Overview

Every garden season begins with seeds, and managing your seed collection is the first step toward a productive year. garden.gg’s seed inventory system lets you track what you have, what is expiring, what is running low, and what you need to buy — all in one place.

Beyond simple inventory, the seed system integrates with AI-powered packet scanning, growing data extraction, and your garden’s planting calendar to connect the dots from the seed packet in your drawer to the plant in your plot.

Adding Seeds to Your Inventory

Manual Entry

Add seeds to your inventory from the Seeds tab in the main navigation:

1. Tap Add Seed
2. Enter the required information:
   • Name: The plant name (e.g., “Tomato”)
   • Variety: The specific cultivar (e.g., “Cherokee Purple”)
3. Optionally add:
   • Company/Brand: Who produced the seeds (e.g., “Burpee”, “Baker Creek”, “Johnny’s”)
   • Quantity: Number of seeds in the packet or remaining
   • Purchase date: When you bought the packet
   • Expiration date: If printed on the packet
   • Lot number: For tracking specific batches
   • Cost: What you paid (feeds into ROI tracking on Bloom+ plans)
   • Notes: Any additional information

Seed Packet Scanning

The fastest way to add seeds is to scan the packet with your camera. garden.gg uses AI to:

1. Identify the plant and variety from the packet image
2. Extract the company/brand name
3. Read growing data: planting depth, spacing, days to germination, days to maturity
4. Pre-fill the seed form with all extracted information

To scan a seed packet:

1. Tap Add Seed
2. Tap the Scan Packet button (camera icon)
3. Position the front of the seed packet in the camera frame
4. Wait for the AI to process the image (typically 2-3 seconds)
5. Review the auto-filled form and make corrections if needed
6. Save

Scanning works best with:

• Good lighting (natural daylight is ideal)
• The full front of the packet visible
• Clear, uncrumpled packets
• Standard commercial seed packets (hand-written labels may not scan well)

For more details on the scanning technology, see Plant Identification.

Bulk Import

If you are starting with a large seed collection, entering seeds one by one can be tedious. garden.gg supports bulk import via CSV:

1. Download the seed import template from Seeds > Import
2. Fill in your seed data in the spreadsheet
3. Upload the completed CSV
4. Review the parsed results and confirm

The CSV template includes columns for all seed fields. At minimum, populate the name and variety columns.

Expiration Tracking

Seeds lose viability over time. garden.gg helps you use your oldest seeds first and replace them before they are no longer viable.

Expiration Dates

When you enter an expiration date (or the AI extracts one from a scanned packet), garden.gg tracks it and provides visual indicators:

Expiration View

The Expiring Soon view on the Seeds tab shows all seeds approaching expiration, sorted by date. This view helps you:

• Prioritize which seeds to plant this season
• Plan succession sowings using older seed stock first
• Decide which expired packets to germination-test versus discard

Seed Viability by Type

If no expiration date is available, garden.gg uses general viability guidelines:

These are approximate ranges for seeds stored in cool, dry conditions. Actual viability depends on storage conditions.

Low Stock Alerts

Never arrive at planting season to discover you are out of your favorite variety.

How Alerts Work

When a seed’s quantity drops below a configurable threshold, garden.gg flags it as low stock. The default threshold is 10 seeds, but you can set custom thresholds per seed entry.

Low stock seeds appear in the Low Stock view on the Seeds tab with an orange warning indicator.

Quantity Tracking

Seed quantities update automatically when you:

• Sow seeds: Logging a sow event linked to a seed entry reduces the quantity by the number of seeds sown
• Manual adjustment: Update the quantity directly on the seed entry (useful after giving seeds to a friend or discarding bad seeds)

Purchase Planning

The Shopping List feature aggregates all low stock and out-of-stock seeds into a purchase list:

1. Go to Seeds > Shopping List
2. Review seeds that need restocking
3. Check the ones you want to buy
4. Optionally export the list or share it

The shopping list includes the company/brand for each seed, making it easy to order from the right supplier.

Growing Data

Each seed entry can store growing data that carries over when you plant the seed.

Extracted Data Fields

When you scan a seed packet, the AI extracts:

• Days to germination: How long after sowing to expect sprouts
• Days to maturity: How long from transplant (or emergence) to first harvest
• Planting depth: How deep to sow seeds (inches or cm)
• Plant spacing: Recommended distance between plants
• Row spacing: Recommended distance between rows
• Sun requirement: Full sun, partial sun, partial shade
• Sowing method: Direct sow, start indoors, or both
• Sow timing: Weeks before/after last frost for indoor starts and direct sowing

Manual Growing Data Entry

If you do not scan the packet, you can enter growing data manually. The seed form includes all the same fields. This data is especially useful for:

• Seeds from seed swaps with no commercial packaging
• Saved seeds from your own garden
• Historical varieties with non-standard growing requirements

How Growing Data Connects to Plants

When you create a plant from a seed in your inventory:

1. The growing data from the seed entry pre-fills the plant’s growing parameters
2. Days to germination sets the expected germination date
3. Days to maturity sets the expected harvest window
4. Spacing data triggers grid layout warnings if plants are too close

This connection means accurate seed data leads to better lifecycle tracking for your plants.

Seedling Nursery

The seedling nursery is where you track seeds from the moment they are sown until they are ready for transplant.

Starting Seeds Indoors

When you sow seeds indoors (seed trays, pots, soil blocks), log the sow event and the seedlings enter the nursery:

1. Go to the seed entry in your inventory
2. Tap Sow
3. Enter the number of seeds sown, the date, and the container type
4. The nursery creates a tracking entry for the batch

Tracking Germination

As seeds germinate, update the nursery record:

• Sprouted count: How many seeds germinated (calculate germination rate)
• Germination date: When the first sprouts appeared
• Health status: Healthy, leggy, damping off, or other issues

Germination Rates

garden.gg calculates germination rates for each sowing:

Germination Rate = (Seeds Sprouted / Seeds Sown) x 100

Over time, germination rate data helps you:

• Compare seed quality across brands
• Identify seeds with declining viability
• Adjust sowing density (sow more of low-germination varieties)
• Decide whether to buy fresh seed or use remaining stock

View germination rates across all your sowings from Seeds > Germination Rates.

Thinning Seedlings

If you sow multiple seeds per cell (common with small seeds like lettuce or carrots), log thinning events in the nursery:

1. Open the nursery entry
2. Tap Thin
3. Enter the number of seedlings removed
4. Note which seedlings were kept (strongest, best color, etc.)

Hardening Off

The transition from indoor growing to outdoor planting is critical. garden.gg provides hardening-off schedules to help you manage this process.

What is Hardening Off

Hardening off is the process of gradually exposing indoor-grown seedlings to outdoor conditions over 7-14 days. Skipping this step often results in transplant shock, sunburn, or death.

Hardening-Off Schedule

When a nursery seedling is ready for hardening off, garden.gg generates a schedule:

Countdown Timer

The hardening-off schedule includes a countdown timer showing:

• Current day in the hardening-off process
• Hours of outdoor exposure recommended today
• Days remaining until transplant-ready
• Push notification reminders to bring seedlings in/out

Transplant Readiness

When the hardening-off schedule is complete, the nursery entry shows a “Ready to Transplant” status. At this point:

1. Choose the destination plot
2. Place the seedling on the grid
3. Log the transplant event
4. The nursery entry closes and the plant lifecycle begins in the plot

Seed Organization

As your collection grows, organization becomes important.

Sorting and Filtering

The seed inventory supports sorting by:

• Name: Alphabetical by plant name
• Variety: Alphabetical by variety
• Company: Grouped by seed company
• Expiration date: Oldest first (best for use-first planning)
• Quantity: Lowest first (best for reorder planning)
• Date added: Most recent first

Filter by:

• Status: In stock, low stock, out of stock, expired
• Plant type: Vegetable, herb, fruit, flower
• Company: Filter to a specific brand

Categories

You can tag seeds with custom categories for additional organization:

• Spring planting
• Fall planting
• Indoor growing
• Seed swap
• Saved seeds
• To try next year

Storage Location

Record where each seed packet is physically stored:

• “Refrigerator seed box”
• “Garage shelf, bin #3”
• “Kitchen drawer”

This field is searchable, so you can quickly find all seeds stored in a particular location.

API Reference

List Seeds

GET /api/v1/seeds?status=in_stock&sort=expiration_date

Add a Seed

POST /api/v1/seeds
{
  "name": "Tomato",
  "variety": "Cherokee Purple",
  "company": "Baker Creek",
  "quantity": 25,
  "purchase_date": "2026-02-01",
  "expiration_date": "2028-12-31",
  "growing_data": {
    "days_to_germination": 7,
    "days_to_maturity": 80,
    "planting_depth_inches": 0.25,
    "spacing_inches": 24,
    "sun_requirement": "full_sun"
  }
}

Update Quantity

PATCH /api/v1/seeds/{seed_id}
{
  "quantity": 15,
  "notes": "Sowed 10 in seed trays"
}

Germination Rates

GET /api/v1/seeds/{seed_id}/germination-rates

Response:

{
  "seed_id": "sed_abc123",
  "variety": "Cherokee Purple",
  "sowings": [
    {
      "date": "2026-03-01",
      "seeds_sown": 10,
      "seeds_sprouted": 8,
      "germination_rate": 80.0
    },
    {
      "date": "2025-03-15",
      "seeds_sown": 12,
      "seeds_sprouted": 11,
      "germination_rate": 91.7
    }
  ],
  "average_germination_rate": 85.8
}

Next Steps

• Companion Planting: Plan your plot layout with beneficial plant combinations
• Plant Identification: Learn about AI-powered plant and packet scanning
• Harvest Tracking: Track yields from the seeds you plant