Self-sufficient living, made doable
What can I grow — right where you are?
Growmanac turns your location and the space you have — a balcony, a windowsill, or a garden — into a dated plan: what to plant, when to sow and harvest, and the starter kit to begin. It works anywhere on Earth, free and with no signup. Guidance, not a guarantee.
Want the method behind it — how the dates are worked out, and what the plan cannot see? Read how the planner works →
How Growmanac grows
One place for self-sufficient living, built step by step — each part ships before the next.
Grow
nowWhat can I grow here — and when? The planner, live above.
Water
nextRainwater-harvesting sizing for your space.
Energy
nextOff-grid solar sizing — how many panels for you?
How it works out your dates
Most sowing calendars are written for a country, sometimes a single state. Follow one from the wrong place and you plant a month early and lose the lot. Growmanac starts from your location instead, and it does the same three things every time:
- It reads your actual climate record. Your browser asks Open-Meteo for a decade of daily temperatures where you are, and works out your likely last spring frost, first autumn frost, and how long the season between them runs. Not a zone guessed from a map — the record for your own coordinates.
- It matches crops to that season. Every crop carries what it needs: how many frost-free days to reach a harvest, whether a light frost kills it or sweetens it, whether it bolts in high summer. A crop only appears if your season can actually finish it.
- It counts backwards to give you dates. A harvest date is only useful if you know when to start, so the plan works back from your frost dates to a sowing window — and tells you plainly when a crop is already too late for this year.
Because the whole thing runs from your climate rather than your country, it works the same for a balcony in Lisbon and a field in New Zealand — and it flips the calendar without being asked if you are south of the equator.
Never grown anything? Start with these three
The most common reason a first attempt fails is not skill — it is starting with a plant that had no chance in the space available. Three moves make the first season much more likely to end in something edible.
- Count your sunlight before you buy anything. Watch the spot you actually have for one day and count the hours of direct sun. Under four hours rules out tomatoes and peppers no matter what the packet says, and rules in leaves and herbs — which is a good outcome, not a consolation prize.
- Pick one fast crop and one slow one. Radish gives you a result in about a month, which is long enough to learn and short enough to stay interested. Put something slow beside it and you have both a quick win and a season with an arc.
- Water by the soil, not by the calendar. Push a finger in to the second knuckle. Dry means water, damp means wait. More first-year plants die of kindness than of neglect, and containers are the least forgiving place of all.
What the planner cannot see
A dated plan is a starting point, not a promise, and the honest way to use one is to know where it stops. It works from your climate, so it cannot see your microclimate: a south-facing wall, an urban heat island or a frost pocket at the bottom of a slope can move your real dates by weeks. It does not know your soil, how deep your pots are, how much wind you get, or what this particular year will do. And it says nothing about whether anything is safe to eat — no foraging, no edibility, no medicinal claims, ever.
Treat the dates as a well-informed first draft and let your own season correct them. That is how the site is written too: it is built by one person who is learning this alongside you, and it gets fixed when a real season disagrees with it.
Grow it at home
Plant pages: what each one needs at a glance, and how to grow it in your space.
Arugula
The fastest salad leaf there is — peppery, up in a week, picked in a month.
Basil
The forgiving first herb — warm, sunny, quick. Pinch the tips often and one plant gives all season.
Cauliflower
The head is a flower caught before it opens — which is why steady water matters more than anything else.
Chili pepper
Heat and patience — a sunny spot, an early start, and a long warm season pay off in fruit.
Learn as you grow
Short, practical reads that make the planner make sense.
Common questions
What can I grow where I live?
That depends on your frost dates and how long your season runs, which is exactly what the planner works out. Give it your location and the space you have — a windowsill, a balcony or a garden — and it returns the crops your season can actually finish, each with a sowing window and a likely harvest date. It works anywhere on Earth, because it reads your own climate record rather than looking you up on a country map.
Do I need to know my growing zone first?
No. The planner works out what it needs from your location on its own. A hardiness zone is useful shorthand for how cold your winter gets, and you can look yours up with the growing-zone tool, but it is not something you have to bring with you — and on its own it would not be enough anyway, because a zone says nothing about how long your summer is.
Is it too late to start this year?
Usually not, and the planner will tell you rather than let you find out in August. Every crop is checked against the days left in your season, and anything that can no longer finish is marked as too late for this year instead of quietly recommended. If the main season has passed, fast crops like radish and salad leaves often still fit, and a windowsill has no season at all.
Does it work in the southern hemisphere?
Yes, and without being asked. The plan is built from your own frost dates rather than from a northern calendar, so a season that runs from September to April comes out the right way round. This is the reason the tool exists: nearly every free planting calendar assumes the United States, and following one from the wrong hemisphere gets you sowing at precisely the wrong time.
Is Growmanac free, and do I need an account?
Free, and there is no account to create. Nothing you type is sent to us, because there is nowhere to send it — the planner runs in your browser and we operate no database of visitors. The site is run by one person and pays for itself, if it ever does, through affiliate links that are marked as such and never buy their way into the advice.