Before You Plant
Compare the sun, water, warmth, and time recorded for 140 edible plants.
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How to explore
The GROW Observatory assembled broad growing requirements for edible plants used across European climate zones. This project compares the recorded categories; it is not a local planting calendar or food-safety guide.
Begin with one useful group
Show the 19 plants labeled hardy or very hardy with low or very low water need.
Choose your own conditions
Change the sunlight, water, cold-tolerance, and harvest controls, then choose a matching plant.
Compare the recorded wait
Read each harvest bar from its earliest to latest recorded day.
Connect the labels
Choose a water-by-cold-tolerance cell, then see where those plants fall by soil pH and harvest time.
- Days to harvest
- The source's estimated growing time before harvest; this project draws only complete minimum-to-maximum ranges.
- Cold tolerance
- The source's very hardy-to-very tender class, not a USDA hardiness-zone rating.
- Soil pH
- A 0–14 measure of acidity and alkalinity; lower numbers are more acidic, and 7 is neutral.
- Full sun
- The source's highest-light category; the extract does not give one universal number of hours.
- Not recorded
- The field is blank or unavailable in this extract; it does not mean zero.
Before
you plant
Compare the sun, water, warmth, and time recorded for 140 edible plants.
The GROW Observatory brought broad growing requirements into one dataset. Use it to compare the records, not as a local planting calendar or food-safety guide.
Start with what a plant needs.
Each control removes plants whose recorded category does not match. Choose a plant to carry it into every view below.
140 of 140 plants match
Some waits are recorded as ranges.
Each bar runs from the earliest to latest recorded harvest day. The filters above change which complete ranges appear; plants without a closed range stay out of this chart.
Water and cold tolerance form the largest groups.
Each cell counts all plants with that pair of source labels. Choose a cell to use both labels as filters above.
Water need →Very lowLowMediumHighVery high
Soil pH and harvest time answer different questions.
Move left to right for a higher pH midpoint. Move up for a longer recorded wait to harvest. The filters above change the points; choosing one changes the plant card and range highlight.
A short list is a place to ask better local questions.
The source was built for European climate zones, while this extract holds broad plant requirements rather than a location-specific calendar. Soil, weather, variety, planting method, and local guidance can change what works.
Definitions and missing data
- Days to harvest
- The source's estimated growing time before harvest. This project compares only closed ranges when it draws a bar or point.
- Cold tolerance
- The source's very hardy-to-very tender class. It is not a USDA hardiness zone.
- Soil pH
- A 0–14 measure of acidity and alkalinity. Lower numbers are more acidic; 7 is neutral.
- Full sun
- The source's highest-light category. The extract does not state a universal number of hours.
- Not recorded
- The selected field is blank or marked unavailable in the extract. It does not mean zero.
Why this exists
The question
Which combinations of sunlight, water need, cold tolerance, soil pH, and harvest time appear in the University of Dundee's Edible Plant Database extract, and how does one plant compare with the rest?
What to try
Start with 19 plants labeled hardy or very hardy and low or very low water, change four plain-language filters, choose any matching plant, compare complete harvest ranges, select a water-by-cold-tolerance cell, and read the linked soil-pH view.
Method and limits
About the data
I discovered the source through TidyTuesday's February 3, 2026 Edible Plants entry and pinned the curated CSV to commit `d6b21e5cba464d9970599000b57c8b0823e8b6ca`. The underlying University of Dundee record names Mel Woods, Andy Cobley, Susan R. Verrall, Roy Neilson, Naomi van der Velden, Gerid Hager, and the GROW Consortium as creators. It identifies the University of Dundee as publisher, DOI `10.15132/10000157`, May 2020 as the release date, and CC BY 4.0 as the license for the database files. The source page describes 146 species in the full database. The pinned curated extract contains 140 rows, so every count here uses 140 rather than repeating the broader source total.
I retrieved the 64,814-byte CSV on October 11, 2026. Its SHA-256 is `20c6bb4c2dc9cacf3bf5908d2b9cde753b1db8b7304f1af071c9b06ab2b95b67`. A standard-library Python reducer verifies the byte count, hash, schema, and 140-row count. It normalizes only case, spacing, one `Brassicas` label, one `Very hard` label, and an explicit high-potassium nutrient label into their matching display categories. It parses numeric ranges without filling missing endpoints. Repeated reductions produced the same 28,783-byte snapshot with SHA-256 `5f207d639169c3f838782a26082c951830263567cee613cff310f9d6cc629aee`. The page imports that snapshot and makes no runtime request.
The harvest chart and soil-pH view include only the 69 rows with a complete minimum-to-maximum harvest range. Twelve open-ended harvest values, two single values, and 57 blank or not-applicable values remain visible as text where relevant but are not turned into closed ranges. The soil-pH point uses the midpoint only for position while the selected plant card keeps the full recorded pH range. Counts describe rows in this extract, not the prevalence of plants in gardens or the chance of success.
The original database supported location-aware planting calendars across 12 European climate zones. The curated extract contains broad requirements, not those calendars. Variety, local weather, soil, planting method, pests, and source revisions can change practical guidance. The source also contains occasional broad or inconsistent categories. This project keeps those limits visible, does not rank plants with a hidden score, and does not offer identification, edibility, or food-safety advice.
Skills used
- Data analysis
- Data engineering
- Statistical reasoning
- Visualization
- Information design
- Interaction design
- Visual design
- Creative coding
- Product thinking
- Editorial storytelling
- Accessibility
- Performance
- Systems design
What the data shows
- The pinned extract contains 140 plant rows. Eighty-seven are labeled full sun only, 44 allow full sun or partial shade, six are partial shade, and three allow full sun, partial shade, or full shade.
- The source labels 93 of 140 plants medium-water. Nineteen rows pair low or very low water need with hardy or very hardy cold tolerance. These are broad source classes rather than measured local water amounts.
- Sixty-nine plants have a complete harvest range that can be compared without filling a missing endpoint. Nineteen of those ranges end within 75 days; cress is the shortest complete range at 7–11 days in this extract.
- A soil-pH midpoint can place a plant on one shared view, but the preferred range matters. The interface keeps the selected plant's full pH range beside the point and avoids reducing the records to a single recommendation score.