The weekly Gardener Digest
The Weekly Gardener Digest is a Pro-tier email that lands in your inbox every Sunday morning (or whatever day you pick in your preferences). The single most useful feature on the Pro plan if you actually read it.
What’s in a digest
The Weekly Gardener Digest is a Pro-tier email delivered Sunday morning 07:00 by default (customisable in email prefs). Six sections, designed to be read in under three minutes over coffee.
1. This week’s weather
The 7-day forecast for your zone, with growing implications called out. Not just “28 °C Wednesday” — “Wednesday 28 °C: water deeply Tuesday afternoon to prepare, shade-cloth over leafy greens if possible”.
2. What to plant this week
Crops in their optimal planting window this week in your zone. Pulled from the same data as the public /plant-now/ tool but filtered for relevance — if you’ve already planted broccoli this season, it doesn’t show again.
3. What to harvest this week
Crops you’ve planted that are likely ready, based on days-to-harvest for each variety. Small sharp reminders — “Your Tuscan Black kale hits day 60 this week; outer leaves ready for first pick”.
4. Pest alerts
Pests peaking in your zone this week, based on weather triggers. “Cabbage white butterflies active this week on SEQ brassicas — check undersides, net if needed”. Lets you act before damage.
5. Price movements
Crops you grow that have moved sharply in shop prices this week. “Broccoli up 18% this week at Woolworths — your home harvest is saving you more than usual this month”. Satisfying to read.
6. This week’s AI digest
A short paragraph from one of the four planting schools. Not telling you what to do — summarising what that school’s calendar says about this week, for your zone. Your pick of school in Email Preferences.
The four planting schools
Gardening has multiple overlapping traditions about when to plant. We don’t take a position — we provide all four because gardeners do.
| School | Core principle | Typical adherents |
|---|---|---|
| Traditional | Climate-zone planting guides — plant brassicas in autumn, etc. | Most mainstream gardeners; the safe default |
| Moon | Root crops during waning moon, leafy during waxing, based on lunar phase | Organic gardeners, followers of Rudolf Steiner heritage |
| Biodynamic | Root / leaf / flower / fruit days based on lunar-zodiac cycles | Hardcore biodynamic practitioners |
| Electroculture | Use of atmospheric electricity, copper stakes, emerging techniques | Experimenters, new-school organic |
If you don’t believe in any of them, pick Traditional — it’s pure climate data.
Subscribing and unsubscribing
The digest is on by default for Pro members. If you want to turn it off (temporarily or permanently):
- Every digest email has an unsubscribe link at the bottom. One click and you stop receiving.
- Or from /my-account/ → Email preferences → toggle the digest off.
- Or pause temporarily — “off for 4 weeks, then resume” — via the preferences page.
Add admin@gardenbuddy.au to your address book. Gmail: mark one digest as “not spam” and future ones will land in Primary. Outlook / Hotmail: move to Focused inbox. On Apple Mail: add to VIP contacts.
If a digest is late or missing
Pro members can check /my-account/email-log/ — it shows the queued/sent status of the last 12 weekly digests. If a week shows “queued” past your scheduled day, email us to investigate.
What’s coming
The digest is an active area of development. Planned additions for 2026:
- Variable frequency (fortnightly, monthly) for slow-paced growers
- Integration with local weather stations for hyperlocal forecasting
- Community pest reports (“5 nearby members reported cabbage white emergence”)
- Price-alert subscriptions (“email me if broccoli exceeds $8/kg”)
Feedback welcome — reply to any digest email with suggestions.