Welcome to the Help Center

We currently have weather station data for the following countries:

• USA
• Canada
• UK
• Ireland
• Australia *
• New Zealand
• South Africa *
• France
• Germany
• Spain
• Portugal
• Netherlands
• Belgium
• Denmark
• Switzerland

* Australia and South Africa use a bespoke postcode-based system due to the huge variety of climates.

Other locations may be added in the future.

If your country is not in the above list, you will 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.

To be able to run the Garden Planner you will need:

• PC running Windows 8 or above, Mac OS X 10.4 or above or Linux (e.g. Ubuntu 7.10 or later), iPad OS 12 or later, and some other reasonably fast tablets.
• One of the following browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox or Safari.
• At least 2GB of RAM (more will be required for larger plans)

The Garden Planner works on iPad OS 12 or later, and it will also work on some other reasonably fast tablets. Phones are not yet supported due to the small screen size.

You can also use the Publish Plan to Web feature in the Garden Planner on a computer to create a copy of your plan and Plant List on our servers. This can then be viewed from any internet-connected mobile device, although it can't be changed from there.

The online Garden Journal is compatible with tablets and phones so you can record notes, photos, planting and harvesting while out in the garden.

An annual recurring subscription costs $35
A one year subscription costs $50
A two year subscription costs $85

Garden Planner gift certificates are the perfect gift for any gardener with a kitchen garden. Each gift certificate gives a one or two year subscription to our online Garden Planner. A gift certificate is a year-round benefit to any gardener. Not only does it make planning a garden simple and enjoyable but it reminds you what to plant and sow throughout the year.

What's more, we guarantee that the Garden Planner will work for the recipient of the gift certificate, offering full email support and excellent customer service. Order a Garden Planner gift certificate here.

Please visit Login and enter your email address and password in the Login boxes.

If this isn't working for you, it would be worth clicking on the Forgotten Password? link below the login boxes.

If you're still unable to login, please Contact Us for further assistance.

Click on Forgotten Password? below the Login boxes, then enter your email address to have a temporary password sent to you by email. You should only use this option if you are happy that your email account is secure and private.

If you no longer have access to the email you used to set up your Garden Planner account, please Contact Us for further assistance.

If you did not receive your activation code, please first check your junk and spam folders (occasionally activation emails end up in these folders). If you still can't find your activation email, please Contact Us and include the email address you created your account with.

Visit your Account Settings page. Enter and retype your email address in the boxes provided. Click Save when you are finished making your changes.

When you click Save you will be sent a new activation code, which you will be prompted to enter to verify that the email address is a valid one.

Visit your Set Location page. Select your country, enter your postal/zip code or address, then click Search. The system will locate your garden on the map. You can repeat this with additional address details if it does not find an accurate enough location the first time.

Click the Save button to save your changes. The Garden Planner will look up your nearest weather station from our database of over 5,000 weather stations. The system will set your frost dates to match averages for your nearest weather station, and these dates will be used to calculate the recommended planting and harvesting times for all the plants in our database so that they are correct for your location.

You must have the correct country set for your account for this to work.

Visit your Account Settings page. To change your password, enter and retype it in the boxes provided. Click Save when you are finished making your changes.

You can update your payment details on Fastspring's website here (Fastspring are our payment provider): https://growveg.onfastspring.com/account/.
Type in your email address, and you'll be sent an email with instructions for accessing your account.
Once logged in, click on the Subscriptions tab, then click on the Manage drop-down menu and select Update Payment Method.

You can cancel your subscription at any time by logging in to your Garden Planner account, clicking on Account Settings, then clicking on Subscription. You'll see the option to Cancel under Subscription Details in the center of the page.

Cancelling a subscription prevents the next payment from being taken. It does not affect your current subscription.

These short tutorial videos will help you to quickly learn to use the Garden Planner.
(Click on the video's title to view it)

• Using the Garden Planner - An overview of the Garden Planner and its features
• Next Year's Plan and Crop Rotation - How to create a follow-on plan based on last year's garden layout and how to use the crop rotation warnings
• Garden Plans Gallery - Get inspired by other gardeners
• Journal Your Garden Progress - Become a better gardener by keeping track of what worked and what didn't

NOTE: Tutorial videos may not play smoothly on dial-up and other slow internet connections.

Our comprehensive User Guide will help you to get the most out of the Garden Planner, or if you have any questions please Contact Us.

Click on the Settings button in your plan's toolbar (the cog icon), then scroll down to Units & Dimensions. Type the new dimensions of your plan in the boxes provided, then scroll down and click on Save Plan Settings.

The extra space will be added to or removed from the right hand side and bottom of your plan, so if you need to move all of the items on your plan to a new location within the resized plan you can do so in the following way:

1. Click on the Selection Tool button (the grey square with the dotted line around it) and click on your plan at a corner of the area you want to move.
2. With your mouse button held down, drag the Selection Tool out to include all of the items that you want to move. Release the mouse button and the whole section will be selected.
3. To move the selection, left click on the selected area, hold down the mouse button and drag to pull it to its new location.

Check out this video for a demonstration: https://www.loom.com/share/8a574189ca764d99a0ac2853de1e955c

You can add your own variety in the following way:

1. Double-click on the plant in your plan, or click once on the plant to highlight it then click on the Edit Item button in your plan's toolbar.
2. Click on Customize Varieties, then click Add New and name your variety. Click Add.
3. Click Edit if you need to change the spacings or sowing, planting and harvesting times.
4. Check the Use Custom Spacings box and edit the spacings if necessary.
5. Check the Use Custom Times box and click on the calendars for the months or half-months that are appropriate for you growing this plant if necessary.
6. Click Save All Changes when done.

You can also customize any plant icon to represent an unlisted plant by choosing a plant icon which is close to the one you want to add, or use one of the generic plant icons (eg Herb, Tree, Flower, Other), and then following the steps above.

You can edit the sowing, planting and harvesting times as follows:

1. Double-click on the plant in your plan, or click on it then click once on the Edit Item button in your plan's toolbar.
2. Select your variety if necessary, then click on Customize Varieties.
3. Click Edit, then scroll down and select the 'Use Custom Times' box
4. Click on the months (or half-months) that are appropriate for you growing this plant.

Watch this video to see it in action: https://www.loom.com/share/03d6b541d91d4a17885eb9ca1e045d59

You can edit the spacing between plants on your plan in the following way:

1. Double-click on the plant in your plan, or click once on the plant to highlight it then click on the Edit Item button in your plan's toolbar.
2. Select your variety if necessary, then click on Customize Varieties.
3. Click Edit, then select the 'Use Custom Spacings' box
4. Enter the spacings you wish to use (Spacing between plants for individual plants or blocks of plants, and spacing between plants in rows + spacing between rows for plants in rows.)

Watch how to do it in this video: https://www.loom.com/share/03d6b541d91d4a17885eb9ca1e045d59

1. Click on Garden Planner in the main menu, then click the Create New Plan button. Alternatively, click the New Plan button in an existing plan's toolbar.
2. Select the Create Follow-on Plan option, and make sure the plan you wish to create a new plan from is selected in the drop-down menu.
3. Choose which elements (Layout, Irrigation, Text, Structures, All Plants or only Perennials) you want to copy across.
4. Click Create Plan and your next year's plan will be created, and you will benefit from crop rotation warnings when you add plants to your plan.

If you prefer to have a separate plan for your fall garden, follow the directions below:

1. Click on the Create New Plan button in the Garden Planner main menu or the New Plan button in your plan's toolbar
2. Select the 'Create Follow-on Plan' option, and make sure the plan you wish to create a new plan from is selected in the drop-down menu.
3. Make sure to add 'Fall' to the end of the plan name for your reference.
4. Change the year back to the current one in the drop-down box (it will have automatically moved on to the next year).
5. Choose which elements (Layout, Irrigation, Text, Structures, All Plants or only Perennials) you want to copy across
6. Click Create Plan and your next year's plan will be created, and you will benefit from crop rotation warnings when you add plants to your plan.

Alternatively, use the Succession Planting tool to plan your whole gardening year in one plan, as described below.

To set up succession planting for a selected plant:

1. Double-click the plant on the plan (or click on it once then click on the Edit Item button in your plan's toolbar) to pull up the Edit Plant box.
2. Select the 'Specify in-ground dates' checkbox.
3. Select the months during which the plant will be grown by selecting from the drop-down lists.
4. Click Done when you are finished.

To view how your garden will look for a particular month of the year click the Months drop-down list in your plan's toolbar. By default this shows All Months. When you select a month, only plants that are marked as being in the ground for that month or for all of the growing season will be shown on the plan. (You will always need to do this to prevent viewing plant overlap if you are succession planting).

You can then fill in the blank spaces on the garden plan with another type of plant if you wish and adjust the In-Ground dates. You can click on Show More in the Drawing Tools pane then scroll down to filter the plant selector by sowing or planting date and make choosing suitable plants quicker.

The Garden Planner can recommend beneficial growing partners for your crops based on months of research analyzing the evidence behind companion planting combinations. To see good companions for your crops, first click on a plant in your plan to highlight it, then click on the Show Companions button. All suitable companion plants will then appear in the plant selector, making it easy to add them to your plan. Click on Reset to return to viewing all plants.

We only list companions where there is good scientific evidence to support the association, and we deliberately don't note 'bad companions' because there is much less evidence and widely diverging opinions on this - a lot of it contradictory. In our opinion, getting things like crop rotation right is far more important to the success of crops, although companion planting is a useful tool to fine-tune your garden planning.

Good companions are also listed in the Grow Guide for each plant which you can view by clicking the 'i' information button next to each plant in the plant selector or in your Plant List.

Some plants require a long season to grow, and if you're not seeing planting and harvesting times this means that the average frost dates for your area indicate that your growing season is too short to grow that plant.

You may still be able to grow them by starting the seedlings indoors or under glass or by using frost protection coverings. You can add season extender icons such as greenhouses, hoop houses, row covers etc to your plan on top of your plants and this will automatically extend their dates. You can find the season extenders by clicking on the cube icon in the left-hand menu in the Garden Planner to open the Garden Objects selector. You can then either scroll down to find greenhouses or other season extenders, or type the name of the item in the search box.

Alternatively, if you believe that your area has a microclimate different to the nearest weather station, you can adjust the Frost Dates used by the Garden Planner:

1. Visit your Set Location page.
2. Click on Manual Frost Dates below the map
3. Change the frost dates (we wouldn't recommend doing this by more than 2 weeks at either end). Alternatively you can check the boxes to specify if your area doesn't experience frost or if you need to split the growing season in two to avoid growing cool season crops during the hottest part of the year.

Your Plant Lists will then update.

You can also set your own growing dates for any crop if you prefer:

1. Double-click on the plant in your plan
2. Select your variety if necessary, then click on Customize Varieties.
3. Click Edit, then scroll down and select the 'Use Custom Times' box
4. Click on the months (or half-months) that are appropriate for you growing this plant.
5. Click Save All Changes, then Done.

For crop rotation warnings to be displayed, you need to create a follow-on plan based on your previous year's plans:

1. Click on Garden Planner in the main menu, then click the Create New Plan button. Alternatively, click the New Plan button in an existing plan's toolbar.
2. Select the Create Follow-on Plan option, and make sure the plan you wish to create a new plan from is selected in the drop-down menu.
3. Choose which elements (Layout, Irrigation, Text, Structures, All Plants or only Perennials) you want to copy across.
4. Click Create Plan and your next year's plan will be created, and you will benefit from crop rotation warnings when you add plants to your plan.

If you have created a follow-on plan and crop rotations are not showing as you expect, Please contact us with the name and year of the plans concerned.

When you enter your postcode the Garden Planner looks up which region you are in and then assigns a set of recommended growing dates based on the climate area you are in. We find that this is much more accurate for most Southern Hemisphere areas than the frost date system used for Northern Hemisphere locations.

We save all plans on our servers, so please contact us with the name of your missing plan and the approximate time and date it was deleted if possible.

You can zoom in on the page using your browser's zoom function. To zoom in on the plan itself, use the Zoom In (magnifying glass) button in your plan's toolbar.

As well as using the Zoom In tool, you can increase the size of the plant labels by clicking on the Settings button in your plan's toolbar (the cog icon) and scroll to the bottom of the page. Under the All Plans heading, click on the Label Font Size drop-down box and select the size you'd like to display. Then click Save All Plan Settings.

There are two ways to share your plan. You can either use the Publish Plan to Web feature to upload your plan to our Garden Plans Gallery, then share the link to the page, or you can save the plan as a PDF file which can then be attached to an email.

Publish Plan to a Web Page:

1. Click on Publish Plan To Web (next to the Print button) in the toolbar at the top of your plan.
2. Enter your location and a description.
3. Add any other options you want to include.
4. Click Publish Plan
5. You will see a link to where your plan can be viewed - click on the link to visit your plan's webpage. The link can be shared with others via social media or email if you wish.
6. CopyClick on View Plan Full Size to open the plan as a JPEG image which can be printed directly from your browser if you wish.

Save Plan as a PDF:

1. To print your plan please click the **Print/PDF** button in your plan's toolbar and select your Print Layout and Options (if necessary). Click **Preview** to view a PDF of your plan that you can save to your computer. Click **Print** to print your plan.

First make sure that your Internet and power supply are both stable (brief interruptions in either of these could potentially cause the problem).

If that's not the issue, fully power down and restart your computer then, with no other programs running and no other browser windows or tabs open, login to the Garden Planner again and check if the problem persists.

If it does, it may help to change your settings for plant graphics. This reduces the amount of plants displayed in each row or block, and may speed things up (especially on slower and older devices with large plans). Click on Settings (the cog icon in your plan's toolbar), then click on the Device tab. Scroll down to Plant Icons. You can choose to show only plants in the corners of a block (or ends if planting in a row), only corners and edges of a block, or corners, edges and inside (all plants). You can also reduce the maximum number of plants displayed per area if necessary. Click Save Device Settings to save your changes.

Splitting your growing area up into smaller plans also reduces the amount of memory needed to draw your plan. You can create up to 5 plans per year (up to 10 by arrangement with us).

If this doesn't resolve the issue, please contact us.

Your planting reminders are based on the plants in your current year's plans, so first make sure that you're subscribed and that you have created this year's plans.

The newsletters containing planting reminders are sent out on the first and third Fridays of every month. If you haven't received these, check your junk, spam or promotions folder to make sure they haven't ended up there by accident. If they're not there, or if you have been receiving the newsletters but the planting reminders are missing, please Contact Us.

Sometimes the mouse or trackpad doesn't work if the Garden Planner is loaded before the mouse/trackpad has been connected. Close the Garden Planner, make sure your bluetooth mouse or trackpad is already connected to your tablet, then click the Start the Garden Planner button and try loading your plan again.

If this doesn't help, try refreshing the page to reload the Garden Planner.

If this doesn't resolve the problem, please Contact Us.