Manual › Your garden

A vegetable garden: beds, crops and your plan

Keeping a vegetable garden with beds and crops, a plan for sowing, planting out and harvesting, good companions, crop rotation and the crop sheet.

A vegetable garden has no map: you work with beds and with what grows in them, the crops. Bladwijzer suggests when to sow, plant out and harvest, and puts every step in your calendar.

#Creating a vegetable garden

1. Under My gardens, choose New garden.
2. Choose Vegetable garden and give it a name, e.g. “Allotment” or “Behind the garage”.
3. Choose Create.

An allotment or school garden that you look after together? Then also tick Community garden (see Community gardens).

#Everything on one page

Like a garden, a vegetable garden sits entirely on one page, with small buttons at the top, one per section (and further down the page, the Sections button at the bottom right). Open shows a section on a screen of its own. The sections, from top to bottom:

• Today: To do and your tasks;
• Your vegetable garden: your beds with what grows in them, what you can sow or plant this month, and the plan by month (the Sowing calendar button);
• Maintenance: the log (the button shows the number of open problems) and Jobs;
• Sun, soil and weather: the compass, the soil and the weather;
• Nature: the nature score, flowering and Good for wildlife;
• Together and sustainable: Rain barrel and compost, and the work days in a community garden;
• Outline and settings: Reminders and sharing.

#Beds

Choose Bed to create a bed:

For each bed you can see what’s growing in it now, with tips about companions and crop rotation. Use the pencil to edit a bed; you can also delete it there. Whatever is growing in it stays in your vegetable garden, under Not in a bed.

Beds are optional: you can also add crops straight away.

#Adding a crop

1. Choose Crop above your beds, or the plus button on a bed.
2. Under What?, search for what you want to grow. You can choose from:
   • about 60 vegetables and herbs and 36 flowers;
   • your own seeds from My seeds (these come first, marked from your seeds);
   • or a name of your own: type it and choose Use “…”.
3. If you like, fill in the variety, the bed and how much (e.g. “2 rows” or “6 plants”).
4. Check the plan (see below) and change whatever you want.
5. Choose Add.

Below the crop you’ll see the sun it needs, the spacing and its family. More about … opens the crop sheet.

#The plan

Bladwijzer suggests the dates from the crop’s months, or from those of your own seeds: Sow indoors, Sow outdoors, Plant out, Harvest from and Harvest until.

• The suggestion is the earliest possible start from today: sowing indoors, sowing outdoors or planting straight away, whichever comes first.
• Planting out comes at least four weeks after sowing indoors.
• The harvest starts after the number of days the crop needs, and runs until the end of its harvest months.

If you add tomatoes in October, Bladwijzer suggests: sow indoors on 15 March, plant out on 15 May and harvest from 24 July until the end of October.

Change any date as you like, or clear it. Suggest again works the suggestion out again, e.g. after you’ve chosen a different crop or seed. Every step appears under To do, in the Plan by month, in your calendar and in your morning reminder.

Water every … days is already filled in with what the crop needs. The reminder starts as soon as you’ve sown or planted. Clear the field if you don’t want a reminder.

#Sown, planted, harvested

Each crop shows the button for its next step:

You can add a note and photos. They go into the log with today’s date. The label on each crop shows where it’s at: planned, sown, growing or harvesting.

Too much harvest? For a crop you’re harvesting, the basket (Share your harvest) puts it on the noticeboard, to give away to people nearby.

Finished crops are listed under Finished crops. They’re kept for two years, for crop rotation. So rather than deleting a crop that’s over, mark it as Finished (or choose Crop finished in the crop’s window).

#Companions and crop rotation

On each bed, and in a crop’s window, Bladwijzer gives tips about what grows together in a bed:

• Good companions, e.g. carrot and onion: the smell of one keeps the other’s pests away.
• Better not side by side, e.g. onion and pea, or tomato and potato.
• Crop rotation: if a crop from the same family grew in that bed in a previous year (e.g. the nightshades: tomato, potato, pepper), you’ll see a warning. Try to change family every year: diseases and pests then get less of a chance.

Crop rotation looks at the crops you marked as Finished. Perennials (such as rhubarb or asparagus) don’t count.

#The crop sheet

Tap the i button on a crop, or more about … in its window, for everything about the crop:

• the months for sowing indoors, sowing, planting and harvesting (for flowers, also when they flower);
• sun or shade, how much water and how often, the spacing and the family;
• how deep to sow, the temperature at which the seed germinates and how long it takes to come up, or how deep to plant a bulb or tuber;
• sowing and planting, care, harvesting and tips;
• Good companions and Best kept away from;
• Good for: the animals that benefit from it, such as bees, bumblebees or butterflies (see Good for wildlife);
• Watch out for: common problems, such as aphids or slugs;
• the Poisonous label if the plant, or part of it, is poisonous.

#The sowing calendar

The sowing calendar shows month by month what to sow indoors, sow outdoors, plant out and harvest, with for each crop how deep to sow, the temperature at which the seed germinates and how many days it takes to come up. Tap a crop for its crop sheet. Below that is what you can pick that month, with what you pick (fruit, berries, leaves, flowers…):

• To pick from trees and shrubs: the trees and shrubs in the guide, and the trees, shrubs, fruit plants and climbers from the catalogue with an Edible and useful section (such as strawberry tree, feijoa, Japanese quince and kumquat);
• To pick from perennials and herbs: the perennials, bulbs and perennial herbs from the catalogue (such as wild garlic, mint, thyme, sorrel, daylily, violets and saffron crocus).

Everything is in order of name; when two plants share a name (snowy mespilus), the scientific name is added. A long list shows part of it first: tap Show all for the rest. Each plant links to Edible and useful on its page, with the recipes and the warnings (see Edible plants and recipes). Annual herbs and flowers (borage, basil), roots you dig up (horseradish) and plants you do not eat (southernwood) are not included.

At the bottom are the basics of sowing and harvesting: sowing depth, sowing indoors, pricking out, hardening off, storing seed and when to harvest. You also find the sowing calendar on the home page and in the vegetable garden, under What can you sow or plant?.

#To do and the plan by month

• At the top you’ll find To do: what needs doing over the next four weeks (sowing, planting out, harvesting, watering and your tasks). See To do.
• The Plan by month (the Sowing calendar button at the top) shows every step for the next 12 months. Add to your calendar takes you to your calendar.
• Your tasks sit below To do. The log, Good for wildlife, the jobs and Reminders and sharing each have their place further down the page: see To do, log and problems.

#Who can do what?

• Adding, changing or deleting beds and crops: the owner and anyone with the Edit role.
• Marking sown, planted and harvested, watering, tasks and the log: also the tree surgeon and the participants of a community garden.
• Anyone with the View role sees everything but can’t change anything.

Updated on 2026-10-10