What GardenDraft does
The planner has three jobs: draw the space accurately, turn local frost dates into usable tasks, and keep enough records that next season is easier than this one.
- Nearly 700
- Plants with spacing and growing data
- 46
- Sources behind the companion-planting notes
- 3 beds
- Included on the free first garden
How the planting dates are calculated
Location
Your postal code maps to a climate station rather than a broad hardiness-zone average.
Frost dates
Your last spring frost and first fall frost are the two dates everything else counts from.
Crop timing
Each plant knows how many weeks its seeds need indoors, how soon after the last frost it can go outside, and how long until you can pick it.
Override
If your yard runs colder or warmer than the record, you can set your own frost dates.
What one bed turns into
Once the crops are in, a 4x8 bed in Cambridge, MA holds more than its size. The planner keeps track of how much room each plant needs, the frost dates, repeat sowings, and why a date moved when you change the location.
- Location
- 02139, with frost dates editable in settings
- Spacing
- Tomatoes carry their mature footprint, so basil can sit nearby without disappearing under the canopy.
- Schedule
- Seed-starting, hardening-off, transplant, and harvest windows stay linked to the bed instead of living in a separate calendar.
- Second sowing
- Late beans are checked against first fall frost before they become a task.
- Records
- Last year's garden stays in your account, so you can check what grew where before you plan the next one.
Design your garden
- Bed designer. Raised beds, in-ground rows, and containers on a snap-to-grid canvas. Multi-select, undo, keyboard nudging. Works the same on a phone as on a desktop.
- 3D view. Beds at their real height and plants at mature size, with a sun slider to preview shade.
- Companion hints. Friend-and-foe data from Cornell, Rodale, OSU, and UC IPM shows up in the inspector while you place plants.
- Plant library. Nearly 700 plants and more than 2,800 named varieties, with spacing and zone ranges, and days to maturity for most vegetables and herbs. Browse it without an account.
- Custom varieties. Add seeds we don't carry and they schedule like everything else.
Grow on schedule
- Frost-aware dates. Sow, transplant, and harvest windows worked out from NOAA frost normals at the station nearest your ZIP. Override them if you know your yard runs cold.
- Planting calendar. One timeline across all your gardens, with a private iCal feed for Google or Apple Calendar.
- Email reminders. A daily or weekly digest of what needs doing. Snooze or skip anything.
- Tasks. Sow, transplant, and harvest tasks are generated for you. Add your own repeating chores, like watering or fertilizing, on top.
- Succession planting. Chain a sowing every couple of weeks and see which rounds will finish before your first frost.
Keep the records
- Journal. Dated notes for each garden, newest first.
- Harvest log. Quantities by plant, variety, and year.
- Seed inventory. Packets, expiry dates, germination rates.
- Shopping list. Built from your plan, minus what your inventory already covers. Add soil and tools by hand.
- PDF exports. Print the plan, export the calendar, and end the season with a Garden Book PDF of the whole year.
- History stays. Cancel Grower and everything you made stays in your account, still editable.
Starter beds
Not sure what to grow? Start from a bed with the plants already spaced, then change whatever you like.
See all starter beds →How the planning works
Closer looks at the decisions GardenDraft is built around.
- Online Garden Planner — Plan in Your Browser, No Install
GardenDraft is an online garden planner that runs in your browser — nothing to download. Sketch your beds, get frost-aware planting dates, and pick up the same garden on any device.
- Phone-Friendly Garden Planner for iPhone and Android
GardenDraft runs in the browser today and is built for phone-sized planning: check frost-aware tasks, update beds outside, and keep the same plan in sync with the web.
- Seed Starting Calendar App
Seed starting goes sideways when the calendar lives in your head. GardenDraft turns your frost dates into indoor sowing, hardening-off, transplanting, and direct-sow dates you can use outside.
- Succession Planting Planner
Succession planting is how one bed becomes several harvests. GardenDraft keeps each sowing round separate so spring greens, summer crops, and fall roots do not collide.
- Raised Bed Garden Planner
Raised beds reward careful layout: reachable widths, mature spacing, path access, and crop sequences that use the same soil more than once. GardenDraft draws the bed to scale first.
- Best Garden Planner App: 8 Decisions That Matter
Most planner apps are drawing tools with seed-packet art. The ones worth using answer the decisions that cost real time: what fits, when to plant, and what has to move next year.
- Vegetable Garden Layout Planner
A layout decides which plants get sun, whether you can reach the middle of a bed, and whether next year's rotation is even possible. Here's how GardenDraft turns those calls into a plan you can see.
- Vegetable Plant Spacing Planner
Seedlings look tiny and the soil looks empty, so people crowd. Then July arrives with tangled stems and mildew. A spacing planner shows the crowding in spring, while you can still fix it.
What GardenDraft does not assume
- Your yard may beat the station. Frost normals are a starting point. Cold pockets, walls, slopes, and wind exposure are yours to override.
- Zones don't set planting dates. Hardiness zones tell you what survives winter. GardenDraft schedules from your spring and fall frost dates.
- The web app ships first. Native iOS and Android apps are in progress, but the planner runs in the browser today.
Common questions
- How does GardenDraft calculate my planting dates?
- From your postal code. We look up NOAA frost normals for your area and compute sow, transplant, and harvest windows for each plant in your plan. If you know your yard runs colder than the data says, you can override the frost dates in settings.
- Do I need to know my USDA hardiness zone?
- No, the postal code covers it. If you just want zone-level guidance, the free planting calendar pages list month-by-month windows for every zone.
- What devices does it work on?
- Any modern browser. The editor was built for phones first, so designing a bed with your thumb works the way it should. Native iOS and Android apps are in progress.
- Is there a free version?
- Yes. A free account needs no credit card and includes one garden with up to 3 beds. Every feature on this page works on that garden. Upgrade to Grower ($4.99/month or $29.99/year) for unlimited gardens and beds.
- What happens to my plans if I cancel?
- They stay yours. Cancel Grower and your account goes back to Free. Everything you made stays, and you can keep editing it. Adding gardens or beds past the free limits (1 garden, 3 beds per garden) needs Grower again.
All of it, free on your first garden.
Upgrade to Grower for unlimited gardens and beds — $4.99/mo or $29.99/yr. Cancel anytime and keep everything you made.