Whether you're just getting started or looking for a specific answer, this page covers the key concepts and common questions.
Looking for the plot designer guide? It's over here.
You add a plant. Leaftide predicts your growing schedule based on your location and frost dates. As you record what's happening in your garden (germination, transplanting, first harvest), care tasks appear automatically and that plant's later dates move to match.
That's really all there is to it. The sections below explain each piece.
Every plant goes through stages: Sown, Germinated, Hardened Off, Growing in Place, Ready for Harvest. When you add a plant, Leaftide predicts when each stage should happen based on your location and frost dates. You record when each one actually happens, and Leaftide moves that plant's later dates to match.
Not every plant goes through every stage. A direct-sown lettuce skips Potted Up and Hardened Off. A tomato started indoors will see the full sequence. Leaftide figures out which stages apply based on your starting method.
Permanent plants (trees, shrubs, perennials) have their own yearly stages like Bud Break, Flowering, Fruiting, and Leaf Fall, based on observations you log over time rather than a single grow cycle.
Leaftide comes with built-in care routines for each plant type. As your plant progresses through stages, relevant tasks appear automatically, like fertilising after transplanting or netting before fruiting. You can also create your own custom routines.
Routines generate tasks. Each routine is linked to a stage, so when your plant reaches that stage, the task appears on your dashboard. When you record "Germinated", any routine triggered by germination creates its task automatically.
Both predictions and care tasks show up together on Coming Up:
When you add a seasonal plant, Leaftide sets up dates and a starting method based on your schedule. The Planning Board shows all your plants that haven't been started yet. It's where you can adjust dates, change the starting method, or remove a plant before you commit to growing it. Once you record your first stage, the plant moves to Active.
Watering keeps track of when each plant last had a drink. Choose the plants you water by hand, set how often each one needs it, then tick off one plant, a group or everything at once. When it rains, Leaftide asks whether your garden got wet, and a yes counts as a watering for the plants out in the open.
Propagation is where you record cuttings, divisions, layers and runners. Start a batch when you take cuttings and come back to note how many rooted. Over time each plant shows how well its cuttings take in each season, so you know when to try again.
The Journal is your garden diary. Everything you log (stages, harvests, care, notes and photos) lands there in date order, in agenda, week or month view. Use New Entry to jot down a note about anything, even if it isn't about one plant.
Season Review looks back at a whole season: what you grew, when things happened, what you harvested and how each plant did. Have a look as the season winds down, when you're deciding what to grow again next year.
You can dismiss a care routine from the plant's Tasks tab, or directly from the task card on Coming Up. Once dismissed, it won't come back for that plant type. If you change your mind later, open the plant's Tasks tab and re-add it from Previously dismissed.
Go to Settings → Garden → My Varieties. You'll see all the varieties you've created. Use the pencil icon to edit or the bin icon to delete.
When adding a permanent plant, you can choose Reference Only mode. This keeps the plant in your garden as a catalog entry with no stage tracking, no predictions, and no tasks. You can also switch an existing plant to Reference Only from its settings anytime. Useful for plants you just want to remember you have, without actively tracking them.
When you're in the plant starter wizard, look for the option to switch to Advanced mode. This unlocks extra options: choose your starting method, set exact dates, plan backwards from a plant-out date, and create a prep checklist. Once you switch, it stays as your default for future plants.
In the plot designer, switch to View Mode and use the Share button. This creates a public link anyone can view without an account. You can also tick the option to show your garden on the Leaftide community page, which helps other gardeners find inspiration.
Coming Up is where most of the day-to-day happens. Open it from your dashboard or the menu. It shows predictions (what Leaftide thinks should happen next, like germination or harvest) and care tasks (things to do, like fertilising or netting). When a prediction appears, check your garden. If it happened, tap Confirm, and that plant's later dates move to match. If it hasn't happened yet, tap Not Yet and Leaftide asks again in a week. Care tasks appear automatically as your plant progresses through stages. If one doesn't apply to you, dismiss it and it won't come back. That's the daily loop: check Coming Up, confirm what you see, dismiss what doesn't apply.
Free: up to 15 seasonal plantings, 30 permanent plants, 5 custom varieties, and 10 pots. Pro (£5/month) unlocks unlimited plants and pots, custom fertilisers and suppliers, soil mixes, and daily email digests. Everything else (predictions, care tasks, the plot designer, companion planting, sharing) works on free.
A routine generates tasks when three conditions are met: you have an active plant of that type, the current month is within the routine's season window, and (if set) the plant is in the right lifecycle stage. If any condition isn't met, no task appears yet. It will once the conditions align.
Depends on the routine's frequency. Some repeat on a schedule (daily, weekly, monthly) and keep generating as you complete them. Others are one-time, triggered once by a stage change (like "net fruit trees when fruiting starts"). The system runs automatically.
A seasonal routine generates one task per year, with a time window instead of a fixed due date. For example, "Winter prune apple trees (Dec to Feb)" appears once winter starts and stays available until the window closes. You do it when the moment is right within that window. Once completed, it won't reappear until next year.
Yes. Open the plant's Tasks tab. Dismissed routines are listed under Previously dismissed, and Re-add starts their tasks again.
For seasonal plants, logging a stage moves that plant's later dates for this season to match. Each new season starts fresh from your local climate data, so nothing carries over. For permanent plants (trees, shrubs, perennials), the milestones you log, like bud break or first flowers, teach Leaftide next year's timing for that variety in your garden. Tapping "Not yet" on a prediction (a check-in) postpones it by 7 days.
Predictions use growing degree days, frost windows, and local temperature data based on your garden's coordinates. If something looks off, check Settings, then Garden, then Location & Climate. You can reset frost dates from historical data there, which recalculates your schedule. Logging what actually happens also moves a plant's later dates to match, and for trees and perennials it shapes next year's timing too.
Lifecycle Tracking gives you predictions, check-ins, and care tasks, and its dates follow what you log. Reference Only keeps the plant in your garden as a catalog entry with no predictions, no tasks, no tracking. Useful for plants you want to remember you have without actively managing. Switch between them anytime from the plant's settings.
If you log "Flowering failed" or "Fruiting failed", downstream predictions (fruit set, harvest) are cancelled for that year. The plant transitions to a "Growing" state, still healthy, just not producing this season. This doesn't affect future years' predictions.
Permanent plants persist across years automatically. When a new yearly plan is created, each permanent plant gets a fresh annual cycle with new predictions. You don't need to re-add them. Plants you've removed or cleared won't carry over.
Things in your garden that aren't plants but still need looking after, like a compost bin, worm farm, water butt, cold frame or hens. Each one gets its own timeline and recurring tasks, kept apart from plant care. Add them from Garden Extras, in the Care section of the menu.
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