Why I Built GrowMore CookMore: A Gardener’s Frustration That Became an App

It Started With a Glut of Courgettes

Like most gardening stories, this one starts with too many courgettes. It was a summer a few years back. I’d grown a decent patch of vegetables — tomatoes, beans, beetroot, courgettes — and for the first time everything had actually worked. The courgettes in particular had gone berserk. I was picking them daily and still couldn’t keep up. They were coming out of my ears. I knew I wanted to cook with them. That was the whole point. But I’d open a recipe app and search “courgette” and get back a list of recipes with no connection to what else was ready in my garden, what was in season, or what I actually had to hand. Then I’d open a gardening app and it would tell me what to sow next month — useful, but nothing about the harvest sitting on my kitchen counter right now. There was a gap. A pretty obvious one. And nobody had filled it.

The Gap Between the Garden and the Kitchen

I’d been growing my own food for years by that point and sharing the journey on YouTube. My channel had grown to tens of thousands of subscribers — people who, like me, were passionate about growing their own food but also wanted to actually do something delicious with it. The question I got asked most, by far, was some version of: “I’ve got loads of [vegetable] — what do I do with it?” It’s such a simple question. And yet there was no app that answered it properly. No app that knew what you were growing, when it would be ready, and what to cook with it when it was. So I decided to build one.

What I Wanted the App to Do

I had a clear vision from the start. I wanted an app that answered the two questions every gardener asks: “What can I grow right now?” and “What can I cook with what I’ve grown?” That meant the app needed to know your location — because a gardener in Scotland and a gardener in Cornwall have very different growing seasons, and both are completely different from a gardener in Minnesota or California. It needed to know your frost dates, your climate zone, and give you growing advice that was actually relevant to where you live. And then, when your harvest came in, it needed to bridge the gap to the kitchen. Not just generic recipes, but recipes matched to what you were actually growing. Seasonal. Practical. Connected.

Building It

I’m a developer as well as a gardener, which meant I could build it myself. That was both a blessing and a curse — I could make exactly what I wanted, but I also had to make exactly what I wanted, which took considerably longer than I’d hoped. I spent months researching growing dates for 84 different fruit and vegetables across the UK and USA. I built out a recipe database of over 200 recipes matched to seasonal produce. I added frost date alerts, live weather, a garden journal, companion planting guidance, a freezer tracker, a budget tracker and more features than I originally planned — because once you start, it’s hard to stop. The result is GrowMore CookMore — an app that genuinely bridges the gap between the garden and the kitchen.

What the App Does Today

GrowMore CookMore is available on iOS and covers 84 fruit and vegetables with detailed growing guides and variety information. A personalised grow calendar based on your location — whether you’re in the UK or across USDA zones 3–10 in North America. Over 200 harvest recipes matched to what’s ready in your garden. Frost date alerts to protect your plants. Live weather data. A garden journal to document your growing journey. Companion planting guidance. A freezer tracker so nothing goes to waste. A budget tracker to see the real value of your homegrown produce. Seasonal task reminders. And more added with every update.

Why It Matters to Me

Growing your own food is one of the most rewarding things you can do. There’s something genuinely magical about eating a meal made entirely from things you grew yourself. It connects you to the seasons, reduces food waste, saves money and — I’d argue — tastes considerably better than anything you can buy in a supermarket. But the gap between the garden and the kitchen has always been a real barrier. People grow food and then don’t know what to do with it. Harvests go to waste. The connection between growing and cooking gets lost. GrowMore CookMore exists to close that gap. To make the journey from seed to plate as smooth and enjoyable as possible.

Tony Smith is a gardener, developer, YouTuber and the creator of GrowMore CookMore. He grows vegetables in the UK and shares the journey with over 50,000 subscribers on YouTube at @TonyCSmith.