SeedLeaf is based on a Crop Planning spreadsheet developed by SeedLeaf co-founder, Chris Thoreau. A long-time commercial microgreens grower, Chris noticed early in his growing efforts how difficult it was to plan for the right amount of crop without some means of knowing exactly how much crop he needed. So he developed a spreadsheet to do calculations for him.


The original spreadsheet was built in Microsoft Excel and was modeled on a vegetable crop planning system Chris had learned from Josh Volk of SlowHand Farm. The original was bulky, complex, and ugly, but it did the trick! The spreadsheet underwent many upgrades over several years to make it easier to use, and look at. Moving from neon colours to pastel colours really helped.


Even with a ton of upgrades, the spreadsheet could still be problematic, with users regularly deleting cells they were not supposed to and needing support to get back on track! But the spreadsheet is still in use and great for seasonal planning and financial forecasting. The current spreadsheet is hosted in Google Sheets, making it easier to share.


In early 2020, Chris started talking with a good friend of his who is an experienced developer, Joel Skrepnek, about developing a web-based version of the spreadsheet. They spent months chatting and planning but things started off slow. And COVID didn't help either.


But in early 2021 they got on a good production schedule and did not enough development to get the program officially launched in November 2021. the time since then has been about fixing bugs, adding new features based on user feedback, and adding a list of additional features from the spreadsheet.


SeedLeaf now has users from all over the world and has plans for a ton of new features in 2022!