GrowVeg vs Leaftide: Which garden planner fits your garden?
Both help you plan your veg patch. But if you're growing fruit trees, perennials, or want climate-aware scheduling for the UK, here's how they compare.
This comparison covers pricing, features, and real-world differences as of July 2026. We use both tools and update this page regularly to keep it accurate.
At a glance
What they share
- ✓ Visual drag-and-drop garden planning
- ✓ Personalised planting calendars
- ✓ Email reminders for sowing and planting
Where Leaftide differs
- 🌳 Tracks fruit trees, shrubs, and permanent plants
- 📍 Climate data specific to your location
- 🆓 Free tier with no time limit (not just a trial)
- 🔒 Your data stays accessible if you cancel
Feature comparison
| Feature | GrowVeg | Leaftide |
|---|---|---|
| Visual bed planner | ✓ | ✓ |
| Planting calendar | ✓ | ✓ |
| Email reminders | ✓ | ✓ |
| Companion planting suggestions | ✓ | ✓ |
| Crop rotation warnings | ✓ | Coming soon |
| Permanent plants (fruit trees, shrubs) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Pruning and care routines | ✗ | ✓ |
| Harvest predictions (GDD-based) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Container planner | Basic objects | Dedicated mode |
| Climate data | Weather stations | Your specific location |
| Free tier | 7-day trial | Free forever |
| Keep data if you cancel | ✗ | ✓ |
Pricing: GrowVeg is $29-35/year. Leaftide is £5/month or £99 lifetime.
Track fruit trees, predict harvests, plan your whole garden.
Free for up to 30 plants. No credit card required.
Key differences explained
🌳 Track fruit trees and perennials, not just veg
GrowVeg focuses on annual vegetables, which means gardeners with a mixed plot often end up maintaining a separate spreadsheet for their fruit trees and shrubs. Leaftide tracks permanent plants natively: you log your apple tree once and it follows the plant year after year, building a timeline of bloom dates, fruiting windows, and pruning history. Pruning schedules adapt as trees age (a maiden whip needs different cuts to a five-year-old espalier), and care routines remind you of feeds and winter washes at the right time for your climate. If your garden has both raised beds and an orchard, you get one place for everything.
🔒 Your data stays yours
With GrowVeg, if you cancel your subscription you lose access to your garden history. That means years of planting notes, harvest dates, and lessons learned disappear behind a paywall. With Leaftide, your data remains accessible even on the free tier; you can always log in, review past seasons, and export your records. This matters most for long-term gardeners who build up valuable knowledge over multiple growing seasons and don't want to start from scratch if they take a year off.
📍 Climate data for your exact location
GrowVeg uses weather station averages, which can be miles from your actual garden. Leaftide calculates planting windows based on climate data specific to your coordinates, factoring in frost dates, growing degree days, and soil temperature estimates. The practical difference: instead of a generic "sow outdoors in April" message, you get a date range tuned to whether you're in a sheltered London courtyard or an exposed hillside in the Pennines. For UK gardeners especially, where microclimates vary dramatically over short distances, this means fewer seedlings lost to late frosts.
Climate-specific schedules, not weather station averages.
Free for up to 30 plants. No credit card required.
⚖️ Where GrowVeg does better
GrowVeg has crop rotation warnings built in. This feature is on our roadmap but not yet available in Leaftide. If this is essential for you, GrowVeg may be a better fit today.
Who should choose which
Choose GrowVeg if you...
- - Grow only annual vegetables and want mature crop rotation warnings
- - Prefer a desktop-first planning experience with a large plant database
- - Need the Garden Journal companion app and don't mind paying yearly
Choose Leaftide if you...
- ✓ Have fruit trees, berry bushes, or perennial herbs alongside your veg
- ✓ Want planting dates tuned to your exact location, not a regional average
- ✓ Prefer a free tier you can use indefinitely rather than a 7-day trial
- ✓ Want to keep access to your garden history even if you stop paying
Bottom line
GrowVeg is a solid choice for dedicated vegetable growers who want crop rotation tracking and a mature plant database. But most real gardens aren't purely annual veg: they have fruit trees, berry bushes, herbs, and ornamentals that need year-round attention. Leaftide handles the whole picture, with climate-specific scheduling, perennial tracking, and a free tier that never locks you out of your own data. For mixed gardeners in the UK, it's the more complete tool.
Plan your whole garden, fruit trees included.
Set your location, get climate-aware scheduling, and track perennials alongside your veg. Free forever.
Start your free garden planNo credit card required
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Last updated: July 2026