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Everything that happens from sign-up through your first dashboard load — and what each step means for your garden.
SoilStack is a weather-smart garden planning app that builds a personalized planting calendar based on your location, your plants, and real local weather. It tells you what to do, when to do it, and why — backed by university extension research and NOAA climate data, not guesswork.
Every date on your calendar is calculated from your specific USDA hardiness zone, local frost averages, and the variety of plant you are growing. When the weather changes, your calendar adjusts automatically.
After you create your account, a four-step wizard walks you through everything SoilStack needs to build your plan.
Your USDA zone is a number and letter like 7a or 6b that describes the average minimum winter temperature in your area. It is the standard used by every university extension program and seed company in the country to determine what plants can survive and thrive where you live.
SoilStack uses your zone to calculate frost dates, planting windows, and which plants are a good fit. Zones range from 5a (coldest supported) to 9b (warmest supported).
After setup, a five-step animated screen shows exactly what SoilStack built for you:
This typically takes a few seconds. If it seems stuck, check your internet connection and refresh the page — your data is already saved.
On your first dashboard visit, a spotlight overlay walks you through six steps highlighting each tab and the Settings gear icon. Tap Next to advance or Skip to dismiss.
On mobile, the Settings step is skipped because the gear icon is inside the navigation menu rather than always visible. To find Settings on mobile, tap the hamburger menu in the top right, then tap the gear icon.
An area is a physical growing space — a raised bed, a cluster of containers, a plot in the backyard, or an indoor shelf. Every choice you make affects the recommendations you get.
SoilStack organizes your garden by physical spaces, not by plant type. Each area gets its own task calendar, recipes, journal, and soil settings. You can have as many areas as you want.
Think of an area as a specific place you grow things: "Back Patio Containers," "Raised Bed by the Fence," "Kitchen Herb Shelf." Each one tracks its own plants independently.
Tap "New Area" or "Add Another Area" from anywhere in the app. A progress bar at the top shows which step you are on, and you can tap any completed step number to jump back.
This affects more than you might expect. Indoor areas are automatically excluded from disease pressure alerts since the weather conditions that cause outdoor plant diseases do not apply. Greenhouse areas receive adjusted disease thresholds because the controlled environment changes how moisture and temperature interact.
Most gardeners choose Outdoor. If you are growing herbs on a windowsill or seedlings under lights, choose Indoor. If you have a hoop house or cold frame, Greenhouse is the right pick.
Raised Bed, In-Ground, Container, and Fabric Pot each affect watering frequency recommendations, default soil type, and soil volume calculations. Containers and fabric pots dry out faster than in-ground beds, so watering guidance adjusts accordingly.
Full Sun means 6 or more hours of direct sunlight per day. Partial Sun means 3 to 6 hours. Shade means less than 3 hours. This affects which plants show a "Great for your setup" badge in the plant picker and determines sun compatibility warnings when adding plants later.
If you are not sure, observe your growing space across a full day in spring or summer. Morning sun and afternoon sun count equally.
The optional notes field in Step 2 lets you record details like soil amendments you have added, special conditions (windy, slopes toward a fence), or goals for this season. These notes appear on the area detail page for your reference. Maximum 1,000 characters.
Everything you need for today in one view: weather, tasks, disease monitoring, garden areas, insights, and your activity journal.
The top of your dashboard greets you by name and tells you what is on your plate. If you have tasks today, it shows the count. If nothing is due, it shows your next upcoming task with its date. If you have overdue tasks, a red banner appears with a "View" link to expand the list.
Below the greeting, a live weather map shows your general area (not your exact address). The weather strip below the map shows current temperature, today's high and low, wind speed, next precipitation event, and an alert status badge. When everything looks fine, it reads "All clear." If the National Weather Service has issued an alert for your area, an amber badge appears instead.
Seven day cards show high and low temperatures, precipitation probability, and wind speed. The data comes from the NWS and refreshes automatically every hour. On mobile, swipe or use the navigation arrows to scroll through all seven days. While the forecast loads, a shimmer animation shows placeholder cards so you know data is on the way.
Below the forecast, a colored strip shows the current disease monitoring status for your garden. It has four possible states.
Tap the strip to expand the detail panel. When All Clear, it shows every disease being monitored with current temperature readings and whether conditions are inside the trigger range. When active, a slider shows each alert with prev/next navigation. Each alert card includes the disease name, affected area, a "Why now" explanation with favorable day counts, affected plants with resistance badges, recommended actions, and two buttons: "I did this" (logs to your journal) and "Dismiss."
Weather prompts are actionable cards that appear when forecast conditions affect your garden. SoilStack watches over 20 different weather patterns, from tomorrow's rain forecast to multi-day heat waves.
0.8 inches expected between 6 AM and 2 PM. Your plants will get natural watering.
Each prompt has an icon, a title, a detail paragraph, and a "why" explanation. Prompts with a "Looking Ahead" badge are proactive — they tell you about something that has not happened yet. Prompts without the badge are reactive — they describe conditions happening right now.
Actionable promptsThese offer two buttons: "Keep Tasks" (do nothing) and "Skip Watering" (mark today's watering tasks as unnecessary). Tap either one to dismiss the prompt.
Non-actionable promptsThese offer a single "Got It" button. They are informational — no tasks are affected.
When multiple prompts are active, a carousel with prev/next arrows and dots lets you navigate between them.
Your tasks appear as an expandable list. If nothing is due today, SoilStack looks ahead up to 30 days so you are never looking at an empty screen. Each task row shows a checkbox, a colored icon by type, the task name, the area it belongs to, and an expand arrow.
Tap any task to expand it. Inside, you will find step-by-step instructions and a "Why this date" section that explains the reasoning in plain language — your frost date, the variety's research profile, and the university source behind the recommendation.
Tap the checkbox to mark a task complete. The title gets a strikethrough, and an undo toast appears at the bottom with a countdown timer. If you made a mistake, tap "Undo" before the timer runs out to reverse it. Every completed task is automatically logged to your garden journal with the current weather conditions and temperature.
Sun Gold Tomato needs consistent moisture during fruiting. Watering every 2-3 days in your zone keeps soil evenly moist without waterlogging.
Some tasks have a small colored bar next to them. This is the consequence score — a 0 to 10 rating of how much impact skipping this task has on your plant's health and yield. Green (under 5) means good practice but not urgent. Amber (5 to 7) means timing matters. Red (8 to 10) means the task is time-critical and skipping it could noticeably affect your results.
When SoilStack adjusts a task's timing due to weather, the original date appears struck through, the new date shows in amber, and a note explains what triggered the change. Below the explanation, two buttons appear.
Once you tap either button, the decision is permanent. SoilStack will not re-adjust that task again. On your calendar, a ghost entry appears on the original date with the same Restore/Keep options and a Dismiss button.
Custom calendar events due today appear below the task list. Each shows a colored dot matching the event type, the title, a "My Event" pill, and the area it belongs to (if any). You can check off events the same way you complete tasks. Events with notes display them below the title.
Below the tasks, your garden area cards appear in a row. Each shows the area name, garden type, environment, plant count, and sun exposure. Tap any card to go to the full area detail page. An "Add Another Area" card at the end lets you create a new area. Below the cards, a "Show a friend what SoilStack looks like" link opens a preview of a sample garden.
After a few weeks of active use, Season Insights cards appear for each plant. Each card shows the plant name, area, watering completion percentage, and a harvest comparison row showing actual harvest date versus projected date with the number of days early or late. If GDD tracking is active, the card shows whether your season was warmer or cooler than average.
Insight rows below the harvest comparison highlight patterns: missed high-consequence windows, watering consistency trends, and weather effects you could not control — all with context for next season.
The Recent Activity strip shows your latest journal entries in compact format. Each row has a color-coded dot (green for task completed, blue for weather decision, amber for struggling, terracotta for plant removed), the entry body, the temperature at the time, and the date. A "View all" button opens the full journal on the My Garden tab.
Month, week, and agenda views with color-coded tasks, custom events, ghost entries for moved tasks, and printable PDFs.
The month grid shows colored dots on days that have tasks. Today is highlighted. Tap any day to open the day detail panel below the calendar. A legend at the bottom shows green for Planting, blue for Watering, amber for Feeding, red for Harvest, and grey for My Events.
When you tap a day, a panel drops open showing every task and event for that date. Tasks show their full card with checkbox, type icon, title, and area badge. There is no limit on how many tasks can appear. An "Add Event" button in the header lets you create a custom event for that day.
Tap "Add Event" in the day detail panel to open the quick-add drawer. Fill in a title, choose an event type from five colored pills, optionally select an area and add notes, then tap "Save Event."
The event appears on the calendar in the matching color.
When a task has been weather-adjusted, the original date shows it in a "Moved Tasks" section below the regular task list. The title appears with a strikethrough and an amber note explains where it moved and why. A Dismiss button removes the ghost once you have read it.
Week view shows a 7-day grid with tasks as labeled items inside each day column. Agenda view shows all tasks in a chronological list grouped by date, spanning multiple months — useful for planning ahead without scrolling through a grid. Toggle between views using the Month, Week, and Agenda buttons in the calendar header.
Tap "Print Calendar" at the bottom of the calendar. A dropdown offers four options: This Month, Next 3 Months, Full Grow Season, and Full Year. Each generates a printable PDF that includes all tasks and custom events for the selected range. A separate "Export Tasks" link on the Plants tab lets you download task data.
Plant cards, the customize schedule panel, preferred days, badges, the add plant picker, and the plant library with 685 named varieties.
Each plant card on the area detail page shows the plant name (with a quantity badge like x2 if you are growing multiples), a colored type badge, subtype, spacing, water needs, and days to maturity. Additional badges may appear depending on your setup.
If a planted date and days to maturity are both known, a harvest window estimate shows the projected date range. Two buttons appear in the top right: the gear icon opens the Customize Schedule panel, and the X icon opens the remove flow.
The default dates and task types come from university research for your variety and zone. If your actual setup differs — you transplanted on a different date, you are using a faster-maturing variety, or you handle your own watering — you can override the defaults.
Tap the gear icon on any plant card to open the panel. Four controls are available.
Transplant / Sow DateSet the actual date you planted. Leave blank to use the zone-calculated date. This affects all downstream task timing.
Days to MaturityOverride the research-backed default. Useful if you know your specific seed packet lists a different number.
Generate watering tasksAn on/off toggle switch. Turn off if you water on your own schedule or use drip irrigation.
Generate feeding tasksAn on/off toggle switch. Turn off if you prefer to manage fertilizer separately.
Tap "Save & Regenerate" to apply your changes. The calendar updates immediately. "Reset Defaults" removes all overrides and regenerates with the original research-backed values. A green notice at the top confirms when you are using defaults with no overrides set.
Inside an expanded plant card, a row of seven day buttons (Su through Sa) lets you choose which days of the week you prefer to water and feed this plant. When you set preferred days, SoilStack schedules watering and feeding tasks on those days whenever possible.
Tap the days you want, then tap the Save button that appears. This is per-plant, so different plants can have different schedules if needed.
From the area detail page, tap "Add Plant" to open the plant picker. A search bar at the top lets you find any plant by name. Twelve category pills below the search filter by type: Tomatoes, Peppers, Herbs, Greens, Brassicas, Squash, Beans and Peas, Root Vegetables, Fruits, Flowers, Microgreens, and Other.
Each plant card in the picker shows an image (or placeholder), the name, a short description, days to maturity, and sun needs. Plants that match your area's zone, sun exposure, and container type show a green "Great for your setup" badge. Plants already in this area are greyed out with an "Already Added" label.
Tap a card to select it. A bar appears at the bottom with the plant name, a quantity input, Cancel, and "Add Plant." Tap "Add Plant" to add it to your area and generate its task calendar.
The Plants tab on your dashboard shows every plant you are currently growing across all areas, with search and filter pills. Tap "Explore Plants" to browse all 685 variety-specific plants. Each card shows compatibility badge, type badge, difficulty badge, days to maturity, sun needs, start method, and container suitability.
Difficulty badges (Easy, Moderate, Advanced) come from the plant's research profile — zone range width, temperature forgiveness, container viability, harvest window, and DTM variance. They are patterns from data, not opinions.
The area detail page includes five Quick Reference cards that summarize key information about the plants in that area at a glance.
WateringWater needs per plant type with amounts in inches per week and a consistent-watering tip when applicable.
Key TimingDays to maturity per plant with the estimated harvest window when a planted date is set.
Spacing and SupportSpacing in inches per plant, height range, and any support requirements like cages or trellises.
Harvest SignsVisual and tactile indicators for knowing when each plant is ready to pick, plus storage recommendations.
Do's and Don'tsDynamically generated tips based on the specific plants in your area. Heavy feeders trigger feeding reminders. Calcium-critical plants get blossom end rot guidance. Consistent-water plants get watering-at-the-base advice. Antagonist plants (things that should not grow near each other) trigger "Don't plant near" warnings.
SoilStack supports a full dark mode for easier reading in low light. On desktop, tap the sun/moon icon in the top right header. On mobile, a floating circle button appears in the bottom right corner of the screen. Your preference saves automatically and persists across visits. If you have not chosen, SoilStack follows your device's system preference.
Tools for when plants struggle, when you miss a window, and when you need to find a replacement that still fits your season.
At the bottom of every plant card on the area detail page, a button labeled "Something look wrong?" opens an inline symptom selector. You do not leave the page. Select everything that applies — yellowing leaves, wilting, spots, pests — and tap Next.
SoilStack works through a decision tree covering 10 crop groups, 30 symptoms, and 90 potential causes, then guides you to the most likely cause with treatment recommendations. No photos needed. The results appear right below the plant card.
When a plant is not doing well but is not dead, marking it as struggling flags it for special attention.
The plant remains active in your task calendar — tasks keep generating. Struggling plants get escalated in consequence scoring, which means their time-critical tasks rank higher.
From the struggling state, two buttons appear. "Mark Recovered" returns the plant to active status (logged in your journal). "Didn't make it" opens the remove flow.
Tap the X icon on any plant card. A modal appears with the question "What would you like to do with this space?" and two options.
When you choose "Find a replacement," a modal loads candidates via a live check against your garden. Every plant shown passes four filters: zone-viable for your zone, days to maturity fits your remaining frost-free days, season type matches (warm or cool), and sun exposure is compatible with your area.
If you have seeds in your inventory, they appear at the top of the list. Each candidate shows the plant name, type badge, and an "Add to Area" button. Tap it to add the replacement and generate its full task calendar immediately.
If you missed a planting window entirely and the frost-free window is now too short for that plant to reach harvest, a Missed Window block appears in the task accordion.
It explains the situation and either suggests a faster-maturing replacement or recommends starting fresh next year.
The Succession Planner on the My Garden tab shows projected harvest dates for every plant grouped by area. Each row displays the plant name, days-to-maturity range, projected harvest date (color-coded by urgency), and approximate days remaining. Use this to see when space is opening up and plan what goes in next.
If a row shows "No date set," it means no planted date has been logged for that plant. Tap the area card, find the plant, tap the gear icon, and enter the Transplant or Sow Date in the Customize panel.
A "Late plant" badge appears on warm-season plants that were planted more than 21 days after your zone's recommended frost window. This means the harvest window may be compressed — the plant has fewer warm days to mature. It is not necessarily a problem, just useful context for setting expectations.
SoilStack monitors your local weather continuously. When it detects a pattern that affects your garden, it adjusts task dates and surfaces alerts — automatically, with a full explanation, and always overrideable.
7 or more consecutive days at or above 90 degrees F. Watering tasks for non-drought-tolerant plants are pulled forward. Source: Nebraska Extension heat stress guidelines.
Dry Stretch7 or more consecutive days with less than 0.1 inches of precipitation. Also triggers a watering adjustment. Source: SDSU Extension drought guidelines.
Cool Spring10 of the last 14 days below 55 degrees F during March through June. Warm-season transplant dates are pushed back up to 7 days. Source: OSU and CSU soil temperature proxy research.
Beyond the three patterns above, SoilStack generates prompts for over 20 specific conditions. These are grouped into tiers.
Reactive (happening now)Rain forecast, freeze warning, active heat, severe weather statement.
Proactive Extreme (high impact)Dry streak, freeze ahead, heat wave, high wind, heavy rain, extended rain, temperature whiplash, storms ahead, winter precipitation.
Proactive Smart (planning)Rain expected tomorrow — suggests skipping today's watering.
Proactive Normal (informational)Cloudy stretch, cool nights, warming trend, cooling trend, disease pressure conditions, persistent wind.
PositiveIdeal planting conditions — a good day to transplant or sow.
Yes, always. Tap the Restore button on the ghost entry in your calendar or in the task accordion on the Overview tab. Once you restore or confirm a task, SoilStack will not re-adjust it — your decision is permanent. Your override always wins.
Current conditions and the 7-day forecast update every hour. Weather pattern detection runs every 6 hours. NWS alerts refresh every 6 hours. Disease pressure evaluation runs each time you load the dashboard.
When the National Weather Service issues any official alert for your area, an amber badge appears in your weather strip.
Tap it to read the full alert text directly from the NWS. Gardening-specific guidance appears as a separate weather prompt card.
SoilStack tracks weather conditions that favor 7 common plant diseases: late blight, early blight, powdery mildew (cucurbits), downy mildew, bacterial spot, botrytis (gray mold), and root rot. Each model uses published thresholds from university extension research — temperature ranges, humidity windows, and precipitation patterns that create risk.
Disease evaluation uses observed weather only. Forecast data adds context but never triggers a state change. Missing weather days are counted as unfavorable conditions — the system errs on the side of caution.
Each disease for each area moves through four states. Alerts appear only when the state changes — not every day.
Once elevated, a disease stays elevated until resolution conditions are met — it does not downgrade to developing. Resolved diseases auto-expire to Inactive after 7 days. The Resolved state includes a stock-up note suggesting what to have on hand for next time.
When a disease alert is active, each plant in the affected area shows a resistance badge. Plants with documented resistance to the specific disease are flagged — so you can see at a glance which plants need attention and which are naturally protected. Resistance codes come from published breeding data and university extension profiles.
Treatment options are visible at every effort mode. Effort mode controls recipe detail depth, but it never hides disease knowledge from you.
Each area has a soil type setting that affects disease evaluation. Clay soils retain more moisture and increase root rot risk. Sandy soils drain quickly and reduce it. Garden Mix and Loam fall in between.
To change your soil type, go to the area detail page and find the Soil Type card below the recipe list. Four options appear as styled buttons with descriptions.
Tap any option — it saves automatically and the header pill updates immediately.
The disease panel on the dashboard is a slider. When multiple alerts are active, use the prev/next arrows or dots to navigate between them. Each alert card shows the disease name, affected area, state badge, a "Why now" card with the number of favorable days recently, and a list of affected plants with resistance badges.
Below the plants, you will find free actions (things you can do right now that cost nothing), treatment awareness text (what to know about chemical or biological options), and sometimes treatment action text (what to apply if the state is Elevated). Two buttons appear at the bottom: "I did this" logs your action to the journal, and "Dismiss" hides the alert.
Your seed inventory tells SoilStack what you have on hand. The harvest log tracks what you actually grow. Both feed into Season Insights.
On the Plants tab, scroll below your active plants to find the Seed Inventory section. Tap "Add Seeds" to open a modal with two tabs.
Search PlantsType a plant name and select from the results. This links the seed to a known variety in SoilStack's database so it can check zone compatibility and planting windows.
Manual EntryEnter a name, type, and variety for seeds that do not match anything in the database.
On both tabs, set the number of packets, seeds per packet (optional), and purchase date. Tap Save. The seed appears in your inventory list.
Each seed row shows status badges based on your current zone and season.
The viability warning means germination rates may have dropped. It does not mean the seeds are bad — just worth testing a few before planting a full row.
Tap "What can I plant?" on the Plants tab to reveal a panel showing each seed in your inventory matched against every area it can go into right now. Each match shows the plant name, the area name, and an "Add" button. Tap Add to plant it and generate its full task calendar instantly.
On the area detail page, a "From My Seeds" button appears when you have seeds in your inventory. It shows a count badge of how many seeds fit this specific area. The panel filters seeds by your zone, sun exposure, and current season. Seeds with a "Zone marginal" badge can grow but may need extra attention. If no seeds fit, an empty state explains why — usually it is a season or sun mismatch.
Expand any plant card on the Plants tab and scroll to the Harvest Log section at the bottom. A form with five fields lets you record each harvest: date (defaults to today), quantity, unit (choose from count, lbs, oz, kg, g, cups, or bunches), and quality (Great, Good, Fair, or Poor). Tap the + button to save the entry.
Each logged entry appears below the form showing date, amount, quality pill, and a remove button. Cumulative harvest totals appear as a badge on the plant card header. These totals feed into Season Insights for end-of-season comparisons.
Recipes are feeding schedules matched to your plants and effort mode. Every ingredient amount, application note, and warning is visible. Your product rates apply globally.
When you create a garden area, SoilStack automatically assigns feeding schedules based on what you are growing and your effort mode. Each recipe includes ingredients with amounts, application instructions, warning notes for critical timing, and university research sources. You do not need to create recipes manually — they are assigned for you.
Tap any recipe on the Recipes tab to expand it. Inside you will find four sections.
IngredientsEach product with its amount. If you have set a custom product rate in Settings, "(My rate)" appears next to the amount. Otherwise, the label rate from the manufacturer is shown.
ApplicationStep-by-step instructions — timing, method, and what to watch for.
WarningsAmber notes for critical timing or usage details — which ingredients to add in order, which growth stage to start, what to avoid.
SourcesUniversity extension programs and research references behind the recipe.
On the area detail page, each assigned recipe has a toggle switch. Turning a recipe off stops it from generating tasks without removing it from the area. This is useful if you want to pause feeding for a specific area during mid-season without losing the recipe assignment. Turn it back on anytime and tasks regenerate.
There are two places to create custom recipes. On the Recipes tab, tap "Create Recipe" to open a modal where you choose an area, enter a name, select a type (Feeding, Foliar, Amendment, Biological, Disease Prevention, or Other), a method (Root Drench, Foliar Spray, Topdress, Soil Drench, or Broadcast), a frequency (Weekly through One Time), and instructions.
On the area detail page, tap "Add Recipe" to open a two-tab modal. The "From Library" tab lets you assign a pre-built recipe from a dropdown. The "Create Custom" tab has the same form as above with a slightly different set of type and frequency options including Daily and Twice a Week.
Tap the gear icon in the header to open Settings, then scroll to My Products. Every product used across your recipes is listed with your current rate. Update the amount and tap Save — every recipe using that product updates automatically across all your areas. A "Custom rate" badge appears next to products where you have overridden the default.
Easy Going: Watering reminders, key planting dates, and harvest windows. Nothing you don't need.
Balanced: The full calendar — watering, feeding schedules, and harvest reminders. The recommended starting point.
All In: Complete feeding programs, supplement timing, and detailed tracking. Every data point, every task.
Effort mode controls recipe detail depth and task volume, but it never hides disease knowledge or treatment information from you. All effort modes see the same disease alerts and treatment options.
The journal logs every task completion, weather decision, struggling event, and plant removal automatically. You can add your own notes anytime and filter by type, area, or keyword.
Every time you complete a task, make a weather decision (like skipping watering), mark a plant as struggling, recover a plant, or remove a dead plant, a journal entry is created automatically. Each entry captures the weather conditions and temperature at the time so you can look back and see what the day was like when something happened.
Tap "Add note" on either the master journal (My Garden tab) or the area-specific journal. A drawer opens with a text area, selectors, and a tags field.
You can also add a note to any existing auto-logged entry. Expand the entry and tap "Add note to this entry" to append your own context — like "forgot to actually water this" or "noticed first blossoms today."
Tap any journal entry to expand it. The full body text appears along with a type badge (color-coded), growth phase chip (Germination, Vegetative, Flowering, Fruiting, etc.), consequence score bar if the entry was a task completion, tags, and weather detail (conditions and temperature). User notes display separately with a "Your note:" label.
The master journal includes three filter controls.
An entry type dropdown lets you filter by All, Task completed, Weather decision, Struggling and Recovery, or Your notes. An area dropdown filters to a specific garden area. A search field matches against entry body text. Entries are grouped by season (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter) with divider labels.
The master journal on the My Garden tab combines entries from all areas. Each area also has its own journal at the bottom of the area detail page, showing only entries for that specific area. The area journal includes a plant selector in the quick-add drawer so you can tag a note to a specific plant. The area journal also has pagination for longer histories.
Settings is accessed via the gear icon in the top right header on desktop or through the hamburger menu on mobile.
Shows your current ZIP code and auto-detected USDA Zone. To update, type a new ZIP and tap Update. Your zone updates automatically and your calendar regenerates with the new frost dates. If the auto-detected zone is wrong for your micro-climate, you can override it manually during onboarding or by contacting support.
Three pill buttons with a description of each below. — Easy Going, Balanced, and All In — with a description of each below. The currently active mode is highlighted. Tap any pill to switch. Your calendar regenerates immediately with the new task volume. You can switch as often as you want.
Every product used across your recipes is listed with your current rate. Products with a custom rate show a "Custom rate" badge. Change a rate and tap Save — every recipe using that product updates across all areas automatically. This is the single place to manage ingredient amounts so you never have to update individual recipes.
Update your name or email address and tap "Save Account." To delete your account permanently, tap "Delete Account" at the bottom. This removes all your data and cannot be undone. Journal entries, areas, plants, tasks, seeds, and settings are all deleted.
The Soil Calculator in Settings is a standalone tool for figuring out how much soil to buy. Tap "Add Row" to create a row for each bed or container. Enter the length in feet, width in feet, and depth in inches. The cubic footage updates as you type.
The totals section shows two numbers: "Math says" (the exact calculation) and "Recommended" (15% more to account for soil settling — soil compresses after the first few waterings). Below that, a bag breakdown shows how many 1 cu ft, 1.5 cu ft, and 2 cu ft bags to buy. Always buy the recommended amount, not the base.
On mobile, the gear icon is not always visible in the header. Tap the hamburger menu icon (three horizontal lines) in the top right corner to open the navigation, then tap the gear icon. On desktop, the gear icon is always visible in the top right header next to the dark mode toggle and logout button.
Every date on your calendar is explainable. Here is what goes into it.
Every date comes from a calculation built on real research. It starts with your USDA hardiness zone from NOAA's 1991-2020 Climate Normals. From that, your last spring frost and first fall frost averages are determined. Those combine with the plant's research profile — days to maturity, start method, optimal soil temperature, and timing windows from university extension programs and seed catalog trial data. Finally, real-time NWS weather data is layered in. A Sun Gold Tomato in Zone 7a gets different dates than the same plant in Zone 5b because the science for those locations is different.
Growing Degree Days are a measure of heat accumulation that plants use to develop. SoilStack tracks heat accumulation in your area every day throughout the season. Once you have at least 6 to 8 weeks of active use, harvest date estimates shift from calendar averages to live estimates based on your actual season's temperatures.
The "Live est." label on a plant card means this is active. A cooler season pushes the estimate later. A warmer season pulls it earlier.
Penn State Extension, Nebraska Extension, Ohio State University Extension, Colorado State University Extension, South Dakota State University Extension, the USDA Agricultural Research Service, NOAA National Weather Service, the University of Missouri Extension, and seed catalogs with documented trial data including Johnny's Selected Seeds, True Leaf Market, and Baker Creek. Every plant has its sources listed in the detail panel in the Plant Library.
No. SoilStack uses logic and data — not machine learning or AI. Every recommendation is explainable. When SoilStack says transplant on May 3rd, it is because your last frost average is April 12th, Sun Gold tomatoes need soil temperatures above 60 degrees F, and a 2-week buffer accounts for cold snap risk in your zone. That is agronomic math, not a model.
Generic advice for "tomatoes" is not useful when a Cherry tomato matures in 65 days and a Brandywine takes 90. Spacing, water needs, heat tolerance, and zone viability all vary by variety. SoilStack covers 685 named varieties across 18 categories, not 18 generic plant types. This is what makes the calendar actually accurate.
Every plant in SoilStack has a public page at /plants/ with a full growing guide, companion planting information, seed purchase links, and a disease section. These pages are visible to anyone — no login required. Zone pages at /zone/ show planting calendars for each USDA zone by month. Twelve category hub pages at /plants/tomatoes, /plants/peppers, and so on group plants by type for easy browsing.
Quick answers to things SoilStack users ask most.
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