Weekly Pest Alert: matched to what you’re actually growing
Every Tuesday at 6am, Pro members get one email listing the pests actually worth watching this week, ranked by how much damage they can do, with the gentlest treatment option first. Not a generic pest list. Not everything in the database. Just the five that matter for your climate zone, this month, and the vegetables you’ve told us you’re growing.
A real one, from last week
This is an actual Weekly Pest Alert, sent to a Pro member growing leafy greens and fruiting crops. Every entry follows the same shape: what it is, how to tell, and the organic option first.
Notice three of the five are native animals, not insects or disease. That’s deliberate: for a lot of Australian backyard growers, possums, birds and macropods do more damage over a season than any bug does. A pest list that only covers insects and fungus is missing half the problem.
How it’s matched
The alert isn’t a live weather feed, it’s a season-and-crop match against the same 34-pest database behind our pest identification library:
| Factor | What it checks |
|---|---|
| Your climate zone | Only pests documented as active in your zone are considered |
| The current month | Only pests in their peak season right now make the list |
| Your vegetables | Matched against the crops you’ve added in My Garden. If nothing matches, or you haven’t added any yet, you’ll still get the top zone-and-season pests generally |
| Severity | Ranked critical, then high, then moderate, then low. Top 5 shown |
Some weeks there’s nothing worth flagging, and the email says so plainly rather than padding out the list with low-risk pests.
Garden Buddy AU has a second, separate Pro feature: live pest pressure at your postcode, which recomputes daily from the actual weather forecast. The Weekly Pest Alert is the calendar-and-crop view, sent once a week; live pressure is the day-to-day weather view, shown on the /pests/ page. Pro members get both.
Why native pests need a different plan
Possums, most birds, and kangaroos and wallabies are protected species. You can’t treat them the way you’d treat an aphid. Each card in the alert leads with an organic, exclusion-first option, netting, tree guards, fencing, because for protected wildlife that’s not a preference, it’s the law.
What each card includes
- Identification: what it looks like, or what damage looks like
- A severity badge (critical, high, moderate, low)
- The organic or exclusion option, always listed first
What it doesn’t do
- Doesn’t spam you with every pest in the database
- Doesn’t repeat a pest you’re already treating with no new information
- Doesn’t push chemical control as the first option
Turning it on or off
Opted in by default for Pro members. Turn it off any time from your Garden Buddy dashboard under email preferences, and back on again whenever you like.
What it isn’t
- It’s a season-and-crop match, not a live weather feed. An unseasonal cold snap or heatwave won’t change this week’s list; that’s what live pest pressure is for.
- It covers the 34 pests in our database. A regional speciality that isn’t in there yet won’t show up, tell us and we’ll look at adding it.
- It needs vegetables added in My Garden to personalise the crop match. Without them, you’ll still get useful zone-and-season pests, just not narrowed to what you actually grow.
Get the Weekly Pest Alert
It’s one part of Pro, alongside live pest pressure for your postcode, Buddy Check photo pest ID, and the succession planting planner. $59/year or $7.99/month, cancel anytime.