A free GrowVeg alternative for iPhone
GrowVeg is the original Growing Interactive planner and still one of the most complete garden design tools available. It also costs $35 a year and needs a browser. If you would rather plan on your phone for nothing, here is how the two actually compare.
Stay with GrowVeg if you value its crop-rotation memory across seasons, its huge object library for designing a whole plot, its pest and beneficial-insect guides, and the fact that it runs on any device with a browser.
Switch to Niwa if the subscription is the sticking point, you plan on an iPhone, and you want the planner to work at a plot with no mobile signal.
What GrowVeg costs
| Plan | Price |
|---|---|
| Free trial | 7 days, no payment details required |
| Annual, auto-renewing | $35 / year |
| 1 year, non-renewing | $50 |
| 2 years | $85 |
Worth saying: for a serious grower planning a large plot every year, $35 is not much money for software that genuinely saves crops. The question is whether you need what it does.
Side by side
| Niwa | GrowVeg | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free to download | $35/yr after 7-day trial |
| Platform | Native iPhone (iOS 18+) | Web, desktop and mobile browser |
| Offline | Yes | No |
| Account | Not required | Required |
| Square foot grid | Yes, counts plants per square | Yes |
| Companion conflicts on the grid | Live green/red dots | Rotation and plant-info warnings |
| Multi-year crop rotation | No | Yes |
| Plot objects (sheds, paths, fences) | No | Extensive |
| Pest & beneficial insect guides | No | Yes |
| Pre-made garden plans | No | Yes |
| Planting reminders by email | No | Yes |
| Plant diary with photos | Yes | Yes |
| Seed inventory | Yes | Via journal |
| Android / Windows | No | Yes, in a browser |
The honest summary
GrowVeg is a plot-design tool with planting intelligence attached. Niwa is a bed-planning tool with a calendar attached. Those are different products that happen to overlap in the middle.
If your garden is several beds plus paths, a greenhouse and a compost area, and you want to design the whole thing and track rotation over five years, GrowVeg does that and Niwa does not. If your garden is two or three raised beds and the question you actually have every March is “what goes in which square and when do I sow it”, Niwa answers that on the device already in your pocket, for nothing.
A practical route: GrowVeg's trial is genuinely free and needs no card, so you can run both for a week and see which one you keep opening. Niwa costs nothing to keep either way.
What Niwa does that GrowVeg does not
- Full offline operation. The plant library ships with the app. Allotments rarely have signal.
- Companion dots at the moment of placement. Not a separate chart or a warning panel — a coloured dot on the border between two squares.
- Zero friction to start. Download, open, draw a bed. No sign-up, no trial countdown, no card.
- Designed thumb-first. The grid, the plant picker and the calendar were drawn for a phone screen rather than adapted to one.
Other options
- Almanac Garden Planner — same engine, different plant database and branding
- From Seed to Spoon — free on iOS, Android and web
- Planter — Apple-platform app with a free tier and a large user base
No trial clock. No card. No account.
Plan your beds free on iPhone — and delete it if it isn't for you.
Questions gardeners ask
How much does GrowVeg cost?
GrowVeg offers a 7-day free trial with no payment details required, then charges $35 per year on an auto-renewing annual plan, $50 for a one-year non-renewing plan, or $85 for two years. Regional versions exist for the UK and Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and South Africa, with local pricing.
Compare with the Almanac plannerIs GrowVeg the same as the Almanac Garden Planner?
Essentially yes. Both run on software built by Growing Interactive, which also powers the Mother Earth News Grow Planner. The plant databases and branding differ but the planning tool itself is the same, so trialling one tells you most of what you need to know about the others.
Almanac Garden Planner comparisonIs 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. Large plants such as 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 rather than 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, so you see the conflict while you are still planning.
Companion planting in NiwaHow much soil do I need to fill a raised bed?
Multiply length × width × depth in feet to get cubic feet, then divide by 27 for cubic yards. A 4×8 bed at 12 inches deep needs 32 cubic feet, roughly 1.2 cubic yards or sixteen 2-cubic-foot bags.
Raised bed soil calculatorDoes 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 viewed 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. An Android version is not currently available.
Read the gardening guides in the meantime