan, the same as Save my plan (or Plan it, for the rest of this year); when the plan has other beds, the page says it saves them all. Arrange it lets you lift a plant and move it, and Done puts the page back. The chip beside the goal picks which planting day to show, or Now for the bed as it stands today.

Can I ask Rafe to arrange a bed?

Yes, from 12 October 2026, on next season’s draft, on a paid plan. Tap Ask Rafe about this bed under the bed’s drawing, or Rafe’s round button at the bottom of a bed’s own page. Rafe opens docked on the page, with the bed drawn above the conversation. On a bed’s own page, from 14 October 2026, that is the page’s own drawing: the conversation stops just under the bed, so the plants it moves stay in view. Say it the way you would out loud: tomatoes at the back, keep the basil where it is, six lettuce. Rafe only reports what you asked. The app’s own engine places every plant, the same one that drew the bed. Each change comes back as a receipt: Arranged Bed 2 · 1 change, what moved, whether anything else had to move to make room, and Undo. If a crop is already where you asked, he says so and changes nothing.

How many carrots fit?, Why are the tomatoes there? and Make it 12 carrots are worked out on your phone, so they cost nothing and work offline. How many fit draws the extra plants in gold on the bed and keeps none of them until you tap Use this. Extra carrots or spinach join the row already there, so the whole row turns gold. (Until 14 October 2026 a row crop's extra plants showed no gold.) Your changes stay with the draft on this device and go with the plan when you save it.

Can I move a plant myself?

Yes, from 12 October 2026, on next season’s draft. Hold a plant still for about half a second, or drag it with a mouse, and it lifts. On a bed’s own page, tap Arrange it first. The bed glows green where that plant would do best, worked out on your phone. Over a spot that breaks a rule, a label above your finger says what, measured: Crowds the pepper by about 3 in. You can still drop it there. Let go and only that plant moves; every other plant stays where it is drawn. The move has one Undo, the same list Rafe’s changes use, and on a phone Rafe’s sheet folds down to its strip while a plant is up. A sown row cannot be lifted yet.

Why does the plan put lettuce in a tomato’s shade?

From 12 October 2026, a crop that suffers in summer heat is placed in a taller plant’s afternoon shade when it grows through the hottest weeks. A cited source says lettuce, spinach and peas are harmed by heat at 80 °F or under, so a lettuce sown in June scores best where a tomato or pepper at least a foot taller throws its 3 pm shadow. A spring lettuce, out before the heat, is never sent there, and neither are warm crops like peppers. The shadow comes from your garden’s latitude, the date and which side of the bed faces north: say that on the bed’s page (Arrange plants, then tap the N on that edge). Until you do, the plan does not guess where the shade falls, and lifting a lettuce there tells you so. The plan uses late June to late August as the hottest weeks (late December to late February south of the equator), because it does not hold your local temperatures by date. Lift a plant like this and the bed draws where each tall plant’s afternoon shadow falls.

What does “Close to a pizza bed” mean on next season’s bed?

From 12 October 2026, it means the bed is mostly one of the ready-made beds already. When a bed holds a ready-made bed’s main crops and they take most of its room, its drawing carries a card: Close to a pizza bed. Its tomatoes, peppers and basil are all in your plan. Two buttons, Simple and Most food, each say how many plants they hold. A tap redraws the bed at that version’s counts and spacing, with Undo. Not now puts the card away. Save my plan keeps the version you picked.

Which crops does the plan pick, and can I change that?

Your favorites first — the crops and varieties you starred — then the crops most people grow: tomatoes, peppers, corn, spinach, kale, okra, watermelon, pumpkins and the rest of the usual garden — among everything that can still finish in the window. Star a crop on its page and it goes in ahead of the list; star a variety and Plan it writes that variety on the planting. The plan never offers a crop that can’t finish before your frost, whatever its place on that list; within the list it keeps its own honesty, a crop in its window ahead of one that’s late. Swap any row for one of the alternatives it offers.

Does the plan fill a spot again after something comes out?

Yes — a second planting. When a plant is on record as pulled, dead or harvested out, its spot is open from that day, and the plan puts the next crop in on it: after Bush Bean (out Sep 22). For an annual still standing with no end recorded, the Garden Planner works out when it should be done — its own last stage from the day it went in, or the frost that ends it, the same day its bar on the Calendar runs to — and plans the follow-on for that day, marked done about. Past that day with nothing recorded, the row says which should be done by now: pull it, and the spot is yours. A perennial never gets an end guessed. Nothing is written to the plant’s own record; only what you tell the app is.

Can I see the plan as a chart?

Yes — tap See it as a chart › under the plan’s price. The same plan is drawn on the Calendar’s own week grid, place by place across the season, every planned row outlined beside what is already growing there — the picture people draw on graph paper, without drawing it. It opens on the whole season; Weeks zooms in. Tap a planned bar and you get the same swap sheet the list’s swap button opens, and the price on top moves with it. The bars are the plan being tried on, not plantings — nothing is written until you tap Plan it, so they can’t be dragged or marked done yet. List brings the rows back.

Can Rafe read my Garden Plan back to me?

Yes — ask him. “What’s in my Garden Plan for next year?”, “When’s my first job?”, “What did I plan for Bed 2?” — Rafe reads your saved plans, newest first, remade from your garden as it stands the moment you ask: the name, this year or next, the posture, the jobs and hours, the first job, what goes in each place and when, and whether you planted it. He reads the plan and changes nothing, and he never invents one — with nothing saved, he says so.

What is the Schedule on my Garden Plan?

Your whole season on one line, from 29 September 2026. Open a saved Garden Plan and tap Schedule. Across the top the season runs from the first job to the last pick. The next job sits in a flag, your frost dates are marked, and the busy months are shaded and labeled Busy. Under it, every crop you'll pick has its own line, with a bar over the months you can pick it.

How a bar ends tells you how sure we are. A solid bar has a picking length we can source. A bar that fades toward the frost is a crop the frost will end, so it shows no end date. A short bar that fades out is a crop with no picking length on file, so it shows no end at all. A dot is a crop you pick once, like garlic. By fall lists what you can pick before frost, and one line says how many hours a week the busiest stretch takes.

Tap a crop, the Busy band or a flag for the detail. Tap a crop and you get when it's sown, when it goes out and when you pick it. For a crop with no picking length on file, it gives the day picking starts and no end date. Tap the Busy band and you get the jobs day by day, and the crops you pick in it. Tap a flag and you get the next jobs in order; the fall-prep flag lists its own jobs and the bed each one is in. The back button closes a sheet. By bed puts each bed on that same line. By bed › at the foot, and on a crop’s sheet, opens it. Every bed that holds a crop gets a row: a dotted line while the crop grows, a heavy bar while you pick, and a box for a bed you still have to build, with the day to build it by: the day its first crop goes in. Every other bed shows the day to prep its soil by, which is its first planting day; extension services say to work the soil before planting, when a handful crumbles rather than sticks. A dashed band marks the frost-free stretch. Pots and trees are listed under the rows, and each opens its own page. Tap a bed and its sheet rises over the rows, with Swap a crop when nothing in the bed is started, as on your Garden Plan. The back button closes it.

Does the Garden Planner use AI?

The plan itself is arithmetic. It comes from your own places and your own frost dates, run through the app’s own rules for what fits, when, and how long it takes — the same engine the Calendar’s What still fits uses. No model decides where anything goes or how many fit. AI comes in only when you talk to Rafe: Tell Rafe turns what you say into a list you can check line by line, and Ask Rafe about this bed turns your words into asks like tomatoes at the back. Either way, the engine does the placing.

More on this

• Your season, and what still fits
• Your frost dates
• Asking your garden a question
• What shipped and when