FOOD NOT BOMBS // CANTON, OH // COMMUNITY GARDEN PLANNER
GardenSync is a free, no-account-needed garden planner built for the Food Not Bombs community garden in Canton, OH (USDA Zone 6a). Plan your beds, track harvests, coordinate volunteers, and share garden layouts — all from a single page that saves everything locally in your browser.
The main workspace shows 4 raised garden beds. Each bed can be independently sized, named, and filled with plants.
The left sidebar contains a curated library of plants suited for Zone 6a. Each plant has spacing, harvest time, water and sun needs, companion/enemy info, and seed-start instructions.
Click any plant in the library to expand its info card showing spacing, days to harvest, water/sun needs, seed start instructions, care notes, and companion/enemy lists.
Add your own seed varieties to the library. Great for heirloom seeds, specific cultivars, or anything not in the built-in collection.
Click + CUSTOM in the filter row, then fill in the plant details: name, emoji, type, spacing, days to harvest, sun/water needs, planting depth, and growing notes. Required fields are marked with *.
Switch to the PHOTO SCAN tab to upload a photo of the back of your seed packet. The OCR engine will attempt to extract:
Custom plants show a CUSTOM badge in the library. Hover over a custom plant to see edit (pencil) and delete (X) buttons. Custom plants work exactly like built-in plants — they can be dragged into beds, show in search results, and appear in bed details.
The colored lines drawn between plants in each bed indicate companion planting relationships.
Lines automatically redraw when you move plants within a bed, so you can optimize placement by watching which connections form.
Coverage is a density indicator showing how full each bed is based on the spacing requirements of your plants. It calculates the total growing area your plants need (each plant as a circle with its spacing diameter) compared to the bed's total square footage.
The exact coverage percentage is shown in the Bed Details panel for the selected bed. Coverage is based on plant count and spacing — it doesn't depend on where plants are positioned.
Click the TEMPLATE button in the Bed Details panel to apply a pre-designed plant arrangement to any bed. Templates auto-place plants with correct spacing.
The GROW SCHEDULE tab shows a location-specific calendar for Canton, OH (Zone 6a). It uses the last frost date (April 18) and first frost date (October 28) to calculate when to start seeds, transplant, and direct sow each plant.
A smart landing widget at the top of the Bed Planner shows today's planting tasks, season progress, and upcoming milestones. Tasks scroll as a ticker banner when there are things to do.
The PLANTING LOG tab provides a week-by-week checklist for the entire growing season. Filter by ALL, UPCOMING, OVERDUE, or DONE. Check off tasks as you complete them — progress persists across sessions.
Click EXPORT TO CALENDAR to download an .ics file with all planting tasks. Import into Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or Outlook.
Track everything your garden produces in the HARVEST tab.
Click LOG HARVEST to record: the crop, weight (lbs), and destination (kept, donated, composted). Each entry is timestamped and stored locally.
Set a weight target for the season and track progress. The goal tracker shows total harvested, total donated, and percentage toward your target.
A summary card at the bottom shows your top-producing crops, donation percentage, and harvest timeline.
Manage your garden crew in the VOLUNTEERS tab. Add up to 5 volunteers with names and availability.
GardenSync checks current weather data for Canton, OH and provides intelligent watering reminders.
A blue alert banner appears at the top of the Bed Planner when conditions suggest you should water your beds. It considers:
Click the X to dismiss the banner for the current session.
The CLIMATE DATA tab shows Canton's annual rainfall and temperature patterns, useful for planning your planting season.
Click SHARE LINK in the toolbar to generate a URL that encodes your entire garden layout (bed names, sizes, and all plant placements). The link is copied to your clipboard — send it to anyone and they'll see your exact garden plan when they open it.
SAVE PLAN stores a named snapshot of your garden. LOAD PLAN lets you restore any saved snapshot. Great for trying different layouts and comparing options.
In the footer: EXPORT DATA downloads all your garden data as a JSON file. IMPORT DATA restores from a previously exported file. Use this to back up your garden or move it to another browser.
Click LOAD DEMO GARDEN in the footer to populate all 4 beds with example plants. Useful for exploring the app before building your own plan.
| KEY | ACTION |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+Z | Undo last action |
| Ctrl+Y | Redo last action |
| Delete | Remove selected plant from bed |
| Backspace | Remove selected plant from bed |
| Escape | Cancel click-to-place mode / deselect plant |
| Right-click | Open context menu on a placed plant |
The VISUALIZE tab generates AI preview images of your garden using Google's Gemini API. See a photorealistic mockup of what your garden could look like based on the plants you've placed.
Click LIGHT or DARK in the top-right corner to switch themes. Your preference is saved across sessions.
Click PRINT MAP to open a printer-friendly popup showing all 4 beds with plant layouts and a complete legend. Perfect for taking to the garden on planting day.
Click EXPORT PNG to download the garden overview as an image file. Share on social media or include in newsletters.