Smart gardener - simply grow great food

The first item in the menu bar at the top right of your screen is a small icon of a house. Click this if you ever want to go to our home page.

Click the New button to the right of your current garden name at the very top of any page. A window will open titled Create a new Garden. Type in a garden name and select the season for the garden. You can also choose to use the layouts and/or plants from one of your current gardens. Just click on the pull-down and select your desired garden. Check off the option to copy the layout, plants or both.

Yes. You can have as many gardens as you want. All your gardens are available to you at any time. Just click on the triangle to the right of a Garden's name. You will see a list of all your gardens displayed in a pulldown.

Click the Edit button to the right of your current garden name at the very top of any page. A new window will appear titled Edit this Garden. Type in the new name of the garden and click Save.

Click the Edit button to the right of your current Garden name at the very top of any page. A window will open titled Edit this Garden. Click on the button that says, Delete this Garden, clearly marked in red. By clicking on this button you will be asked Are you sure? Select OK and your garden will be deleted.

Whenever you see a plus +, it means that more information on that topic will be displayed when you click on it. Clicking on the minus - will hide that block of information. 

When searching plants in Recommended Plants, Browse Plants, or Filter Plants, each plant’s variety will be shown as a blue link. Click on the plant variety and it will take you to the Plant Guide for that variety.

Click the Shopping List icon on the right side of the plant guide. The icon will change to yellow and the plant will be added to your Shopping List.

The Shopping List is located under your username in the top right hand corner of the webpage. Click the link and it will show you the plants you’ve added to your Shopping List.

Go to Shopping List, located under your username in the top right corner of any page. Click the link and find the plant that you would like to eliminate from the shopping list. Under the column QTY, there is an X. Click the X and it will ask, "Are you sure?" Choose OK and the plant will be deleted from the Shopping List.

Click the heart icon on the right side of the plant guide. The icon will change to red and the plant will be added to your Favorites list.

There is a link entitled Favorites at the top right hand side of any page. Click the link and you will see all the plants that you have tagged as favorites. The plants in your Favorites can be added to any one of your gardens at any time by clicking on the leaf icon.

The Share button located to the right of your garden name allows you to let others view your garden and see the layout and the plants that you have growing. When you choose to Share your garden, you are inviting people to be inspired by it and to be able to search for it, copy it whole, or copy parts of it for their own use. You can upload a garden photo, write a description, and add tags that pop up when others search using specific keywords.

A Signature Garden is a garden that a Smart Gardener member has chosen to share with the rest of the community. Some of our members are expert chefs and gardeners whose Signature Gardens make inspirational samples for plant combinations and layouts. You can copy an entire garden or add plants from a Signature Garden into your own garden.

Click on your username in green at the top right side of any page. Next click the Gardener Profile tab. You can change your name, about me, picture, and other personal information here.

There are 3 steps you need to know. All 3 are under the PLAN menu. 1. Go to Garden Layout. Drag and drop your garden beds to indicate where and how much sq. footage you have. 2. Select one or all the options for selecting plants - recommend, browse, filter. When you find a plant you want to save to your garden, click on the leaf icon to the right of the heart and bag icon for each variety. This leaf icon will turn green indicating you have saved it to your garden. If you want to see the plants you saved to your garden, or adjust the recommended amount of plantings, go to Plants in this Garden. 3. At any point, once you start collecting your plants, you can go to your Smart Garden Plan to see how they are laying out (we do it for you) or move them yourself by dragging and dropping them.

If you don't want a plant to move from the position you gave it, lock it via the plant pulldown - especially if you want us to "Recommend" the layout of the rest of the plants.

Once you have done that, you will start to receive Weekly To Dos, which you can see under the GROW menu.

Click on Settings at the top right side of any page. Next click the Gardener Profile tab. You can change your name, about me, picture, and other personal information here.

Click on your username in green at the top right side of any page. Next click the Gardener Profile tab. You can change your name, about me, picture, and other personal information here.

Click on your username in green at the top right side of any page. Next click the Account tab. Down the page, you will see a Smart Add On link. Click on that to see all your Add Ons and any actions you can take on them.

Click on your name in the upper right hand corner. You will see your Account tabs. Click on the Garden Settings tab. To the right of the date listed as your first and last frost dates is a little calendar icon. Click on that and select a new frost date.

Go to Garden Settings under the Plan tab or the Settings link in the upper right hand corner of any page. At the bottom of the Garden Settings page, select the pull-down to adjust the number of Adults and/or Kids in your household.

Go to Garden Settings under the Plan tab or from the Settings link in the upper right hand corner of any page. At the top are fields for Your Location. Type in a new zip code and/or city. This change may affect your growing conditions and, consequently, your existing gardens' plants and growing schedules will be altered.

Long seasons are considered 70 days or more and short growing seasons are 70 days or less.

No problem. There are lots of places that don't really have frost dates. That usually means you can grow some form of vegetable year round. We have a special calculation which accounts for that and will still give you the right dates to plan, plant and harvest your garden. You just won't see the little indicators in the Seasonal Schedule view that would indicate your frost dates.

Because we base all our recommendations and To Dos on the growing conditions of your location, we would recommend you have two separate accounts - one for State A and one for State B. The reason for this is that each account is associated with your zip code and the growing conditions profile of that region. Based on this, both your gardens can't really be in one account if you want accurate gardening schedules and To Dos.

You cannot (as of now) predefine your over all gardening space. We will correct this - it's on our list - to have you enter your overall dimensions ahead of time. But today, you simply drag and drop you planting beds onto the grid within the "area" that fits the size of your overall garden.

If you want to change the size of any of your beds, hover your mouse over the right or bottom edges of the bed until the cursor turns in to an arrow.. You can also resize both width and length at the same time by using the far lower right corner. Just grab it with your cursor and enlarge or reduce the whole size of the bed at once.

Hover your mouse over the bed and the Edit Shape pop up will appear. Click on the Rotate button and the bed will flip from horizontal to vertical.

Hover your mouse over the bed and the Edit Shape pop-up will appear. You can click on the Copy button, which will create a new bed that will be highlighted in green.

Hover your mouse over the red triangle in the upper right hand corner of the bed. A pulldown will appear. Then select Delete to eliminate that bed.

Hover your mouse over the red triangle in the upper right hand corner of the bed. A pulldown will appear. Then select Delete to eliminate that bed.

We allow you to create a 150 ft. x 150 ft garden. Our interface is like Google Maps.

1. Place the "hand" cursor anywhere on the blue grid area, click and move your cursor to move the entire area around to reveal the larger space.

2. In the lower right hand corner, click on and move the small red outlined view area to see a different area within the 150' x 150' space.

When you are on your Garden Layout, click one of the categories on the far left, like "Raised Beds". Once it "opens",  click on one of the beds and drag it over onto the grid. You can change the shape or size by pulling the lower right hand corner of the shape or by hovering over the right hand  or bottom edge until your cursor changes to an arrow. Then move it until it's where you want it.

There are 3 steps you need to know. All 3 are under the PLAN menu. 1. Go to Garden Layout. Drag and drop your garden beds to indicate where and how much sq. footage you have. 2. Select one or all the options for selecting plants - recommend, browse, filter. When you find a plant you want to save to your garden, click on the leaf icon to the right of the heart and bag icon for each variety. This leaf icon will turn green indicating you have saved it to your garden. 3. At any point, once you start collecting your plants, you can go to your Smart Garden Plan to see how they are laying out (we do it for you) or move them yourself by dragging and dropping them.

If you don't want a plant to move from the position you gave it, lock it via the plant pulldown - especially if you want us to "Recommend" the layout of the rest of the plants.

Once you have done that, you will start to receive Weekly To Dos, which you can see under the GROW menu.

If all your gardens together are too big for one area (which can be as big as 120 ft x120 ft) then we suggest you make an additional garden(s). Just click on "new" to the right of your plant name at the top to get started.

Sun orientation is established when you layout out your garden beds and you tell us which direction is north ( on the left hand side panel). After that when Smart Gardener lays out your plants for you in your Smart garden Plan, orientation is taken into account, putting the tallest plants to the north.

Scaling options are at the top, above the blue garden grid. Both work just like Google Maps. The round "button" lets you move side to side or up and down, depending on the arrow you click. The horizontal "Zoom" bar lets you zoom in and out of the view of your garden.

Click on the leaf icon on the right hand side of the plant "card" (to the right of the Heart and the Shopping Bag). The plant will be added to your garden and the leaf icon will change to green. The border around the Plant Guide will also remain bright green as long as that plant remains in your garden.

While it may be easier to just pick a "tomato" or "lettuce" to plant, this really impacts the value that you get from the service. It turns out that there are alot of differences between varieties. If you just want a tomato, what is that? Indeterminate or determinant? Do you want a tomato for making sauce or slicing on a sandwich? Do you have certain growing conditions that mean you need a tomato that can grow fast and be tolerant to bit of cold? Our goal is to give you the most appropriate and accurate solution possible for your growing conditions, so we can serve up the right To Dos for you at the right time. That's why selecting a variety over generic increases your chances of growing the right vegetables and succeeding at it.

You are right - we have a lot of plants! To get less choices, we would suggest you go to the "Filter" option under the PLAN menu. By checking off your criteria, this will help to narrow down your options.

When searching plants in Recommended Plants, Browse Plants, or Filter Plants, each plant’s variety will be shown as a blue link. Click on the plant variety and it will take you to the Plant Guide for that variety.

Click on Select Plants/Recommended Plants below the Plan tab. Then click on the colored bar that represent the growing conditions you are planning for. Specific plants will be listed below for that growing season.

When you get plant results from "Recommended Plants" or "Browse", you will see a pull down in the upper right corner of the list. Select "Seasonal Schedule" from that list. This will show you all your planting times so you can see what can be planted now.

You don't have to pick multiple of plants. Once you pick a variety, go to your "Plants in this Garden" list. You will see below each variety the recommended number of plants based on the size of your household. If you want to adjust that number to better suit your tastes, you certainly can. The number showing will be the number of plants you will see laid out for you in your Smart Garden Plan.

You sure can! While we are constantly adding new varieties, we know there are plenty you would like to see in here.

1. Go to "Create a new Variety" under the PLAN menu.

2. Choose the Category, then Type, then Variety that most closely resembles the Variety you want to add.

3. You will see a button called "Create a new Variety" under the far right part of the Browse area where you select your variety. Click on it.

4. A "form" for your new Variety appears below, based on the Variety you chose that seems closest to the new Variety you want to add. This form lets you change the photo, description, days to maturity and the height of the plant. The only thing that is required for you to change is the name of the Variety. The rest is optional, although it's good to put in as accurate information as you can.

5. Now that you have made this new Variety, two things happen. First, everyone can see this Variety, just like any other plant in our inventory. Secondly, Smart Gardener is constantly on the lookout to see if we can find that Variety from our partners. If we do, we make your Variety into a plant with a vendor, price and all the most accurate information we can get about that plant.

Go to "Recommend Plants" or "Browse Plants" under the PLAN menu. When you get a list of results, just go to the upper right hand corner above the list. Select "Seasonal Schedule" from the pulldown. Now you will see the planting schedules for all those plants, according to your growing conditions. Where ever you see a light blue bar, that is when you should be starting the seeds indoors. A dark green bar means you can start them outdoors. This will give you quick idea of what you have time to start this season.

Click on the leaf icon on the right hand side of the plant "card" (to the right of the Heart and the Shopping Bag). The plant will be added to your garden and the leaf icon will change to green. The border around the Plant Guide will also remain bright green as long as that plant remains in your garden.

While it may be easier to just pick a "tomato" or "lettuce" to plant, this really impacts the value that you get from the service. It turns out that there are alot of differences between varieties. If you just want a tomato, what is that? Indeterminate or determinant? Do you want a tomato for making sauce or slicing on a sandwich? Do you have certain growing conditions that mean you need a tomato that can grow fast and be tolerant to bit of cold? Our goal is to give you the most appropriate and accurate solution possible for your growing conditions, so we can serve up the right To Dos for you at the right time. That's why selecting a variety over generic increases your chances of growing the right vegetables and succeeding at it.

You sure can! While we are constantly adding new varieties, we know there are plenty you would like to see in here.

1. Go to "Create a new Variety" under the PLAN menu.

2. Choose the Category, then Type, then Variety that most closely resembles the Variety you want to add.

3. You will see a button called "Create a new Variety" under the far right part of the Browse area where you select your variety. Click on it.

4. A "form" for your new Variety appears below, based on the Variety you chose that seems closest to the new Variety you want to add. This form lets you change the photo, description, days to maturity and the height of the plant. The only thing that is required for you to change is the name of the Variety. The rest is optional, although it's good to put in as accurate information as you can.

5. Now that you have made this new Variety, two things happen. First, everyone can see this Variety, just like any other plant in our inventory. Secondly, Smart Gardener is constantly on the lookout to see if we can find that Variety from our partners. If we do, we make your Variety into a plant with a vendor, price and all the most accurate information we can get about that plant.

You are right - we have a lot of plants! To get less choices, we would suggest you go to the "Filter" option under the PLAN menu. By checking off your criteria, this will help to narrow down your options.

Go to "Browse" under the PLAN menu. Click on the orange triangle to the left of the title "Vegetables". A pulldown will display the other plants to view. Click one of them to see the list of those plants.

When searching plants in Recommended Plants, Browse Plants, or Filter Plants, each plant’s variety will be shown as a blue link. Click on the plant variety and it will take you to the Plant Guide for that variety.

You will be able to find herbs by looking at the Recommended Plants, which will show you herbs that grow in your growing season. 

The other way is to go to Browse under the PLAN menu. Click on the orange triangle to the left of the title "Vegetables". A pulldown will display the other plants to view. Click one of them to see the list of those plants.

Yes. You can purchase plants at your local nursery, use seeds you've collected or build a vegetable garden plan around a core group of plants you already have in the ground.

If you're going to supply your own seeds or transplants, you can create your garden plan by selecting varieties of plants that are similar to the ones you want to grow and use these as placeholders in your layout.

This will also help us determine the best placement for each plant category in your vegetable bed. We will then send you planting, growing and harvesting tasks for all the plants you've included in your plan.

You sure can! While we are constantly adding new varieties, we know there are plenty you would like to see in here.

1. Go to "Create a new Variety" under the PLAN menu.

2. Choose the Category, then Type, then Variety that most closely resembles the Variety you want to add.

3. You will see a button called "Create a new Variety" under the far right part of the Browse area where you select your variety. Click on it.

4. A "form" for your new Variety appears below, based on the Variety you chose that seems closest to the new Variety you want to add. This form lets you change the photo, description, days to maturity and the height of the plant. The only thing that is required for you to change is the name of the Variety. The rest is optional, although it's good to put in as accurate information as you can.

5. Now that you have made this new Variety, two things happen. First, everyone can see this Variety, just like any other plant in our inventory. Secondly, Smart Gardener is constantly on the lookout to see if we can find that Variety from our partners. If we do, we make your Variety into a plant with a vendor, price and all the most accurate information we can get about that plant.

When you get plant results from "Recommended Plants" or "Browse", you will see a pull down in the upper right corner of the list. Select "Seasonal Schedule" from that list. This will show you all your planting times so you can see what can be planted now.

You don't have to pick multiple of plants. Once you pick a variety, go to your "Plants in this Garden" list. You will see below each variety the recommended number of plants based on the size of your household. If you want to adjust that number to better suit your tastes, you certainly can. The number showing will be the number of plants you will see laid out for you in your Smart Garden Plan.

Go to "Recommend Plants" or "Browse Plants" under the PLAN menu. When you get a list of results, just go to the upper right hand corner above the list. Select "Seasonal Schedule" from the pulldown. Now you will see the planting schedules for all those plants, according to your growing conditions. Where ever you see a light blue bar, that is when you should be starting the seeds indoors. A dark green bar means you can start them outdoors. This will give you quick idea of what you have time to start this season.

Once you have saved some plants to your "Plants in this Garden" list, just go to "Smart Garden Plan" and you will see that Smart Gardener will try to optimize the layout of the plants you have. You can go collect more plants, change them, or edit quantities. The when you go back to Smart Garden Plan, you will be asked to click on the "Recommend" button to see an updated layout. If you have "locked" any plants down on the Smart Garden Plant, clicking the Recommend button will not move them.

This space designates the time for the seeds to germinate indoors before planting outside.

Go ahead and add the plant to your Plant list. • If it's an annual and you should have already planted it, when you go to the Weekly To Dos, it will ask you for the date of planting. • If it's an annual and you should have already planted it, when you go to the Weekly To Dos, it will ask you for the year of planting. In both cases, you can change dates at any time in your Journal. Any To Dos in the future will be affected by that date change,

These two triangles represent your personal first and last frost dates of the year.

The Adjustor is now under "Plants in my Garden". It made sense to let you adjust your plants before making a Smart Garden, so you didn't have to see the results for the first time laid out, but instead could tweek quantities ahead of time.

We have discovered this has to with your zoom level. You must reset your zoom level to the default (zoom is set to far left) before you leave the page. Google Maps evidently has the same issues. It is dependent on certain browsers. We are looking into how to solve this. Sorry.

We allow you to create a 150 ft. x 150 ft garden. Our interface is like Google Maps

1. Place the "hand" cursor anywhere on the blue grid area, click and move your cursor to move the entire area around to reveal the larger space.

2. In the lower right hand corner, click on and move the small red outlined view area to see a different area within the 150' x 150' space.

We allow you to create a 150 ft. x 150 ft garden. Our interface is like Google Maps

1. Place the "hand" cursor anywhere on the blue grid area, click and move your cursor to move the entire area around to reveal the larger space.

2. In the lower right hand corner, click on and move the small red outlined view area to see a different area within the 150' x 150' space.

Right now, the way put plants in your Garden is: 1. Select the plants you want using Browse, Filters, Etc. You can review you list at any time, by going to "Plants in my Garden" under the PLAN menu. 2. Now go to Step #3 and select "Smart Garden Plan". You will see you plants laid out in the beds you specified in your Garden Layout. This layout is based on Smart Gardener's best recommendation on where the plants should go, given your garden's orientation to the sun, the height of plants, their crop rotation, etc. If you want to change this around, feel free. Just drag and drop them where you want them to go.

To "plant" them, select your plants by "saving" them to your "Plants in this Garden" via the little green leaf icon to the lower right of every plant.

Once you have your list, go to the Smart Garden Plan under the PLAN menu. It will layout our your garden for you. You can then drag and drop and customize as much as you want.

On the My Smart Garden Plan page, you will see a square frame on the lower right hand side of the screen. Click inside the red window, and drag the window to different areas of your garden to view that section in the large blue grid below.

Click the green leaf icon on the right side of the plant guide. A pop up will appear and ask Are you sure? If you are sure, click okay and the plant will be removed from the garden plan.

The Adjustor is now under "Plants in my Garden". It made sense to let you adjust your plants before making a Smart Garden, so you didn't have to see the results for the first time laid out, but instead could tweek quantities ahead of time.

When looking at the To Do List, click on the plus sign next to the activity. This will bring up more information about the particular activity. Also if you desire to see all the details of the To Do List, click on the blue link to the right of the week’s date that says, Show All Details. This will display all the week's tasks in depth.

Go to the Weekly To Dos under the Grow tab and click on the checkbox next to the words To Do to the far right of the activity. The activity will be marked Done! and display the date it was completed. Click on the blue date if you want to change the completion date for that To Do.

When looking at the To Do List, click on the Calendar icon to the right of the date. The Calendar will pop up to let you select a different week and navigate forward and backwards by month. If the dates in a week are red, this indicates there are To Dos for that week.

We don't expose all "To Dos" right away for two reasons... 1. It would be overwhelming 2. Some of them are triggered by you checking off your To Dos - so we have a better sense of timing based on milestones.

If you when you start our service some of you To Dos should have already been done, we need to know when you planted that plant so we know how and when to display the To Dos. Until you tell us you planted those yellow onions (in the past) we can't show you To Dos for them because we don't know where to put the To Dos based on your planting date.

Your Journal will automatically display any "To Dos" you have checked off in your Weekly To Dos. To view them, Click on "Notes" for each plant.

It works the other way around too. If you click on a calendar and select a date, you will see that To Do checked off in your Weekly To Dos as well.

It's important to record the dates for varieties you have already planted. To give you the correct To Dos, Smart Gardener needs you to bring your Garden Journal up to date so we can catch up on what you have planted so far. Click on the calendar icon to select a date and year.

The pop up calendar is a multi-year calendar. Just click backwards until you get to the month and year you want.

To change the dates for the major To Dos on the Journal, just click on the small Calendar icon.

Click on Journal under the Grow tab. Go to the plant that you would like to journal about and click on the blue link to the far right that says Add. A new window will open that allows you to write a journal entry and photo, if desired.

To add additional notes or photos, click the "Add" button to the right of each plant.

Click the New button to the right of your current garden name at the very top of any page. A window will open titled Create a new Garden. Type in a garden name and select the season for the garden. You can also choose to use the layouts and/or plants from one of your current gardens. Just click on the pull-down and select your desired garden. Check off the option to copy the layout, plants or both.

Click the New button to the right of your current garden name at the very top of any page. A window will open titled Create a new Garden. Type in a garden name and select the season for the garden. You can also choose to use the layouts and/or plants from one of your current gardens. Just click on the pull-down and select your desired garden. Check off the option to copy the layout, plants or both.

Select Share to the right of the name of your garden at the top left of the screen. The default for your garden is always Private until you choose to make it Public. Add a brief description of what's in the garden and include tags (e.g., warm season, heat tolerant, greens, herbs) that help others find it. You can also include a photo.