Questions about your plan?

They count tray space at the busiest point in your season. They do not measure sunlight, grow-light brightness or temperature.

3 of 4 tray spaces means your fullest shelf needs three standard tray footprints and has room for four. One space remains. 5 of 4 means you need one more space on that day. Each summary shows the tightest individual shelf or mat, not an average that could hide an overloaded shelf. Use See what needs more room to find the batches causing it.

Open Print / export, then Print preview. The full schedule appears before you print. PDF and CSV exports prepare a file, then ask you to Download, Open or Share it.

Some in-app browsers cannot open the system print dialog or save a file. Open Seedling Space in Safari or Chrome if needed. In the print preview, use the browser Share menu then Print. For a PDF, use Share / save to Files or Open PDF. For CSV and JSON, choose Download or Share / save to Files. Export files contain the current plan only; sample exports are labeled with the sample plan name.

Suggested dates work backward from your transplant date or this plan’s frost estimate, using the crop’s published timing. Your own dates come from your packet, experience or local advice.

Both choices remain editable. Suggested mode uses published crop intervals and outdoor frost offsets where available. For other crops, choose one outdoor target in Location & season; it prefills new batches without inventing a crop-specific outdoor date. Cilantro, lemongrass and leaf fennel still need your dates because their sources use direct-sowing or readiness guidance. Editing a date marks it as Your date. Choosing a date is separate from letting automatic repair move it: date flexibility and locks control repair. Custom crops have no invented sowing or transplant dates.

The frost marker belongs to this plan’s location and year. Your crops and equipment stay saved; changing location does not delete a batch.

A new ZIP clears the old lookup result immediately. If there is no usable frost estimate, the calendar shows none. Before saving a different location you can review new suggestions and choose whether to accept them. Fixed, locked and manually chosen dates stay unchanged. Unfinished library batches also ask you to review their dates. For two gardens in different places, use separate plans. A growing zone describes winter cold, not last frost; the calendar marker is historical, not a guarantee.

No. It is a historical planning reference for this location, not a forecast or a promise of frost-free weather.

Some crops tolerate cool conditions; others need warmer soil and nights after the historical frost date. The crop’s source guidance and actual seedling readiness matter. Use Calendar beside a date to see the marked frost day, or Show frost month if you are viewing another month. The marker never prevents you from choosing another day.

Selecting a library match connects its name, category and date guidance. It does not replace your quantities, equipment or stage settings.

Use Suggest my dates to review available sourced dates, then apply them explicitly. Custom stage durations remain your assumptions; naming a crop does not verify them. For a new crop with the full published starting guidance, use Add crop → the seed library instead. A name that is not in the library stays valid for custom entry, but cannot receive sourced biological defaults.

Vegetables, herbs, fruit and flowers each have an alphabetical list. Search matches the start of a common name, botanical name or recorded alias.

These are familiar gardening categories: melons and ground cherries appear under Fruit, while tomatoes stay under Vegetables. Try a common crop name, then enter your named variety in its batch. Optional indoor starts are marked where direct sowing is usually simpler. This is a seed-starting library, not a list of every outdoor garden plant.

Edit the relevant stage duration, then check the schedule again.

A stage range is permission to adjust timing, not a biological recommendation. Use narrow, realistic ranges.

Use Editable batches CSV for crop edits and re-importing.

Its StagesJSON column preserves each stage; BatchOptionsJSON preserves locks, splitting choices and notes; SharedTraysJSON preserves named trays and their cells. PlanSetupJSON preserves growing spaces, container profiles and season settings. Older CSV files without that column still require matching setup. Use Full plan backup (JSON) for the simplest complete backup. Older templates without BatchOptionsJSON use editable defaults; review them before repair. The schedule-report CSV is for viewing, while JSON is the complete lossless plan backup. Invalid or mismatched files show an error without replacing your plan.

One active plan with up to eight batches, growing spaces, containers, the full initial timeline, daily capacity checks, manual editing, local saving, and basic printing.

The sample starts with three deliberately crowded weeks so you can try repair, comparison and exports without paying. It contains only example tomatoes, peppers and zinnias; Return to my plan restores the plan you left.

We fill the available spots, then put the remaining seedlings in another matching tray. Your crop stays one batch.

With 24 seedlings followed by 54 in 72-cell trays, the first tray contains 24 + 48 and the second contains 6, leaving 66 spots. Extras count too. Allocations stay in place as crops grow: we do not move seedlings just because another batch leaves. Trays with different simultaneous equipment needs stay separate. Matching equipment alone does not prove matching temperatures or watering needs; check the crops’ source guidance.

An empty cell frees a planting spot, not a piece of shelf. The physical tray stays until its removal date.

Each tray reserves its whole footprint from its first sowing until its last assigned batch leaves, including empty gaps. Set a later removal date if it will stay longer. Pot-up containers use additional space. Moving a crop out never silently moves the other seedlings or shrinks their tray.

One pack has six planting cells. Eight of those packs provide 48 planting spots in the example outer tray.

Six is the number of cells in each pack; eight is the number of packs the example tray holds. The outer tray occupies one shelf space. Your actual packs may differ: edit their usable cells and footprint under Growing space. New library batches use an outer-tray counter for this pack profile.

No. Your deck, patio or another suitable outdoor spot does not need a separate space entry.

Hardening-off dates stay on the schedule. Your existing indoor footprint stays reserved through transplant, without another setup question. Outdoor space is not measured or checked by default. If outdoor room really is limited, add that space and switch on optional outdoor tracking for the batch. Earlier plans that explicitly reserved outdoor capacity keep that choice; turn it off under the batch’s Outdoor space settings if it is unnecessary.

Yes, when the container size, growing space and overlapping equipment needs match. Check their growing conditions too.

The automatic choice fills matching named tray sets. You can choose a separate set instead. Each crop keeps its own sowing, germination, growth and pot-up dates. Different heat-mat reservations get different physical trays. Intact trays also need matching hardening-off move dates; one cell tray cannot be partly indoors and partly outdoors. Indoor shelf space stays reserved during hardening off so the tray can come back inside. A source’s preferred temperature or root-handling guidance still matters; capacity arithmetic is not a biological compatibility test.

We count the containers occupied on every day, then show the busiest day for each shelf, heat mat and any outdoor area you choose to track.

Start with your plants if you have not chosen equipment yet. Planned spaces begin with zero owned capacity, so the app shows what is needed without pretending you own it. The inventory includes larger pot-up containers only when those stages are in your schedule. Counts depend on your dates, buffers and container assumptions. Heat mats and shelves can occupy the same physical area, so their areas should not be added together.

Bigger pots fit fewer seedlings into each tray. The planner rounds up to whole container groups.

For example, 48 plants in pots that fit 12 per tray require four tray spaces. With a 10% extra-seedling reservation, 53 plants need five. Starting trays still occupied by other crops remain as well. Change the actual pot count or pot-up stage in the batch editor to see its effect.

Published ranges are starting points. Where a source gives a plant-readiness cue instead of a number, we show that cue rather than inventing a date.

Cultivar, temperature, light and growth rate vary. Sowing suggestions use the entry’s stated anchor: transplanting or historical last frost. Germination uses the longer end of the recorded range as an editable space reservation. A numerical pot-up date is calculated only for reviewed protocols that supply one; otherwise enter your expected date or days after emergence. Hardening is also an editable reservation, not a frost-safety guarantee.

Enter the usable width and depth in inches, feet or metric, or count the trays you have physically checked will fit.

Measure outside tray rims, not just the nominal 10 × 20-inch name. The shelf calculator checks whole trays in two uniform orientations. An area estimate does not guarantee a shape fits or that grow lights cover it well. Count pots in the groups you will carry and water; allow for rims and plant spacing.

No. A preferred germination temperature does not prove that extra heat is required in your room.

Choose a heat mat when your actual setup needs it, using the crop’s published germination protocol. Germination on a heat mat under lights reserves both the mat and the shelf. The app does not measure room or soil temperatures. Different heat reservations cannot share one physical starting tray on the same day.

At least one day needs more container space than you entered as available. The conflict lists the space, date and contributing batches.

A weekly bar shows the highest actual daily load in that week, not a sum of unrelated days. Open Conflicts to edit the shelf or crop responsible. Automatic repair tries only the changes you have permitted. For a plant-first plan, planned equipment begins at zero capacity until you enter what you own.

Repair uses your permitted date windows and preserves hard dates, locks and quantities. You review a candidate before adopting it.

Balanced favors small date changes; Minimum changes favors moving fewer batches; Lowest peak favors reducing the busiest resource’s pressure. Some searches reach a finite limit, which is reported separately from proving no fit in the searched choices. Overflow packing is deterministic first-fit over each crop’s whole stay; it does not search every possible physical packing arrangement. Undo restores the previous plan.

Yes. What if opens a separate preview. Nothing changes until you choose to use those assumptions.

Compare a different quantity or available capacity, check the before/after counts, then adopt or close the preview. Locked batches cannot have their quantity reduced. These trials do not automatically assert a new biological timing recommendation. Complete unlocks alternatives; the sample plan lets you try them free.

Changes save in this browser on this device. Export a plan JSON file to keep a portable backup.

Browser storage can be cleared or unavailable. The app reports save failures and offers a backup. Purchase recovery restores paid access, not device-local plans. Use Saved plans to rename, open or duplicate plans; use Print / export for copies and backups. To start over, use the Start over button at the top of your plan. Clear all crop batches keeps your equipment and season; Start a blank plan clears this plan’s setup too. Both ask for confirmation. Undo reset stays available until your next plan edit, including after refresh. Other saved plans and purchased access stay unchanged.