In short
- An assistant can log what you did, work the to-do list, and look up forecasts and plants.
- In Claude or ChatGPT, connect it from their directory; elsewhere, add
https://gardeners-almanac.app/mcp. - Sign in with your email and the six-digit code, then tick the consent box.
- The assistant never learns how to sign in as you, and can do no more in the app than you can.
- Disconnect it any time under Settings, Connected apps.
What it can do
Tell your assistant you watered this morning, and it goes in the log. Ask what needs doing this week, and it reads your to-do list back to you. Ask whether tomorrow is worth watering, and it checks the same forecast the app does.
- Log what you did. Watering, soil checks, weeding and notes.
- Record the season's milestones. Sowing, planting out and harvesting, against the right plant.
- Keep your beds current. Add plants to a garden, or take them out when they are spent.
- Work the to-do list. Read what is due, tick things off, or move them to a better day.
- Look things up. The watering forecast for your garden, the plant catalogue and these articles.
It acts as you, on the gardens you can see: your own, and any shared with you. Where you can only view a garden, so can the assistant, and it cannot see anyone else's garden at all.
Before you start
You need Claude, ChatGPT or another assistant that can add a custom connector, and the email address you use for Gardener's Almanac. There is no password to hand over and no key to copy anywhere.
Connect it
In Claude and ChatGPT, Gardener's Almanac is in the directory of connectors. Open it in Claude or in ChatGPT and choose to connect it.
In any other assistant, add https://gardeners-almanac.app/mcp as a custom connector. The address is the same everywhere.
Either way, what follows is the same:
- Your assistant sends you to a Gardener's Almanac sign-in page. Enter your email address and choose Send code.
- Enter the six-digit code we email you, the same way you sign in on the web.
- Read the consent box and tick it. It names the assistant and exactly what it is asking for.
- Choose Continue.
What it gets access to
Read the consent box rather than clicking past it. It names the assistant and says whether it is asking to view your gardens, or to view and change them. Nothing is granted beyond what it lists.
The Gardener's Almanac app on your own phone asks for one thing more: permission to see and disconnect your other connected apps. That is what lets you manage the list below from your pocket, not only from a browser. No other assistant can be given that permission at all; we refuse it before the consent box is ever shown.
Disconnect it
- Open Settings and find Connected apps. Everything you have connected is listed, with when you last authorised it and what it can do.
- Choose Disconnect next to the one you want to remove.
- Confirm with Yes, disconnect.
Access stops at once, on the very next thing that assistant asks us for. One exception: a command-line assistant already running on your own computer keeps working until you restart it.
Nothing the assistant already logged is deleted; your garden's record is yours and stays put. To connect it again, follow the same steps as the first time.
Why it works
The assistant never learns how to sign in as you. It gets its own permission, limited to what the consent box listed, and you can withdraw that permission at any time without changing anything else about your account.
If you are new here and wondering what is worth logging in the first place, Getting Started is the place to go next.