Seedtime vs Leaftide: Which garden planner fits your garden?
Seedtime is a great seed starting and scheduling tool, especially for US vegetable gardeners. But if you grow fruit trees, want GDD-based predictions, or garden outside North America, here's how the two compare.
At a glance
What they share
- ✓ Planting calendars based on frost dates
- ✓ Auto-generated task lists
- ✓ Succession planting support
- ✓ Free tier with no time limit
Where Leaftide differs
- 🌳 Tracks fruit trees, shrubs, and permanent plants
- 🌡️ GDD-based harvest predictions, not just frost dates
- 📍 Climate data specific to your exact location
- 🌍 Works worldwide, not just US and Canada
Feature comparison
| Feature | Seedtime | Leaftide |
|---|---|---|
| Planting calendar | ✓ | ✓ |
| Task lists | ✓ | ✓ |
| Garden journal | ✓ | ✓ |
| Succession planting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Seed starting schedules | ✓ | ✓ |
| Visual bed planner | Paid only | ✓ |
| Permanent plants (fruit trees, shrubs) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Pruning and care routines | ✗ | ✓ |
| Harvest predictions (GDD-based) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Container planner | ✗ | Dedicated mode |
| Climate data | Zone / frost dates | Your specific location |
| Works outside US/Canada | ✗ | ✓ |
| Free tier | Free (1 garden, limited) | Free forever |
| Keep data if you cancel | ✗ | ✓ |
| Educational content | Videos + summits | Learn articles |
| Mobile app | iOS + Android | iOS + Android |
Pricing: Seedtime is free (limited) or $7-9/month for paid plans. Leaftide is £5/month or £45/year.
Key differences explained
🌳 Permanent plants, not just annuals
Seedtime is built around annual vegetables and herbs. It does a great job scheduling when to sow, transplant, and harvest those crops. But if you have fruit trees, berry bushes, or perennial shrubs, there's no way to track their age, pruning schedules, or year-over-year growth. Leaftide treats permanent plants as first-class citizens with dedicated tracking, care routines, and lifecycle predictions.
🌡️ Harvest predictions based on real climate data
Seedtime estimates harvest dates using average days-to-maturity from your frost date. Leaftide goes further with Growing Degree Day (GDD) calculations using climate data specific to your exact location. This means your harvest predictions adjust to actual growing conditions rather than relying on generic zone averages.
🌍 Works worldwide, not just North America
Seedtime is optimised for US and Canadian gardeners, using USDA hardiness zones and zip code-based frost dates. If you garden in the UK, Europe, or elsewhere, it won't have your local data. Leaftide works with location-specific climate data anywhere in the world and is available in five languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch).
🔒 Your data stays yours
With Leaftide, your garden history and plant data remain accessible even if you downgrade to the free tier. You never lose access to what you've recorded.
⚖️ Where Seedtime does better
- Seedtime's succession planting workflow is excellent. Adding successive plantings is a single click, and it warns you when cold weather would cut a planting short. If succession planting is your main concern, Seedtime makes it very intuitive.
- The educational content is a real strength. Seedtime offers masterclass videos, gardening summits, and how-to guides linked directly from your task list. If you're a beginner who wants to learn as you go, this is genuinely helpful.
- Seedtime has native iOS and Android apps, which can feel snappier than a web app when you're out in the garden checking tasks.
- With 2,650+ built-in crop varieties, Seedtime's database is large and well-maintained, so you'll rarely need to add custom entries for common vegetables.
Ready to try Leaftide?
Start free and see if it fits your garden.
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