Garden, Homestead & Source-the-Food Apps

FarmOS, Smart Garden, PictureThis, Planter — track what you grow, when to plant, and where the food came from.

The "I grow some of my own food" page. For pantry-side tracking after harvest see Pantry Inventory & Grocy; for HA-side garden / greenhouse automation see Home Assistant Add-ons; for the ESP-based soil moisture / irrigation hardware see ESPHome / Tasmota; for IoT moisture / climate sensors see Smart Home & IoT.

Self-host / FOSS

★ FarmOS — Drupal-based; small-farm-grade record-keeping (areas, plantings, observations, harvests, inputs); open data export; OpenTEAM ecosystem. The serious pick for actual production-flavored homesteading. AGPLv3.
- https://farmos.org
Tania — Go; open source; aimed at urban farms; lighter than FarmOS.
GrowEZ / OpenFarm — community plant database; OSS / CC-licensed; varying activity.
Permaculture Plants Database — free reference dataset.

★ PictureThis — paid + free; AI plant ID; the dominant consumer pick; surprisingly accurate.
- https://www.picturethisai.com
PlantNet — free; OSS-flavored; INRA / CIRAD / IRD-backed; the right reference choice.
iNaturalist / Seek — free; California Academy of Sciences; the right call for biodiversity / "what is this bug eating my tomato" identification.
Google Lens — free; surprisingly good at plant ID now.
Pl@ntNet API — free for non-commercial; build-your-own ID app.

Smart Garden / Planter (apps with these names) — paid + free; varying maturity; mobile-first.
Vegetable Garden Planner (Mother Earth News / GrowVeg) — paid; long-running; rotation planning.
Seedtime — paid + free; calendar-flavored; planting schedules.
Garden Coach — free; basic.
The Old Farmer's Almanac Planner — paid.
A spreadsheet — works; serious gardeners eventually do this.

★ USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map — free; the canonical reference (updated 2023; many areas shifted up half a zone).
Sunset Climate Zones — free; finer-grained for the western US.
First / last frost date — local extension service; usually free.
GDD (growing degree days) calculators — free from most extension services.

★ Xiaomi Mi Flora / Flower Care — Bluetooth soil moisture + light + EC + temp; ~$15; HA integration; battery for ~year. The cheap default.
ESPHome + capacitive soil moisture sensor — DIY; $5 in parts; HA integration. See ESPHome / Tasmota.
Sonoff THR320 / 316 — temp + humidity for greenhouses.
B-hyve / Rachio / Hydrawise — paid smart sprinkler controllers; HA integrations.
OpenSprinkler — open hardware sprinkler controller; HA-friendly. The right pick for irrigation hackers.
Grove / Atlas Scientific EC + pH sensors — for hydroponics / aquaponics; pricier.

AeroGarden — paid; consumer countertop hydroponic; closed cloud (now sunset by Scotts).
Click and Grow — paid; same shape; alive.
Lettuce Grow / Gardyn / Rise Gardens — paid; vertical hydroponic; closed cloud.
DIY hydroponics + ESPHome / HA — the path; pH and EC sensors are the catch.

★ iNaturalist + Seek — free; identification + community verification.
Falling Fruit — free; map of public-foraging trees / sites; OSS-flavored.
PictureMushroom / iKnow Mushrooms — paid + free; don't ever eat a mushroom on app ID alone; cross-reference with experts.
Wild Edibles — paid; Steve Brill; reference.
Foragers Buddy — paid; UK-flavored.

★ FarmOS harvest log — best OSS option.
A spreadsheet — usually adequate.
CSA software: Open Food Network, Harvie, Local Line — for CSA-shape distribution.

★ Start with one bed, not the whole yard. Most homesteading apps over-promise scope; you'll use 10% of the features.
Photograph every plant weekly. Better disease tracking than any app.
Soil test once a season. Send to your extension service; ~$15. This beats any sensor.
Hardiness zones shifted in 2023 USDA update. Re-check yours; planting calendars in older books may be wrong.
Garden journals beat garden apps. A 5-line entry per bed per week is what FarmOS encourages anyway.
Foraging requires expert teachers, not apps. Mushroom poisoning kills.