It’s Here! Our New and Improved Garden Planner!

, written by Benedict Vanheems gb flag

Garden Planner

We’ve been working hard behind the scenes and it’s finally here: our new and improved Garden Planner! Save yourself so much time, effort and guesswork, while maxing out the growing potential of the space you have. It’s powerful stuff!

Watch our video or read on to find out how the Garden Planner can help you.

Planting Dates Specific to Your Garden

Our Garden Planner is an incredibly advanced, and yet refreshingly easy to use tool that will have you planning your garden like a pro in next to no time. The new version improves on the Classic Garden Planner, combining all the best features with a clearer, more intuitive interface.

When creating an account, first set the location of your garden. The Garden Planner then uses this to find your nearest weather station and set your first and last frost dates, which it will then use to recommend planting dates and estimate harvest times local to you. Gardeners growing in a microclimate can manually adjust these dates for even better accuracy, while those in hot climates can split the growing season in two in order to avoid raising cool-season crops in the heat of summer.

“Creating
Set your first plan's name, year and dimensions, and you're ready to get planning!

Plan Your Garden Like a Pro

Click on the Create New Plan button to get started. Choose a name for your new plan, select the year, then enter the plan’s dimensions in either metric or imperial units. If you have a very large garden, you may want to create a separate plan for each area.

Start with the basic structural elements to your garden, positioning the paths, beds and containers that will form its bare bones. Objects are easy to resize, move about and orientate, so you can get everything just so. Include essentials such as compost bins, water barrels and sheds, then draw out the layout of any growing aids like irrigation lines and plant supports.

“Garden
The Plant List shows your plants' spacing requirements and recommended planting and harvesting dates

Pinpoint Precision Means Less Waste

Now for the plants, of which there are hundreds of vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers to choose from. One of the Garden Planner’s powerful advantages is that it calculates the optimum number plants that may be grown in a specific area, eliminating wastage. This automatically adjusts as you draw out a row or block, and the colored area behind the plants shows how much room they need to grow without being overcrowded.

The accompanying Plant List synchronizes in real time to show exactly how many plants you’ll need for each crop. You can also check their recommended spacings and refer to a month-by-month calendar of recommended planting times specific to your garden’s location – both indoors and out – and likely harvest dates.

Select the next tab along, for the Parts List, to view all of the equipment you’ll need to bring your plan to life. This comes in especially handy when starting a new garden or including elements with lots of components parts, such as irrigation.

“Using
Adding season extenders over your crops will automatically adjust the growing dates

Extend Your Growing Season

Adding crop protection such as a cold frame or greenhouse is a great way to extend the growing season. The Garden Planner knows this too! For instance, drop a cold frame over a plant on your plan and the Plant List will automatically extend the sowing, planting and harvesting dates for that plant as appropriate.

“Square
Use SFG mode to add square-foot blocks of plants for this intensive growing method

Square Foot Gardening

Followers of Square Foot Gardening are taken care of by the Garden Planner. Just toggle on to SFG Mode and the app works out exactly how many plants can be grown in each square foot. You can easily switch out of SFG mode whenever you need to in order to select and place standard-spaced plants such as fruit bushes. You can have both SFG and traditional blocks or rows of the same crop on the same plan.

“Succession
Set in-ground dates for your crops then view your plan month-by-month to see where and when you have space to grow more

Succession Planting to Maximize Harvests

Don’t settle for just one round of crops a year – hunger for more by planning succession, or follow-on crops. To do this, double-click plants on your plan and set the In-Ground Dates. Once that has been done you can view your plan in any given month and see precisely where and when gaps appear.

You can then pop in crops suited to planting in these months, or expand the filter options and select the Suitable for Fall Planting option for a range of late-season crops. You can also filter plants to show just those are easy to grow, frost tolerant or that display some tolerance to shady conditions.

“Companion
Select a plant then hit the Show Companions button to view great growing partners

Choose Companion Plants

The game-changing Companion Planting feature will help you find perfect matches for your plants. Simply select a crop on your plan, then hit the Show Companions button. The plant selector now shows the very best companion plants to grow alongside it. Get back to the full list by clicking the button again.

Effortless Crop Rotation

At the end of the season you’ll want to create a follow-on plan for next season. Click on the New Plan button in your plan’s toolbar or in the Garden Planner’s main menu. Toggle on the Create Follow-on Plan option then select the plan you’d like to work on. Choose which elements you’d like to copy over, then click Create Plan.

“Garden
The Garden Planner will let you know where not to grow crops in subsequent years

The Garden Planner will not just automatically create your follow-on plan, it also keeps a record of which crops grew where. Select a plant and you’ll see that areas occupied by the same crop family in the previous season show up red, so you can avoid growing there and thwart any lurking soil-borne pests and diseases. The Garden Planner shows crop rotation warnings for up to 5 years of past plans. How cool is that!

The Garden Planner is incredible, but don’t take my word for it. Try out our completely free 7 day trial and discover how the Garden Planner can transform your growing.

< All Guides

Garden Planning Apps

If you need help designing your vegetable garden, try our Vegetable Garden Planner.
Garden Planning Apps and Software

Vegetable Garden Pest Warnings

Want to Receive Alerts When Pests are Heading Your Way?

If you've seen any pests or beneficial insects in your garden in the past few days please report them to The Big Bug Hunt and help create a warning system to alert you when bugs are heading your way.

Show Comments



Comments

 
"No plant types? Just eg pumpkin! This is a loss. Will you adding these?"
Stuart Benzie on Wednesday 30 December 2020
"Hi Stuart, all the plants that were available in the old Garden Planner are available in the new one, including varieties of plants - just double-click on a plant in your plan then select from the drop-down Variety menu to choose a variety. If you're experiencing any problems with this please use the Contact form on this website to get in touch with our customer support team, and we'll be happy to help."
GrowVeg Customer Support on Wednesday 30 December 2020
"Hi Does the planner allow for irregular shaped beds eg curves, circles, triangles? Also, once designed on PC, can it be viewed on an android phone if I connect to the web? Also, does the garden journal feed into the planner? EG if I plant 5 x tomato plants will this update the planner? Many thanks"
Nicki Barron on Monday 4 January 2021
"Hi Nicki. Yes, the Garden Planner does allow for irregular-sized beds - there are plenty of shapes and lines you can use to draw free-form shapes. Take a look at the Garden Plans tab in the site map below for some great examples.Owing to the size of phones, the Garden Planner isn't really practical for use on them. You can easily print off plans or save them as a PDF, however, for reference when out in the garden. Currently the Garden Journal doesn't directly feed into the Planner, but this is something we hope to incorporate at some point in the future."
Ben Vanheems on Monday 4 January 2021
"So if you use specific varieties instead of generic plants, they come with different growing data like they have a shorter days to harvest, or are hardier, or can be grown overwinter, some are early varieties planted in fall, others take longer to grow does the planner take into account these different spectrums and adjust the growing times to specific varieties? And what if you don't find your varieties in there? Can you add your own varieties including their growing data and the planner uses that? How you do that, add own varieties? I've been looking around and have not found this answer anywhere. Also, why are there outside the compass no symbols for wind, sun, shade, arrows or other useful things you can put on your plan. Aside of compass there seems to be no others. Do I really need to put my irrigation on the plan? That's a gimmick I really do not need on my plan, it's not that important. Can I only see growing calendar once I add plants to the beds? I think that's not a productive way to do it. I would like just some kind of calendar/reminder at least with my favorite plants, to see ahead of time what I can plant and when, aside the message: You have no reminders due in the next 2 weeks. This message is just way off, I can start planting some things now in January, indoors and even outdoors in Portland Oregon, it doesn't reflect my growing season 8b. Makes me think you are using outdated Zone data I used to be signed on for a couple of years and then gave up on it because, there was just always something I think a good planner should have and it wasn't there. I signed up again to see if maybe it's been improved but I am still on the fence, I really don't see much different from a few years ago. Automatic isn't useful if it's off ;) "
diegartenfrau on Monday 11 January 2021
"Hi Diegartenfrau. Thanks for taking the time to send us your feedback. Varieties are loaded with their own growing dates, or you can customize your own by double-clicking on the plant then clicking on Customize Varieties. Thanks for your suggestions about other ways to help indicate your garden’s microclimate. We’re always looking for ways to make the Garden Planner even more useful for our customers, so I will forward these on to our development team. If you’ve already planned out and installed your irrigation system you may not need to include it on your plan, however if you haven’t yet done so it’s a useful way to calculate the materials you need - the Parts List will show all of the ‘parts’ on your plan so you can work out how much dripline etc you need to buy. It’s also useful to see where various irrigation components lie for planning future plantings, but it's really down to the individual gardener to decide whether they need a visual reminder of this. You can click on the Plant List button in your plan’s toolbar to view a list of all of the plants in your plan along with their recommended sowing, planting and harvesting times. The email reminders are based on the plants in your current year’s plans, so if you haven’t yet planned your garden for 2021 you won’t see reminders in the emails. However if you have planned your garden for this year and you believe the planting dates are incorrect, please use the Contact button at the top of this page or within the Garden Planner to get in touch with our customer support team and we'll investigate this further for you."
GrowVeg Customer Support on Tuesday 12 January 2021
"By the way I'm loving the new set up! It took a minute to get used to after using the old version for so long. I was wondering if it would ever be possible if you could make it that the varieties of plants we use all the time saved as a favorite. I plant a lot of tomatoes and peppers, but in many different varieties depending on their use and preservation methods. My garden is almost 400 sq ft and to change every single plant variety can get cumbersome. If there was a way to have a user defined "plant list" that had the varieties the user indicates as a favorite would be very helpful! Keep up the great work and awesome videos! Thank you!"
Meghan Meyer on Thursday 14 January 2021
"Hi Meghan. Thanks so much for the feedback and encouraging words! We really appreciate your idea too, which I will forward to the development team for consideration in future updates of the Garden Planner. I hope you continue to enjoy using the Planner - and of course watching our videos. :-)"
Ben Vanheems on Thursday 14 January 2021
"How much is this subscription and can you purchase a one time software package. Thanks!"
fred burk on Sunday 24 January 2021
"Hi Fred. The subscription cost details can be found by clicking on the 'Garden Planner' tab at the top of this page. For an annual subscription the cost is $29. There isn't the option for a one-off purchase as the software is constantly being refined and updated and we want to ensure all subscribers have the latest and best version of the software."
Ben Vanheems on Monday 25 January 2021
"Very disappointed with this upgrade Farr too many problems Lacks the functionality of the previous version should never have been released in this form "
Alex Reid on Tuesday 26 January 2021
"Hi Alex. I'm really sorry to hear you're experiencing problems using the new Garden Planner. Could I ask you to get in touch with our customer support team using the Contact button at the top of this page to let us know what you're having trouble with? We can then investigate this and advise further. "
Garden Planner Customer Support on Tuesday 26 January 2021
"Hi team I am a new user and I have an iPad I am having problems setting my plan up could you please assist? Thank you Georgina "
Georgina on Wednesday 27 January 2021
"Hi Georgina. Of course. The best thing to do is contact the customer services team, who can be reached on the 'Contact' tab at the top of this page. They'll respond very promptly and can offer you all the help you need. "
Ben Vanheems on Thursday 28 January 2021
"What should be used to draw in ground planting areas, just the shapes tools?"
Deborah Woodbury on Sunday 31 January 2021
"You can use the shapes tools, or use any of the Garden Objects - to the left-hand side of the plan, cube tab. The Garden Objects include different styles of raised beds, as well as pots and tubs."
Ben Vanheems on Sunday 31 January 2021
"Hi Does the planner work out sun direction, shade created by buildings.... And then recommend what will grow in these areas?? "
Paul on Tuesday 16 February 2021
"Hi Paul. The Garden Planner doesn't currently include a shade calculator, but I will forward this on to our development team as a feature request. For now, you can use the filter options to show only plants that partial shade tolerant. Click on Show More just above the plant selector to choose from this and other options. If you have any questions about this please get in touch with our customer support team using the Contact button and we'll be happy to help."
Garden Planner Customer Support on Tuesday 16 February 2021
"I'm liking this software a lot - it's great! A couple things would be immensely helpful, an option for growing in straw bales, an option for in-ground beds (not raised), and a way to set N,S,E,W on the plot to properly manage sunlight. I also like the idea of favorites that I read in another commenter - that would be important as well. Thanks! "
Shannon on Monday 15 March 2021
"Hi Shannon. Thanks so much for these suggestions. We're always looking for ways to tweak and improve the Garden Planner, and feedback like this is invaluable. I'm sure you already know this, but incase you don't: You can mark out in-ground beds by simply clicking on the shapes tab (the symbol with the triangle, circle and square) and then selecting a shape of your choosing, which can be resized as necessary. You can choose to have shapes unfilled or filled, and the fill can be of a chosen color or texture. And if you go to the objects tab you can select and drop in then orientate a compass, to help you visualise where shade might fall etc. I hope this might help someway, and I'll forward your suggestions on to our developers."
Ben Vanheems on Tuesday 16 March 2021
"I have just retired to Crete where the weather is much kinder to human but harsher for plants. I am a subscriber to and bought from Suttons before. I want to know if your planner takes in consideration the country, region and /or the climatic conditions for growing. Thank you for your reply. "
Yorkyshef on Sunday 1 August 2021
"The Garden Planner doesn't have weather station data for Crete, so you would need to manually set your expected last and first frost dates. Setting your frost dates is necessary in order for the system to calculate recommended planting times and planting reminders for your area which are used on the Plant List and planting reminder emails. If you do not experience frost in your area, you can select the My area does not experience frost box. If your climate is too hot to grow certain plants during the summer, select the Split growing season into two box. This splits the season into separate spring and fall plantings for 'cool-season' plants that need it because they do not grow well through hot summers (lettuce for example). This option will be automatically checked if you have a long growing season, although you can override the setting. I hope you enjoy your retirement in Crete - what a lovely place to retire to!"
Ben Vanheems on Monday 2 August 2021
"So far i am very much liking this app, and the customer feed back is just incredible! I have sent 3 emails and gotten 3 responses today!! There are some "missing" features, and a few announces, but i am having a really good time setting out my garden for next year!"
mike on Thursday 30 December 2021
"Glad to hear you're having a great experience Mike! Wishing you all the best for your 2022 garden."
Garden Planner Customer Support on Thursday 30 December 2021
"Do you have one for Canada? How much is the Planner? I don't see a price anywhere."
Teri on Friday 29 April 2022
"Hi Teri. You can can find out all about the Garden Planner by clicking on the 'Garden Planner' tab at the top of the page - it will lead you to a page that cover pricing. It covers Canada too. :-)"
Ben Vanheems on Friday 29 April 2022

Add a Comment

Add your own thoughts on the subject of this article:
(If you have difficulty using this form, please use our Contact Form to send us your comment, along with the title of this article.)



(We won't display this on the website or use it for marketing)



Captcha


(Please enter the code above to help prevent spam on this article)



By clicking 'Add Comment' you agree to our Terms and Conditions