Does this use up my AI questions?

No. This is a lookup in records we already hold, not a conversation with an AI, so you can open it as many times as you like and nothing is counted against you. The chat is for when you want to describe something in your own words, or send a photo, or ask about your particular plant and what you have written about it.

What if what I am seeing is not on the list?

There is a line under the list that says None of these? — it takes you to the chat, where you can describe it in your own words or send a photo. The list only holds what somebody has written up for that crop, and gardens produce plenty that nobody has.

Why does it name the university that wrote it?

Because you should be able to check us. Every cause we show is somebody else's work — a university extension service, an agriculture department — and we show their words rather than our summary of them, with their name and a link. If you want to know how far to trust a sentence, the fastest way is to read who wrote it.

Does it work without a signal?

Not yet. This one needs a connection, because the write-ups live on our side rather than on your phone. If you are out at the far end of the garden with no bars, take a photo now and open the guide when you are back in range — the photo is saved on your phone either way.

Pick the thing you can see, and read what causes it

Live · This works today.

Open the plant, tap **Something looks wrong?**, and pick the thing you can see. The list is what people actually report on that crop, in ordinary words — *holes chewed in the leaves*, *a dark sunken patch on the fruit*, *wilts in the afternoon and recovers overnight*. Choose one and you get what causes it, in the words of the university or extension service that wrote it, with their name and a link so you can read the rest. **It costs you nothing and uses none of your AI questions** — it is a lookup, not a conversation, so you can open it as often as you like. **If we hold nothing for that crop, it says so** rather than guessing, and offers the problems that are common on most plants instead. **And where the cause is a growing problem rather than an illness — blossom end rot on a pepper, say — it tells you that first**, so you do not go looking for a spray you do not need. On a crop with a long list there is a box to narrow it down: type *leaves* and only the leaf ones stay.

Where it is

Open any plant in your garden. Under the plant’s name there is a quiet line:

Something looks wrong?

That is the whole entrance. It is deliberately not a button competing with the ones you press every day — most days nothing is wrong, and a big red DIAGNOSE on every plant would make the garden feel like a hospital.

What you get

A list of things people actually see on that crop, written the way you would say them out loud. Not Xanthomonas campestris — small dark spots with a yellow ring, on older leaves first.

Pick one and you get:

what causes it, in the source’s own words
who wrote that, by name
a link to the rest of what they said

On a crop with a lot of entries — a tomato has sixteen, a broccoli twenty-eight — there is a box above the list. Type leaves and only the leaf ones stay.

What it will not do

It will not guess. If we hold nothing written up for that crop, it tells you plainly and shows the problems common to most plants instead. That is a smaller answer than you wanted, and it is a true one.

It will not tell you which cause is yours. Four things cause a hole in a leaf. This shows you all four and who says so; deciding between them is a job for the chat, where you can send a photo and talk about your particular plant.

When it is not an illness, it says so first

Blossom end rot is the clearest case. It looks alarming — a dark, sunken, leathery patch on the bottom of the fruit — and it is not an infection at all. Nothing has attacked your pepper. It is the plant reacting to how evenly it has been watered.

So the guide says that before it says anything else:

Not an illness — nothing has infected the plant. This is it reacting to how it has been grown, which means it is yours to change.

Twenty-nine entries across the guide are growing problems rather than illnesses, and each one now carries that line. That is three of them — blossom end rot, sunscald and leaf roll — counted once for every plant and symptom they turn up under, which is how many times you could actually meet one.

A cause we hold no write-up for says nothing at all. It does not get called a disease and it does not get called a disorder — because an unknown shown as an illness is exactly how a plant doing something perfectly normal gets reported as sick.

Why it is a list and not a chat

Because a list costs nothing.

The chat is the better tool when you can describe what you are seeing, or photograph it, or when the answer depends on what you did to that plant in June. But it uses an AI question, it needs you to find the words, and it takes a moment. Some days you just want to know what makes a dark patch on a pepper, and a list of the four known answers is faster and cheaper than a conversation.

Both doors lead to the same place. None of these? at the bottom of the list opens the chat with the plant already attached.

Common questions

Does this use up my AI questions?: No. This is a lookup in records we already hold, not a conversation with an AI, so you can open it as many times as you like and nothing is counted against you. The chat is for when you want to describe something in your own words, or send a photo, or ask about your particular plant and what you have written about it.
What if what I am seeing is not on the list?: There is a line under the list that says None of these? — it takes you to the chat, where you can describe it in your own words or send a photo. The list only holds what somebody has written up for that crop, and gardens produce plenty that nobody has.
Why does it name the university that wrote it?: Because you should be able to check us. Every cause we show is somebody else's work — a university extension service, an agriculture department — and we show their words rather than our summary of them, with their name and a link. If you want to know how far to trust a sentence, the fastest way is to read who wrote it.
Does it work without a signal?: Not yet. This one needs a connection, because the write-ups live on our side rather than on your phone. If you are out at the far end of the garden with no bars, take a photo now and open the guide when you are back in range — the photo is saved on your phone either way.

More on this

Shipped 2026-08-25. Last checked 2026-08-26. Something here wrong or out of date? Tell us — support docs going stale is a bug.