Beet

Drag out fields, see neighbours, check sowing spots: the calendar follows your frost dates, in the lowlands and in the mountains.

Beet is a garden planner for iPad and iPhone. Draw your beds, place plants from the catalogue and get a sowing and harvest calendar for your location.

What the app does

• Add beds, raised beds, pots and greenhouses in centimetres
• Tap plants in, drag them onto the grid or drag out a whole field with the brush; matching fields next to each other grow together
• Tap an empty square and what fits there comes first: good neighbours, no family from last year, suited to light and season
• Select a plant and its good neighbours light up blue, the bad ones red
• Sowing spots show exactly where each plant goes
• Paths, stepping stones, trellises, fleece, netting and partial shade on the grid; the app warns when something is hard to reach or a trellis is missing
• The calendar shows when to start indoors, sow, plant out and harvest each plant
• This week's tasks also show on the beds; done or postponed moves the next dates along
• The shopping list tells you which seeds, young plants and onion sets you need by when
• Optional notifications remind you on the day of a task

YOUR LOCATION Every date is relative to the last spring frost and the first autumn frost. On first launch you enter the altitude of your garden, the app suggests both frost dates and you can adjust them. That way the calendar fits the lowlands as well as a garden at 1000 metres.

THE CATALOGUE 171 vegetables, herbs, flowers and cover crops with spacing, days to harvest, feeding needs, plant family and neighbours: tomato, sweet pepper, courgette, carrot, beetroot, lettuce, leek, basil and more. Each plant has its own picture in the style of old seed catalogues. At the top you see what to sow and plant now. If a plant is missing, add your own.

BEET PRO One bed and everything else are free. Beet Pro is a one-time unlock, no subscription:

• as many beds as you like
• succession sowing: one spot, several harvests a year, with a month view
• crop rotation across the years, with a suggested plan for the new year
• a journal with notes and harvests for each planting
• custom plants
• iCloud on iPhone and iPad
• AR: measure a bed with the camera, lay the plan onto the soil, see where every seed goes

PRIVACY There is no account and no analytics. Your beds stay on the device and, with Beet Pro, in your own iCloud. The app works without an internet connection.