Seed to Spoon vs Leaftide: Which garden planner is right for you?
Seed to Spoon is a popular app with a huge content library and an AI chatbot. Leaftide focuses on climate-smart scheduling and permanent plant tracking. Here's how they compare.
Seed to Spoon has built one of the largest plant databases in any gardening app, with over 150 detailed growing guides and an active community of over a million users. Leaftide takes a different approach: fewer encyclopaedic entries, but deeper scheduling intelligence using growing degree days and year-over-year tracking that adapts to your actual climate.
At a glance
What they share
- ✓ Visual drag-and-drop garden layout
- ✓ Personalised planting calendars by location
- ✓ Companion planting guides
- ✓ Reminders and notifications
- ✓ Custom plant varieties
Where Leaftide differs
- 🌳 Tracks fruit trees, shrubs, and permanent plants
- 🌡️ GDD-based harvest predictions, not just date estimates
- 🔄 Succession planting and recurring task lists
- 🌍 Available in 6 languages (EN, ES, FR, DE, NL)
- 🆓 Free tier with 15 seasonal + 30 permanent plants (vs 10 total)
Feature comparison
| Feature | Seed to Spoon | Leaftide |
|---|---|---|
| Visual bed planner | ✓ | ✓ |
| Planting calendar | ✓ | ✓ |
| Companion planting suggestions | ✓ | ✓ |
| Email reminders / notifications | ✓ | ✓ |
| Custom plant varieties | ✓ | ✓ |
| Garden journal / notes | ✓ | ✓ |
| AI chatbot for pest ID | ✓ | ✗ |
| Recipe library | ✓ | ✗ |
| Weekly live workshops | ✓ | ✗ |
| Permanent plants (fruit trees, shrubs) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Pruning and care routines | ✗ | ✓ |
| Harvest predictions (GDD-based) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Succession planting | ✗ | ✓ |
| Task lists with recurring tasks | ✗ | ✓ |
| Container planner | Basic | Dedicated mode |
| Square foot gardening mode | ✓ | ✗ |
| Crop rotation | ✗ | Coming soon |
| Multi-language support | English only | 6 languages |
| Free tier plant limit | 10 plants | 15 seasonal + 30 permanent |
| Lifetime purchase option | ✗ | ✓ |
| Keep data if you cancel | ✗ | ✓ |
Pricing: Seed to Spoon is $4.99/month or $46.99/year. Leaftide is £5/month or £99 lifetime.
Track your garden from seed to harvest with GDD predictions
Free for up to 30 plants. No credit card required.
Key differences explained
🌳 Fruit trees and perennials, not just annuals
Seed to Spoon focuses on annual vegetables and herbs, and it does that well with one of the largest plant databases available. But if you're also growing fruit trees, berry bushes, or ornamental shrubs, you'll find there's no way to track them. Leaftide treats permanent plants as first-class citizens: you can log pruning schedules, record yearly observations like bud break and flowering dates, and build up a multi-year picture of each plant's behaviour. Over time, Leaftide learns from your observations and refines its predictions for when your apple tree will fruit or your blueberry bush will be ready to pick.
🌡️ Harvest predictions based on real climate data
Seed to Spoon estimates sprout and harvest dates based on your zip code and average timelines. That works for a rough guide, but it can't account for a late frost, an unusually warm spring, or regional microclimates. Leaftide uses growing degree days (GDD) calculated from climate data specific to your coordinates, which means predictions shift automatically when the weather deviates from average. In a cool year your harvest date pushes back; in a warm year it pulls forward. The result is timing you can actually plan around, not just a static calendar range copied from a seed packet.
🆓 A free tier that doesn't hold you back
Seed to Spoon's free tier limits you to 10 plants and 3 AI questions per day. Leaftide's free tier allows 15 seasonal plantings and 30 permanent plants, giving you room to plan a meaningful garden without hitting a paywall in the first week. Your data stays accessible even if you cancel a paid plan, so you never lose your planting history or notes. And if you'd rather avoid recurring subscriptions altogether, Leaftide offers a one-time lifetime purchase at £99, something Seed to Spoon doesn't provide.
🌍 Multi-language support
Seed to Spoon is available in English only and uses US zip codes for location. If you garden outside the US, the planting dates may not align with your climate at all. Leaftide supports English, Spanish, French, German, and Dutch, and uses coordinate-based location that works anywhere in the world. Whether you're in a mild coastal UK climate or a continental European garden with harsh winters, the scheduling adapts to your actual conditions rather than assuming a US hardiness zone.
Perennial tracking and succession planting in one app
Free for up to 30 plants. No credit card required.
⚖️ Where Seed to Spoon does better
- AI chatbot (Growbot): Snap a photo and get instant pest identification, plant diagnosis, and gardening advice. Leaftide doesn't have an AI assistant.
- Content library: 150+ detailed plant guides, recipes, health benefit filters, and weekly live workshops with the creators. It's a rich learning resource, especially for beginners.
- Square foot gardening: Seed to Spoon has built-in support for square foot gardening layouts. Leaftide does not have a dedicated square foot mode.
- Community: With over 1 million downloads and weekly livestreams, Seed to Spoon has a large, active community of growers.
If you're a beginner focused on annual vegetables and want an AI assistant to help identify problems, Seed to Spoon is a solid choice.
Choose Seed to Spoon if you...
- Want the biggest plant database with 150+ detailed growing guides
- Value community features like weekly livestreams and forums
- Garden primarily in the US and are comfortable with zip-code-based scheduling
- Like browsing varieties, recipes, and health benefit filters for inspiration
- Want an AI chatbot to diagnose plant problems from photos
Choose Leaftide if you...
- Care more about accurate timing than database size
- Want to track year-over-year progress and learn from past seasons
- Grow permanent plants (fruit trees, berry bushes, ornamental shrubs)
- Garden in the UK, Europe, or anywhere outside the US
- Prefer a one-time payment over ongoing subscriptions
- Need multi-language support for your household
The bottom line
Seed to Spoon is the better encyclopaedia: a huge plant database, an AI assistant, and an active community make it a great starting point for US gardeners who want to learn as they grow. Leaftide is the better planner: GDD-based predictions that respond to real weather, permanent plant tracking that builds a picture over years, and scheduling that works outside the US. If you want accurate timing and long-term garden records, Leaftide is the stronger choice.
Leaftide uses GDD predictions for your exact location and tracks fruit trees alongside your veg. Free for up to 30 plants.
Start planning freeNo credit card required
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Last updated: July 2026