As soon as you add a planting in grove, the app automatically creates the matching tasks for it. That way you always know what’s coming up without having to write your own to-do list. Typical tasks include sowing under cover and pricking out your plants, or planting them out into the bed. For some crops, like tomatoes, you also get specific care reminders such as pinching out side shoots.
Tasks are organised by calendar weeks, so they’re not tied to specific days. When exactly you get things done is up to you. Some people love being in the garden at sunrise; others prefer working at weekends. Grove gives you a direction, but you decide when it suits you best.
When you add a planting to the bed plan, you choose one of two options: “Direct sowing” or “Transplant to bed”. Depending on your choice, grove creates different tasks, always matched to the plant in question.
Direct sowing
If you opt for direct sowing, a simple task is created in the “Plant” category. It reminds you to start sowing directly into the bed during the relevant week.
The planning is based on the first week of the month in which your planting begins. If the planting times suggest that sowing is better done later in the month, grove adjusts the week accordingly, for example to mid or late in the month.
Transplant to bed
If you want to start plants indoors, this is the option for you. Grove automatically calculates when you should start sowing under cover. The app knows both the average lead time and when the plant needs to go into the bed. This gives you a task in the “Pre-grow” category that gives you plenty of notice.
For plants that need to be pricked out, grove creates an additional task.
And of course you also get a task in the “Plant” category when it’s time to put the young plants into the bed. If you’d rather buy transplants, you can simply tick off the tasks once you’ve placed your order.
Care
Some plants need a bit of extra attention. For tomatoes, for example, a pinching-out task is created automatically. You’ll find such tasks in the “Care” category. More care reminders for other plants will be added over time.
Working with tasks
When you’ve finished a task, you can tick it off, either directly using the tick at the front, or via the “Done” button in the task dialogue. Once everything is done, the week turns green. A satisfying feeling, isn’t it?
If you don’t manage a task in the planned week, you can simply move it. Open the task dialogue and choose a new week. Or use the “Move by one week” button.
Want to add something of your own? You can create custom tasks. Use the “Create task” button to add them to any week you like. Those tasks land in the “Other” category.
Moving tasks
Drag & drop is often much quicker. Just drag the task into another week. The task always stays in its own category. A task from “Pre-grow” ends up under pre-growing again, a task from “Care” under care.
You can also move all the open tasks of a whole week in one go. To do that, drag the week by its title bar. Only the open tasks get moved. Anything you’ve already ticked off stays in the original week. That’s also why a week where everything is done can’t be dragged. There’s nothing left to move.
Filtering tasks
As your garden grows and you work several beds, the tasks pile up quickly. So you don’t lose track, you can filter the view and show only what you’re interested in right now.
The “Filter” button at the top opens the filter dialogue. There you have three options, and you can combine them with each other.
With the Bed filter you pick one or more beds and then only see the tasks belonging to those beds. Handy when you’re working on a particular bed and want to know exactly what’s due there.
The Category filter narrows the view down to certain categories, so only “Pre-grow” or only “Plant”, for example. That way you focus on one kind of work, when you want to sow all your young plants in a single afternoon, say.
If you tick Hide completed, every task you’ve already ticked off disappears from the list. What’s left is only what still needs doing.
You can see the active filters as small chips right below the bar. To remove a filter again, just click the cross on the chip. Your selection is kept while you move around in grove, so you can come back to the filtered view at any time.
Printing tasks
If you’d rather take your tasks into the garden on paper, you can print them. Choose the “Print” action.
A dialogue opens where you set a start week and an end week. That way you only print the period you care about. You also decide whether the tasks you’ve already completed should appear on the printout, or whether only the open ones are printed.
Don’t be too strict about it
Gardening isn’t an exact science, at least not in everyday life. The weather sometimes has its own ideas, and your instinct for the right moment is often the best guide. Grove’s tasks are guidelines. You don’t have to follow them to the letter. Give yourself the room you need.