G’day. I’m Buddy the Sprout.
Tell me where you live, and I’ll tell you what to plant.
Garden Buddy helps you start and run a veggie garden in your actual climate: what goes in the ground this month, how to look after it, what is eating it, and whether it is saving you money against Woolworths, Coles, Aldi and IGA. Built in Dayboro, Queensland.
Build my first garden What can I plant right now? Start freeOpen My Garden
Fetching the latest supermarket price…
Every Monday: which vegetables just got cheaper, and what’s worth planting because of it.
Free. We send one email to confirm it is really you, and you can unsubscribe any time.
One garden helper, start to harvest
Garden Buddy is not a price site with some gardening bolted on. It walks the whole season with you.
Tell me where you live
Your postcode sets your climate zone, so every planting window on this site is for your patch, not Devon or California.
Plan it and plant it
The bed planner counts how many plants fit by real spacing, and the calendar says when each one goes in.
Look after it
Watering, feeding and pest watch for the crops you actually planted, with photo pest ID when something starts chewing.
Harvest and count it
Log what you pick and see what it would have cost at the supermarket, from the same live prices we track daily.
What a GardenBuddy Advisor note looks like
A real note from this week, written for a member’s actual garden in the subtropical zone. Nothing staged, this is the product.
August in the subtropics is doing what it usually does, mild days, cool nights, and not much rain to speak of. My soil is dry a few centimetres down, so whatever you have in the ground needs a proper soak twice a week rather than a daily sprinkle.
Your garlic should be putting on leaf growth now, and every leaf matters because each one roughly equals a wrapper layer on the bulb later. I give mine a weak liquid feed each fortnight through this stretch, then ease off once the days lengthen. Silverbeet is the workhorse this time of year. Pick the outer leaves and leave at least 5 or 6 in the centre, and the plant keeps producing for months. Watch for aphids clustering on the undersides of soft new growth, they love this dry weather, and a sharp blast of water sorts most of them out.
Good month to be out there. Keep picking.
Starter members get a note like this every Monday. Pro members get one every morning, tuned to the weather and the pests moving in their area. See the plans.
Free tools, no signup needed
Every one of these is publicly accessible. Sign up only when you want personal tracking.
Live veg price tracker
Daily prices for 77 vegetables across Woolworths, Coles, Aldi and IGA. See what is up, what is down, and what is worth growing instead.
View prices →
What to plant this month
Enter your postcode, get the right calendar for your zone. Subtropical Brisbane, cool-temperate Hobart and everywhere in between.
Find your zone →
Growing guides
100+ crops × 7 Australian climate zones. Real planting windows, not “spring/summer” generic advice borrowed from the UK.
Browse guides →
Visual bed planner
Draw your beds, drag crops in, and the planner counts plants by spacing and totals what the harvest is worth at today’s prices. The demo plan adds up to hundreds of dollars a year vs the supermarket, recalculated from live prices every day.
Try the bed planner →
Farmers almanac
A monthly almanac for each of the 7 Australian climate zones: what to plant, moon phases and sky events, livestock jobs and the climate outlook. Past months are free to read, the current month is for members.
Read the almanac →Pick your climate zone
Australia has seven growing zones. Pick yours and get the planting calendar that matches.
Tropical
Darwin, Cairns, Top End. Wet and dry seasons.
Subtropical
Brisbane, Gold Coast, Byron. Mild winters, humid summers.
Warm temperate
Sydney, Perth coast, Adelaide hills.
Mediterranean
Perth, Adelaide, dry summers and wet winters.
Cool temperate
Melbourne, Hobart, Canberra. Four real seasons.
Cold / Highland
Tasmanian highlands, Alpine NSW, Snowy. Frost-prone.
Arid / Semi-arid
Alice Springs, Broken Hill, inland. Hot and dry.
Garden Buddy AU, by the numbers
★ Price of the week · Biggest mover
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–Fetching the biggest price mover from the last 30 days of supermarket data…
Why we built this
I live in Dayboro, a small town an hour north-west of Brisbane. Subtropical. Frost-free most winters, but the summers are brutal. Every gardening app I downloaded was built somewhere else, the UK, California, Ontario. None of them knew my seasons, none of them knew my pests, and none of them could tell me if my tomatoes were worth more in the ground or at Woolworths.
So we built Garden Buddy AU. Real Australian zones. Real supermarket prices, compiled daily from the major retailers’ published prices. GardenBuddy Check, a photo pest ID that runs on our own server in Australia, not sent overseas to OpenAI. The Queensland Fruit Fly module exists because my neighbour’s stone fruit got wiped out and no app in the world warned him.
It is not revolutionary. It is just honest, local, and built for the climate we actually garden in.
How Garden Buddy AU compares
Side-by-side with the two most popular garden planners in Australia.
| Feature | Garden Buddy AU | GrowVeg | Gardenate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australian climate zones (all 7) | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Live supermarket prices, daily | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Queensland Fruit Fly management | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Personal garden journal | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Photo pest ID (private, on-server) | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Free tier | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Price (annual) | $29–59 | US$35 | Free* |
Our own assessment, checked 10 August 2026. *Gardenate’s website and its monthly planting email are free, and its iOS app is a one-off A$2.99 rather than a subscription. GrowVeg has a 7 day trial, then it is paid only. Our paid plans all start with a 7 day free trial, and the free tier above is permanent and takes no card. Feature coverage and prices change, so check theirs before you decide.
Three honest pricing plans
The free tier is not a trial. No card, no countdown, it stays free, and you can move up or down whenever you like.
Free
$0
Helps you decide what to grow.
Live prices, both weekly emails, 1 bed and 3 plants. No card, and it stays free.
Starter
$3.99/mo
Helps you run what you’re growing.
A weekly Advisor note for your garden, full 12 month price history and an unlimited journal. $29 a year.
Pro
$7.99/mo
Watches the garden with you.
An Advisor note every morning, GardenBuddy Check photo pest ID, and everything in Starter. $59 a year.
Common questions
Is Garden Buddy AU actually Australian?
Yes. Run from Dayboro, Queensland. Hosted on Australian servers. The ABN is 86 081 237 087 (Dutch Digital Dynamics Pty Ltd, GST registered).
Do I have to pay?
No. The price tracker, growing guides and planting calendar are free without an account. A free account adds the 3-month price trend chart for every veggie, the Gardener Weekly Digest, the Weekly Price Alert, and a small garden journal (1 bed, 3 plants). The paid plans (Starter from $29 a year, Pro from $59 a year) add the full 12-month price history, an unlimited journal, watchlist alerts and GardenBuddy Check photo pest ID. Most people don’t need them.
Will you email me spam?
No. You only receive what you signed up for. The Gardener Weekly Digest is opt-in. The Weekly Price Alert is opt-in. We don’t sell your address, we don’t send marketing for other products, and every email has a one-click unsubscribe.
Is my GardenBuddy Check photo private?
Yes. Photos are processed on our own server in Australia. They are not sent to OpenAI, Google Vision, or any third party. They are kept only long enough to give you the result, then deleted, unless you choose to save them in your garden journal.
What happens if I cancel?
Access continues until the end of your paid period. After that you drop back to the free tier, your journal entries and photos are kept unless you ask us to delete them. No hidden auto-renewal traps. Cancel from your account page, no phone calls required.
Is this covered by Australian consumer law?
Yes. All paid plans, monthly and annual, include a 7-day free trial, so you can try the paid features and cancel before the trial ends to pay nothing. The business is registered in Australia (ABN 86 081 237 087), GST registered, and bound by the Australian Consumer Law, so you keep the usual statutory protections.
Start free, no card needed
Pick up where you left off
Sign up, pick your zone, get the Gardener Weekly Digest and the Weekly Price Alert. Upgrade later only if you want to.
Your beds, your harvest log and what it saved you, all in one place.
Get the weekly cheap-to-grow list
Every Sunday: the biggest supermarket veg price moves across Woolworths, Coles, Aldi and IGA, and what's worth growing instead of buying. Free, one email a week.