Milestones
Understand how MyVeggieGarden uses milestones to track plant lifecycle phases, generate tasks, and measure growing intervals.
Milestones are the lifecycle phases a plant goes through — from seed to harvest to removal. They're the backbone of MyVeggieGarden's tracking and task systems.
How milestones work
Each milestone represents a stage in a plant's life:
| Milestone | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Started indoors | Seeds sown in containers inside | Tomato seeds in seed tray |
| Germinated | First sprouts visible | Seedlings poking through soil |
| First true leaves | Beyond the cotyledon stage | Ready to thin or pot up |
| Hardened off | Gradually exposed to outdoor conditions | Setting trays outside during the day |
| Transplanted / In garden | Planted in final growing location | Moved to raised bed |
| Flowering | Producing flowers | Blossoms on tomato plant |
| First fruit | First fruit or vegetable forming | Green tomatoes appearing |
| Harvesting | Actively picking produce | Ripe tomatoes ready to eat |
| Removed | Pulled out, done for season | End of life |
| Winterized | Dormant for winter (perennials) | Cut back, mulched |
Milestones vs. status
These are two different things:
- Milestone = What stage is it in? (lifecycle phase)
- Status = How is it doing? (health assessment: Good, Fair, Poor)
A plant can be at the "Flowering" milestone with a "Poor" status (it's flowering, but struggling). Or at "Harvesting" with "Good" status (producing well).
Both can be recorded in the same log entry.
Growing methods
Milestones are grouped by growing method — the approach you use to start a plant:
Seeds Indoors
Started indoors → Germinated → First true leaves → Hardened off → In garden → Flowering → Harvesting → Removed
Direct Sow
Direct sow → Germinated → First true leaves → Flowering → Harvesting → Removed
Transplant (store-bought)
In garden → Flowering → Harvesting → Removed
Each method has a different sequence and different frost date offsets for task generation.
Frost date offsets
Action-based milestones (things you do, not things you observe) can have a frost offset — the number of days before or after your last frost date.
Examples:
- "Start seeds indoors" → frost date minus 42 days (6 weeks before)
- "Transplant outdoors" → frost date plus 14 days (2 weeks after)
These offsets drive task generation.
Protected milestones
Two milestones have special behavior:
- Removed — Marks the planting as terminal. It moves to history and won't appear in active views.
- Winterized — Marks the planting as dormant. For perennials, this triggers creation of a linked planting for the next season.
These milestones cannot be renamed or deleted.
Customizing milestones
You can customize milestones in Settings:
- Add new milestones for your specific workflow
- Reorder milestones within a growing method
- Adjust frost date offsets based on your experience
- Set whether a milestone is "plannable" (generates tasks) or observation-only
Milestone progress tracking
When you log a milestone for the first time on a planting, the app records the date as a milestone progress entry. This data powers:
- Interval measurement — "Cherokee Purple takes ~3 weeks from transplant to flowering in your garden"
- Year-over-year comparison — "You planted 2 weeks earlier this year than last"
- Task timing optimization — Next year's tasks adjust based on actual intervals
Related
- Tasks and timelines — How milestones generate tasks
- Planting and logging — Recording milestones in log entries
- Planning your season — How milestone data informs planning