Privacy

Last updated October 15, 2026

Garden Plotter keeps what it needs to plan your garden, and nothing more. There are no ads and no tracking, and we don't sell your data or share it with advertisers. Here's what we keep, where it goes, and how to delete it.

Without an account

You can use Garden Plotter without signing in. Your garden (its location, frost dates, beds and pots, crops, journal and photos) is then saved only on your device: in the browser's storage on the website, and in the app's own storage on iPhone. We don't keep a copy.

To look things up, the app still sends our server two things, which it passes on to the services listed below without saving them:

• the ZIP code or town you type, to find where your garden is,
• your garden's map position, to find its frost dates and weather.

If you choose "Use my location", your device's location is used once, and rounded to within about a mile before it leaves your device.

With an account

Signing in keeps your garden in step between your devices. When you sign in, we keep:

• Your email address, which is your account. If you continue with Google on the website, Google also gives us your name and profile picture, and we keep the sign-in details it sends with them.
• Your garden, copied to Garden Plotter's database: its name, location and frost dates, your beds and pots, crops and where they grow, your journal (notes, harvests and the addresses of your photos), the jobs you've checked off or put off, your answers in the season recap, your own crops, your seed box, and your email settings. The weather stays on your device.
• Journal photos, uploaded to our photo storage at Cloudflare at a long, random web address that can't be guessed. Anyone you give that address to could open the photo.
• A sign-in for each device, so you stay signed in. One that isn't used for a year ends by itself, and Sign out ends it straight away.
• Sign-in codes, only in scrambled form. Each works for 10 minutes, and only once. To stop anyone flooding inboxes, we count the codes sent from each network using a scrambled form of its internet address, which we clear after a day.
• A note of the emails we've sent you, so each frost or heat warning goes out once, and a count of your garden helper questions, so we can keep to the daily limit.

When you delete something in the app, it's deleted from your account too. We keep a small marker that it's gone, so your other devices delete it as well.

Emails

We email you your sign-in codes. Once you're signed in, we also email you when frost or a heat wave is coming and tender plants are out, and send the week ahead on Sundays. Each of those has a link to turn it off, and so does Settings. We don't send marketing email.

The garden helper

The garden helper is Claude, an AI made by Anthropic. It only sees something when you ask it a question. Then we send Anthropic:

• your question and the conversation so far,
• a summary of your garden from your account: roughly where it is (to within about 7 miles) and its frost dates, your beds and pots, how past seasons went crop by crop (harvests, losses, your recap answers and journal notes), your seed box, and what's on your list for the season,
• when you ask about one crop: what you've logged for it, what else is in its bed, the weather around your garden, and any photo you add.

We don't send your email address or name, only a scrambled account number. We don't keep the conversation or the photos you show it: they stay in the app while it's open. Anthropic handles what we send under its commercial terms, which don't let it train its models on it.

Sharing a garden

If you invite someone into your garden, or join someone else's, everyone in it sees the same beds, crops, journal, photos and jobs, and sees each other's name or email address. Whoever started the garden can take people out, and anyone can leave.

Who helps us run Garden Plotter

• Vercel hosts the website and our server. Like any website host, it sees basic details of each visit, such as your internet address.
• Our database provider stores the account data above in a Postgres database.
• Cloudflare stores journal photos.
• Resend sends our emails, from noreply@gardenplotter.org.
• Google, only if you choose to continue with Google.
• Anthropic answers garden helper questions.
• Open-Meteo finds places from a ZIP code or town, and gives the weather and soil temperature for your garden's position. The U.S. National Weather Service gives official warnings, and the weather when Open-Meteo can't.

Frost dates come from a table of weather station records kept on our own server, so that lookup goes nowhere else.

Cookies and storage

We don't use cookies, except the ones Google sign-in needs while you continue with Google. The app keeps your garden and, once you sign in, your sign-in in your browser's or phone's own storage.

Deleting your data

In Settings, Delete account deletes your account and everything saved to it, on every device, photos included. Your account is the same one the earlier Garden Plotter used, so this deletes your gardens, beds, journal, photos and other data from the earlier site too. It can't be undone. The garden on the device you're holding stays until you choose Start over, which clears it.

Without an account, Start over in Settings, or clearing your browser's data for this site, removes your garden from that device.

Children

Garden Plotter is meant for adults. If you're under 13, please ask a parent to set it up rather than making an account yourself.

Changes and questions

If we change what we keep or who helps us, we'll update this page and its date, and tell you in the app or by email before a change that matters takes effect. For a copy of what's in your account, or any question about your data, see Help and support.