Almanac Garden Planner vs Leaftide: Which one fits your garden?
The Old Farmer's Almanac Garden Planner is a trusted name with a huge plant database and decades of gardening wisdom. But if you grow fruit trees, perennials, or want climate-specific harvest predictions, here's how the two compare.
At a glance
What they share
- ✓ Visual drag-and-drop garden planning
- ✓ Personalised planting calendars
- ✓ Email reminders for sowing and planting
- ✓ Garden journal for notes and photos
Where Leaftide differs
- 🌳 Tracks fruit trees, shrubs, and permanent plants
- 📍 Climate data specific to your location, not just weather stations
- 🆓 Free tier with no time limit (not just a 7-day trial)
- 🔒 Your data stays accessible if you cancel
Feature comparison
| Feature | Almanac | Leaftide |
|---|---|---|
| Visual bed planner | ✓ | ✓ |
| Planting calendar | ✓ | ✓ |
| Email reminders | ✓ | ✓ |
| Companion planting suggestions | Evidence-based | ✓ |
| Crop rotation warnings | ✓ | Coming soon |
| Plant variety database | 21,000+ varieties | Growing |
| Garden journal | ✓ | ✓ |
| Permanent plants (fruit trees, shrubs) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Pruning and care routines | ✗ | ✓ |
| Harvest predictions (GDD-based) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Container planner | Basic objects | Dedicated mode |
| Climate data | 5,000 weather stations | Your specific location |
| Free tier | 7-day trial | Free forever |
| Keep data if you cancel | ✗ | ✓ |
Pricing: Almanac Garden Planner is $35/year (recurring) or $50 for a single year. Leaftide is £5/month or £45/year.
Key differences explained
🌳 Track fruit trees and perennials, not just veg
The Almanac Garden Planner is built around annual vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Leaftide lets you track permanent plants like fruit trees, berry bushes, and shrubs, with pruning schedules, age tracking, and care routines that carry over year after year.
📍 Climate data for your exact location
The Almanac planner uses a database of 5,000 weather stations to estimate your planting windows. Leaftide goes further, using climate data specific to your coordinates and growing degree days (GDD) to predict not just when to sow, but when you can expect to harvest.
🔒 Your data stays yours
With the Almanac Garden Planner, your garden plans and history are tied to your subscription. If you don't renew, you lose access. With Leaftide, your data remains accessible even on the free tier, so years of garden history are never locked away.
🆓 Free tier vs 7-day trial
The Almanac planner offers a 7-day free trial with no credit card required, which is fair. But once it ends, you need to subscribe to keep using it. Leaftide has a free tier that lasts forever, so you can plan at your own pace without a ticking clock.
⚖️ Where the Almanac Garden Planner does better
- The Almanac planner has crop rotation warnings built in, tracking what grew where in previous years and flagging bad placements. This feature is on our roadmap but not yet available in Leaftide.
- Their plant variety database is massive: over 21,000 varieties across 400+ crops, with seed supplier integration. Leaftide's database is growing but not as extensive yet.
- The Old Farmer's Almanac brand brings over 230 years of gardening knowledge, with hundreds of expert-written grow guides, 440+ how-to videos, and a community of 500,000+ gardeners. That depth of content is hard to match.
- Their evidence-based companion planting system is well-regarded and backed by research, not just folklore.
Ready to try Leaftide?
Start free and see if it fits your garden.
Try Leaftide FreeFree forever. No credit card required.