What shipped
Newest first. Short entries — what you can now do, and whether it fully works yet. The longer stories about how any of it went live on the blog, and the how-does-this-work pages are in help.
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Your walk letter opens on what changed since last time
After a garden walk, the letter now opens on what changed since your last one: up to five changes, each with last time’s photo beside this one and one word, like New, Less or Gone. What needs you starts with what your last walk flagged and how it looks now. Older walks are listed under the letter and each opens on its own. At each stop, last time’s photo shows faintly over the camera so you can line up the same view. Today shows a small Since your walk card the morning after, and you can ask Rafe how a plant has come along.
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What still fits now leads with the last day to plant
What still fits, behind the Still fits button on your Calendar, has been rebuilt. It opens on how long until your first frost, then every crop that can still finish, grouped by its last day to plant: last chance this week, by early August, and so on. The crops you said you eat come first, then the ones you have grown. Tap one and it shows your places with room, offering a row at a time, like 1 row across Bed 2, 24 plants, instead of filling the whole bed. A bed or pot with no size asks for one right there. Plan it puts them on your Calendar as a plan, with one undo for the lot.
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Corn is drawn as a compact block
Corn needs neighbors to pollinate, so GardenTrack lays it out in a block at least three rows deep. A big planting used to fill one long row and half of the next, and leave no room in the bed for anything else. Now 30 corn in a 3-by-20-foot strip take 10 feet of it, three rows deep, and the other 10 feet are free.
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Plan next year plans next year, in any month
Tap Plan next year in July and the Garden Planner used to plan the rest of this year instead, because it worked out the year from the date. Now it plans next year whatever month you tap it: a fall crop like garlic goes in this fall, and everything else is on next spring's dates. In the last three weeks before your first frost nothing changes, because it already planned next year then.
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Tell Rafe what you want next season
On next season in the Garden Planner, tap Tell Rafe and say it all at once: a couple of raised beds, a strip along the fence, some watermelon. He lists what he heard, each line one tap to fix, then sorts every want into this season, this season if, or later, with the hours, soil and shopping list. Nothing changes until you say yes, and Undo is right there after. Each message uses your weekly credits.
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The Calendar page follows one Saturday in late July
The Calendar page now follows the same Denver backyard on a Saturday in late July: the whole season on one screen with the frost dates marked, the morning’s tasks, what can still go in each bed before the first frost, a run of fall lettuce spaced two weeks apart, the busy week coming up, and the raspberries’ year drawn as a wheel. The screens are the app on a demo garden. Three help pages were corrected too: the task list has had a few plain headings since September 17, the Season view runs from about four weeks before your last frost to four weeks after your first, and a pot always reads no size on file.
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The Garden Planner page follows one backyard
The Garden Planner page now follows the same Denver backyard. On a Saturday in late July: what still fits before frost, Most plants beside Least work in jobs and hours a week, and one tap onto the Calendar. Then on a Saturday in early October, a week before frost: next year’s Garden Plan, what to buy and by when, and when each bed needs to be ready. The screens are the app on a demo garden. The help page on the Garden Planner was corrected too: Most plants means up to four crops in a place, one link switches between this year and next, and it no longer says variety and what to buy are still ahead.
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The Journal page follows one pot of beans for a year
The Journal page now follows one pot of bush beans in a Denver backyard, from the day they were sown in May into the next spring: the journal in August with the waterings folded away, the beans’ own story in chapters with their photos, the day they were done and got a grow-again note, the season read back in November, and the next spring, when the new beans’ story shows what was said last year. The screens are the app on a demo garden, with its clock moved ahead for November and May. The Plant history help page was corrected too: it still said there was no year-in-review screen, and there has been one since September 7.
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The Photos page follows one garden walk
The Photos and garden walks page now follows one Denver backyard on a Saturday in August: the walk, stop by stop, the report that comes back with what needs you, a bean plant’s season in four photos, and a photo waiting to be put on a plant. The report on it is a real one. Three help pages were corrected too: the walk does remind you when a week has passed, a free account keeps 50 photos while the beta and paid plans keep far more, and a few things do look at your photos now, though nothing tells two plants of the same kind apart by sight. The pricing page now says a free account’s garden walk is one walk, one time, which is what the app does.
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The Your Garden page follows one backyard
The Your Garden page now follows the same Denver backyard on a Saturday in late July: the beds and pots sorted by where they grow, the yard drawn to scale, a salsa bed drawn plant by plant with why basil helps the tomato, adding a plant, the ready-made beds, and what else would fit in the squash bed. The screens are the app on a demo garden. The help page on places in your garden was corrected too: it still described an Open button, a Growing spaces list and no map, and the Garden tab has had a map since September.
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What to buy counts soil for every new raised bed
Plan two new raised beds, pick crops for only one, and What to buy used to count soil for just that one. Both beds need filling either way, so now every new raised bed in your plan is in the soil count, crops or not. Two 4-by-8-foot beds filled 10 inches deep come to 27 bags of 2 cubic feet, to buy a week before anything goes in them.
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New gardeners get an interview and a free plan for their first spot
Open GardenTrack for the first time and it now asks you a few questions about you and your place. After each answer, a short card tells you what it changes in your garden. At the end it builds a free plan for your first spot. Then you give your email, and we send a code to save it. Every question can be skipped, and if you already have an account you can sign in from the first screen.
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Rows in a raised bed keep the gap between rows
When you add a row crop to a raised bed, like carrots, garlic or lettuce, GardenTrack now leaves the gap between rows that the crop needs, usually about 12 inches. Before, it spaced rows by the gap between plants in a row, so a few crops ended up crowded along the front of the bed in the drawing while the back sat empty. Rows you add from now on spread across the bed. Rows already placed stay where they are: tap Arrange plants on the bed drawing and drag each one to where it really is.
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The Frost and heat page follows one garden through the year
The Frost and heat feature page now follows one Denver backyard from March to September: its frost dates when you set up, how the date moves five miles out in the foothills, picking how much frost to gamble on, a July hot spell, a frost seen three days early in September, a lemon told to come inside, and the night itself. Every screen on it is taken from the app. The frost and hot-spell help pages were corrected in the same pass: a warning days ahead shows how many plants, and the plants are named on the night.
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The Talk page follows one garden through one Tuesday
The Talk feature page now follows one Denver backyard through a Tuesday in October: asking what to do today and ticking the jobs off in the chat, logging a watering, a worry about yellow tomato leaves, ten garlic cloves planted, and a photo of a spotted leaf. Every reply on it is a real one from Rafe, recorded that day. Rafe now names the likely cause on a worry card in everyday words, and three help pages were corrected: Rafe writes down what you tell him straight away, with an Undo, the mic takes one sentence at a time, and Chats sits at the top right.
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The Today page shows one week of Today
The Today feature page now follows one week in September, Monday to Sunday: a hot Monday and its jobs bed by bed, the 7 AM watering heads-up, your garden days, a frost on Thursday night with the plants it names, Garden mode on Saturday, and a Sunday with nothing to do. Every screen on it is taken from the app. The help page for your daily list was corrected in the same pass.
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The features page walks one backyard through a year
The features page now follows one backyard from January to the next January: the plan, the seed starts, planting out, watering after rain, the weekly walk, picking, the first frost and the record it keeps. Each month links to the feature it shows, and it says plainly what is still coming.
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A finished walk no longer waits to be read
Sometimes a finished walk sat for an hour and a half before anyone looked at it. Your phone handed it over before the walk had finished syncing, then gave up. Now it pushes the walk through and asks again, so the reading starts right away.
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Tell Rafe you planted two, and both get the entry
Say "two bell peppers" and Rafe adds two plants. Until now only the first one got the planting entry on its page. Now both do, and Undo takes back both.
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Tell the app when you garden
Pick the days you garden, a time or two on each, and about how long a day. Jobs that can wait, like weeding or staking, move to your garden days, and Today keeps what can't wait and what fits your time. A line under the list says where the rest went, like "Your 6–7 PM · 3 moved to Sat", and the week strip marks your garden days.
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GardenTrack has its new app icon
When you add GardenTrack to your home screen, it now gets the same sunrise and sprout as the website.
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The features page now tells a whole year
The features page now walks through one backyard, month by month, from a plan in January to frost in October and a plant’s whole story in November. Each month shows what the app does then, and there is a first look at how Rafe will answer, which is still on its way to the app.
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Watering comes in watering days
A place now comes up on Today on the day it runs dry, and that day's watering takes along every place that would run dry before you are next out. So an established garden is watered together, a couple of days a week, where before the hose was on the list nearly every day. Seedbeds, seed trays and new transplants still come up daily. Nothing you watered today comes back today, and nothing watered yesterday is added to the trip.
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The hardening card says if a reminder can reach a closed app
Bring-in reminders have been able to reach a phone with GardenTrack closed since July. The hardening card still said they couldn't. Now it checks your phone and says which you'll get. And "Remind me" turns on alerts for a closed app too, like the setup screen does. The setup screen also stopped telling you to tap a button that isn't there.
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Today says the size of your day
A line over your list on Today now says how many jobs the day holds and how many can't wait. All the watering is one row for the whole garden, and every other job sits with its bed. On a day with seven or more jobs, each bed folds to one line you tap to open. A job says why it is today only when there is a reason, like Last day or Dry.
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Undo in Talk takes back everything Rafe added
Undo in Talk now takes back everything Rafe added, plants, journal entries and any new bed, and says so honestly if one thing could not be taken back. A "transplanted" note in the same message now goes on the new plants, not on a plant that was already in the bed.
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Your Calendar starts each plant on the day you sowed it
On the Calendar, a plant you sowed outside now starts on the day you sowed it, not days later when the sprouts come up. And a seedling started indoors now runs right up to the day you planted it out, instead of stopping a couple of weeks short.
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Your Season Recap card gets a painted cover
Tell the Season Recap how your garden did and it paints a cover for your card from the plants you grew, up to six of them. Behind the cover are cards like your star plant, what thrived, what fought you and what you'd change next year. Save them all, or share them. The page has six example covers and a set of example cards, so you can see what you get before you start.
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The planting-date line has its own answer
When some of your plants have no planting date, Today shows a line for it above the day's jobs. It used to say "Say when you planted them", and the button beside it said "I'll find my own way". Tapping that button hid the rest of the setup list and left the date line exactly where it was, which looked broken. Now the line reads "Planting dates", with the plants it covers beside it, and it carries its own answer: tap the line to give the dates, or tap "Don't know" to close it for good, with a few seconds to undo. A date you give later still counts. The setup list's way out now just says "Hide".
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The week sits on the picture, and the page holds still
On Today, the This week cards now end where the garden picture ends, so none of the plain ground below it shows behind them. And when a card goes away, such as the beta welcome after you tap "Got it", the page keeps its place instead of jumping.