How the Shopping List and Seed Inventory Work Together

The two tabs under Shopping & seeds, Shopping list and Inventory, share one job: making sure you own the seeds your garden needs, without doubling up on ones you already have. Start with your first garden bed if you have not placed crops yet.

The math

For each variety in your gardens, the shopping list computes:

To buy = Needed − On hand, adjusted for germination rate.

• Needed comes from your planting quantities in the planner.
• On hand is the seed count from your seed inventory. Only entries logged with the unit count are subtracted. Packets, grams, and ounces show on the row as Also on hand but aren't subtracted, since there's no way to tell how many seeds they hold.
• Germination % uses the rate you logged in your inventory when there is one; otherwise the species' Federal Seed Act minimum, falling back to a conservative 65% where no standard exists.

Seeds on hand count toward your plants at that rate, so 20 seeds at 50% cover about 10 plants. Proposed seeds is how many to buy once you allow for the ones that won't sprout.

When your inventory covers a variety, its row shows a Covered badge and fades out. Where GardenDraft can match a seed vendor, the row includes a purchase link.

If your gardens span more than one year, the list opens on the season you're planning (next year's, once you've carried your garden forward to it), with a chip for each year and All gardens to add them together.

Keeping the inventory current

On the Inventory tab, click Add seeds and record the plant, variety, quantity (packet, g, oz, or count), source, purchase date, expiration, and Germination % if you've tested the seed or the packet lists a rate. Expiration dates are color-coded — red within a month, yellow within six — and the stats strip flags anything expired or expiring soon.

Log seeds as a count when you can. That's the number the shopping list can subtract.

Beyond seeds

A manual supplies section on the shopping list handles everything else — stakes, row cover, fertilizer — with a simple name, quantity, and check-off. Once the list is set, Tasks & log is where those plantings turn into sowing, transplanting, and harvest reminders.