Plan your garden before you plant it.
Niwa is the garden planner app for iPhone that draws your raised beds on a square foot grid, flags companion-planting conflicts while you place each crop, and turns your local frost dates into a planting calendar for every plant in the bed.
From empty bed to planting schedule in three steps
No account, no setup wizard, no subscription wall before you can try it.
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Draw the bed you actually have
Enter your bed size — 4×4, 4×8, a long border, or a custom shape — and Niwa lays a one-foot grid over it. Add as many beds and gardens as you like and switch between them.
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Drop in plants and let the grid do the maths
Pick from 200+ vegetables, herbs, fruit and flowers. Niwa fills the square with the right number of plants automatically — 16 carrots, 4 lettuce, 1 broccoli — and shows a green or red dot between neighbours so you catch companion conflicts before planting day.
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Get a calendar built around your frost dates
Niwa reads your location, finds your last and first frost, and gives every crop in the bed its own sow, transplant and harvest window on a month-by-month timeline.
Built for people who plan the whole bed
Square foot grid, counted for you
Every square shows how many plants fit at the correct spacing. No spacing chart to look up, no mental arithmetic. See the square foot planner.
Companion conflicts, live
Green dots for pairings that help each other, red dots for the ones to keep apart — shown between squares as you plant. How companion mode works.
Your frost dates, not a generic chart
A personal calendar keyed to your last and first frost, with a timeline per crop. See the planting calendar.
Raised beds of any size
4×4, 4×8, 2×8, narrow borders, containers. Set the dimensions and the grid follows. Raised bed planner.
200+ plants, offline
Vegetables, herbs, fruit, flowers and grains — 77 flowers and 28 fruits among them — each with spacing and growing notes, all stored on device.
Multiple gardens
Keep the back garden, the allotment and the balcony containers as separate plans and switch between them instantly.
Diary and seed inventory
Log what you sowed with photos, and track which seed packets you already own so you stop buying duplicates.
Worldwide zones
USDA hardiness zones in the US, and location-derived frost dates for the UK, Canada, Australia and Europe.
Private by default
No account, no cloud sync, no tracking. Your plans live on your phone and nowhere else.
Most garden planners are desktop tools squeezed onto a phone
Niwa was drawn for a 6-inch screen from the first sketch. That changes what you can do standing in the garden.
| What you want to do | Niwa | Typical web planner |
|---|---|---|
| Plan a bed on your phone in the garden | Native iPhone app | Desktop-first, cramped on mobile |
| Work with no signal at the allotment | Full offline | Needs a connection |
| Try it without handing over an email | No account | Sign-up required |
| See companion conflicts while placing plants | On the grid, live | Separate chart to cross-check |
| Get dates from your own frost, not a zone average | Location-based | Often a generic zone table |
Comparing specific apps? Almanac Garden Planner · GrowVeg · Seed to Spoon · Planter
What gardeners say on the App Store
A gardening app the way it should be
“I’m extremely pleased with this gardening planning app. This app is well thought out, well designed, and spam free. I’m enjoying planning my vegetable garden using this new app. It is perfect for using the square foot gardening method because it draws the grids. I especially love how it recognizes companion plants and USDA zones.”
Great app with more coming
“I found this app through Reddit and even though it’s in its early stages, it has a ton to offer. I’m a professional gardener and this is very similar to how I layout gardens using square footage. The developer is very open to suggestions and I’ve passed on a few and they have been very receptive.”
Very solid home garden planner
“This is a very solid home garden planner that provides a lot of features which seem to be missing from other similar apps. The plant information section and planting calendar alone are worth the download.”
Wonderful
“I’m really enjoying this app. It’s easy to use and very well laid out. The developer is very kind and responsive to feedback.”
Great so far!
“This app is amazing so far! I found it through Reddit and thought I would check it out. I will come back and do a more detailed review after I’ve used it awhile.”
Use these right here, no download needed
Every number these tools give you is the same maths Niwa runs inside the app.
Plants per square foot
How many of each crop fit in one square — for 60+ vegetables and herbs.
Raised bed soil calculator
Cubic feet, litres and bags needed to fill any bed, plus a Mel's Mix split.
Plant spacing calculator
Turn a spacing in inches into a real plant count for your bed size.
Frost date & zone lookup
Find your last spring frost, first autumn frost and growing season length.
Common questions
Is Niwa free to use?
Yes. Niwa is free to download from the App Store, and the core planner — the garden grid, the plant library and the planting calendar — works without paying. Optional in-app purchases unlock additional features.
See it on the App StoreHow many plants fit in one square foot?
It depends on the crop's spacing requirement. A plant needing 3 inches fits 16 per square foot, 4 inches fits 9, 6 inches fits 4, and 12 inches fits 1. Big plants like vining tomatoes or zucchini need more than one square each. Niwa works this out for you and prints the count straight onto the grid cell.
Plants per square foot calculatorCan Niwa plan a raised bed of any size?
Yes. You set the bed dimensions — 4×4, 4×8, 2×8 or a custom size — and Niwa draws the square foot grid to match. You can keep several beds and several gardens in the app at once and switch between them.
Raised bed plannerHow does Niwa know when I should plant?
Niwa uses your location to find your average last spring frost and first autumn frost, then works backwards from those dates for every crop in your bed. Each plant gets its own sow-indoors, transplant and harvest window on a month-by-month timeline — so the dates are yours, not a generic zone table.
How the planting calendar worksDoes Niwa warn me about bad companion plants?
Yes. As you place plants on the grid, Niwa puts a green dot between neighbouring squares that benefit each other and a red dot between squares that are better kept apart. You see the conflict while you are still planning, rather than in July when nothing is fruiting.
Companion planting in NiwaDoes Niwa work offline, and do I need an account?
The whole plant library and all your layouts are stored on the device, so the app works with no signal — useful on an allotment. There is no account to create and your garden data is never uploaded to a server.
See what's includedWhich growing zones and countries does Niwa support?
Niwa works worldwide. It recognises USDA hardiness zones in the United States and derives frost dates from your location elsewhere, including the UK, Canada, Australia and Europe.
Find your frost dates and zoneHow is Niwa different from other garden planner apps?
Three things: it is a native iPhone app rather than a desktop planner in a mobile browser, it shows companion-planting conflicts on the grid as you place plants instead of in a separate chart, and it works fully offline with no account.
Compare Niwa with other plannersIs Niwa available on Android?
Not yet. Niwa is a native iPhone app and needs iOS 18.0 or later. Building for iOS first is what makes the drag-and-drop grid feel the way it does; an Android version is not currently available.
Read the gardening guides in the meantimeLearn the method, then plan it in the app
Square foot gardening
The spacing chart for 30+ crops, a sample 4×4 layout, and the mistakes that waste squares.
Companion planting
Which vegetables help each other, which to separate, and why it works.
When to start seeds indoors
A month-by-month schedule counted back from your own last frost date.
How to plan a vegetable garden
Site, size, sunlight and layout — the order to make decisions in.
USDA hardiness zones
What your zone does and does not tell you about when to plant.
All guides →
Growing guides for tomatoes, basil, seed starting and more.
Your beds are easier to fix on a screen than in the soil.
Lay out the whole season in twenty minutes. Free to download, no account, works offline.
