Garden Planner: Paper, Spreadsheet or App

What a garden planner must hold

A garden planner has two jobs. It shows where each crop sits, and it tells you when to start it.

The map matters because a vegetable garden is a puzzle of space. Tall plants shade short ones, and the same crop family should not return to the same bed year after year. A 2004 University of Delaware Cooperative Extension fact sheet says a good gardener plans the garden on paper long before spring. It lists the same checks, such as keeping tall corn from shading beets and carrots and rotating crops so similar vegetables do not follow each other.

The dates matter because every crop has its own window. A map with no dates leaves you guessing in April.

A garden plan is a guess you can correct, as long as you write down what actually happened.

Paper plan: a pencil, graph paper and a scale

Paper costs a few sheets and a pencil. You can start tonight.

The Delaware fact sheet says a rough sketch will do, but it must be fairly accurate to be useful. It suggests drawing to scale at 1/8 inch to 1 foot. The sheet also says a small garden done well beats a large garden done poorly.

Here is the arithmetic that makes paper easier than it sounds. A Letter sheet with half-inch margins leaves a drawing area of 7.5 by 10 inches. At 1/8 inch per foot, 7.5 inches covers 60 feet and 10 inches covers 80 feet. A 4 by 8 foot bed becomes a rectangle half an inch by one inch.

Paper has a weak spot. Erasing a whole bed layout gets messy, so sketch once in pencil on scrap paper and copy the final version clean.

Spreadsheet plan: free, but you build it

A spreadsheet costs nothing if you already own one. The price is your evening.

You make a grid where each cell stands for a square foot, then color the cells and type crop names into them. A second tab can hold a list of crops with their dates. Moving a crop is quick, and copying last year's tab into next year's takes seconds.

The catch is the setup. You build the grid yourself, and you have to know your dates before you can fill them in. A spreadsheet also stays on a screen, so you usually carry a printout to the garden anyway.

App plan: free tools with a catch

Some apps are free, and some are published by extension services. The University of Kentucky says Kentucky gardeners can download a free tool called SOW. A University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension article describes a library of almost 40 common home garden vegetables, a My Garden area where you can design more than one garden, and a Journal for yield and harvest dates.

SOW is a real tool, and it is free. It is also written for Kentucky and based on the state's home vegetable guide. If you garden somewhere else, check your own state's extension site before you assume an app fits your climate.

An app suits you if you like planning on a phone and you have a signal in the yard. It suits you less if you want a sheet you can tape inside the shed.

What each garden planner costs and where it struggles

The table compares the three for a first vegetable garden.

Cost in money is small in all three. Cost in attention is the real difference, so choose the one that fits how you already work.

How to plan a garden layout in five moves

The order matters more than the tool. Follow it on paper, in a spreadsheet or in an app.

Start by measuring the space you actually have. Then note where the sun falls, because the Delaware sheet advises locating the garden away from trees and buildings for maximum sunlight.

Draw the beds next, with paths between them. Place crops by family, tall ones on the side where they will not shade short ones. Last, write a date beside every row.

How much to plant for your household

Decide quantities before you draw beds. A Kansas State University guide lists an approximate planting per person: 3 to 5 tomato plants, 3 to 5 pepper plants, 15 to 16 feet of snap bush beans and 10 feet of leaf lettuce. For two people that is 6 to 10 tomato plants (3 × 2 and 5 × 2). Write the number on the plan, then draw beds big enough to hold it.

Dates from your last frost date

Pick a date for each crop by counting back from your last frost. A University of New Hampshire Extension post says tomato seeds start indoors six to eight weeks before the last frost. With a last frost of May 15, six weeks back is April 3 and eight weeks back is March 20. Write "March 20 to April 3" beside the tomato row, and do the same for each crop.

Your first plan will be wrong in places. That is normal, and the record you keep this year fixes it next year.

Some fixes cannot wait for next year. If seedlings come up crowded, thin them, because the University of Maryland says failure to thin seedlings will stunt plant growth and reduce the harvest. If an early crop ends and leaves a gap, a University of Maryland page describes succession planting as planting seeds or transplants in spots vacated by spent plants. Cross out the old crop on your map and write the new one and its date in the same square.

Keep records so next year's garden planner is better

A plan without notes forgets everything. A 2023 Penn State Extension article says to draw diagrams of your garden beds. The author records the date and location where each vegetable was planted so crop rotation is easy to follow.

An Iowa State University Extension page from 2025 lists what to write down. It names planting dates, planting locations, harvest dates, harvest amounts, garden maps and garden dimensions. Those notes let you see which plants thrived and which struggled.

You do not need a fancy system. One page per bed, with a map at the top and a line for each planting, covers it.

Cases where graph paper and a calendar are all you need

Match the tool to how you work before you spend an evening on any of them.

Paper does not suit everyone. If you want reminders on your phone, a plan that two people edit at once, or a layout you can drag around on a screen, an app or a shared spreadsheet is the better choice.

You may also not need to buy anything. If your state extension office publishes a planting calendar that fits your county, a sheet of graph paper plus that calendar costs almost nothing and may be all you need.

The printable kits in The Garden Year bundle are paper, not an app. They fit gardeners who want to print a plan, write on it and keep it in a binder, and any US zone works because the dates count from your own last-frost date. In winter you fill in the Winter Plan's bed plans, drawn with 1 inch standing for 1 foot, and its 28 by 32 foot plot graph at 1/4 inch to the foot. In summer you use the Season Record's planting log and harvest tally, and in fall you write the verdicts and carry them forward to next winter.