Cover artwork may change before launch.
Planting Season Garden Planner · Coming soon
Central Otago Garden Planner
Undated Planting Calendar, Sowing Log and Harvest Journal
The garden planner that already knows what to plant this month. Every month opens with what to sow, plant out and pick across Alexandra, Cromwell, Queenstown and Wānaka, and the facing pages are yours to fill in. Undated, so it lasts as long as you keep gardening.
A$19.95 on Amazon Australia, which ships to New ZealandNew Zealand buyers order from amazon.com.au, so there is no NZ$ price. Paperback.
The New Zealand editions launch after the Australian ones.
We will email you when it is on Amazon Australia. You will also get the free monthly what-to-plant email, and you can unsubscribe any time.
- 162 pages, 8 x 10 in paperback
- Undated, starts any month
- Monday-start weeks, metric
- Eight pages for every month
- 44 crops on the year at a glance
- Three months of Pro inside
Look inside
Planners like this one have no Look Inside preview on Amazon, so here are real pages from the Central Otago edition. Tap any page to see it full size, and use the arrows or swipe to move through them.
How to use this planner, with a worked example
Sowing year at a glance, with the Central Otago months filled in
January: the Central Otago calendar page and your Monday-start month grid
Week by week: watered, fed, rain, minimum and maximum
Whole-garden bed map: the plan, on a fine grid
Plant profiles, two to a page, 48 in all with an index
What is wrong with my plant? The symptoms and fixes chart
What's inside, page by page
162 pages in the order you use them: plan, then seeds, then the months, then the records, with the reference pages at the back. Every page has a printed edge tab so you can find each section with your thumb.
| Section | Pages | What is on them |
|---|---|---|
| Start here | 7 | Title and about pages; how to use the planner, with a worked example; Central Otago at a glance, with the microclimates to tick and your own garden's details (postcode, frost dates, soil, sun, water); all nine Planting Season regions in New Zealand on one page; and the sowing year at a glance for 44 crops across two pages, with blank rows for your own. |
| Plan | 10 | A year planner with a line a day, six months to a page; two whole-garden bed map spreads on a fine grid, the plan on the left and what is actually there on the right; a wish list and shopping list; a crop rotation planner; a sun and shade map; and a notes page. |
| Seeds | 6 | A seed inventory with the packet's own numbers: crop, variety, source, year, quantity, depth, spacing, days to germinate and a germination test column. |
| Months | 96 | Eight pages for each month: the pre-printed Central Otago calendar page (sow direct, start in trays, plant out, pick now, the jobs that matter and the pest watch); your Monday-start month grid with three jobs; week by week; a sowed and planted log with germinated, planted out and first pick columns; a bed plan spread for what comes out and what goes in; harvest and problems; and notes. |
| Records | 30 | 48 numbered plant profiles, two to a page, with an index; the What is wrong with my plant? chart; three years of rain, frost and heat records; and a garden costs and savings page. |
| Review | 3 | Two season reviews (cool season and warm season) for what grew, what failed and what to change, and a fails and favourites page, year by year. |
| Notes and back pages | 10 | Lined notes pages with a date column; a seed packets and receipts page to tape an envelope to; the reader code page for the app; and the Central Otago quick chart of the 24 crops most people grow. |
| Total | 162 |
What's regional in the Central Otago edition
The month pages, the region page, the year at a glance, the quick chart and the symptoms chart in this edition are printed for Central Otago. Every sowing window comes from the Planting Season calendar for Central Otago, the same data that runs the free app and the Central Otago planting calendar on this site.
The seasons it plans around
- The short summer, December to March. Central Otago has about 140 frost-free days, from the regional last frost around 5 November to the first around 25 March, and the calendar opens every frost-tender crop, from tomatoes and beans to pumpkins, sweetcorn and basil, in December only. The summer heat is real and the air is dry, so warm crops succeed in the brief window with protection at each end, fast early varieties, a cloche or tunnel house, and irrigation that is not optional. Stone fruit ripens fast in the dry heat, cherries and early apricots in December, peaches, apricots and plums through January, and the vegetable garden peaks in February and March, with everything ripe picked before the first frost.
- The frost months, April to November. From the first proper frosts in April to the last around 5 November, the ground locks into winter cold and the garden runs on what was established in late summer and autumn: brassicas, leeks, silverbeet, roots lifted for storage, and garlic planted from April to June before the ground freezes hard. Winter is bare-root season for the apples, pears and stone fruit that this climate grows better than anywhere else in the country. Spring sowings start in September, when the soil can finally be worked, under cloches and frost cloth, and the tender plant-out waits for mid to late November, a month after the rest of the country has planted by Labour Weekend.
Microclimates on the region page
Page 4 lists the growing zones inside Central Otago. Tick yours; where a month page gives a range, inland and elevated gardens use the later date.
On the line-a-day year planner, the frost months for the coldest zone (March to November) are shaded.
The rain, frost and heat record pages carry the local baseline: Alexandra and Cromwell sit in the rain shadow of the Southern Alps, with reliably dry, genuinely hot summers that need irrigation, the hardest and most persistent frosts in the country, a regional last spring frost around 5 November and a first autumn frost around 25 March, and winter nights that can fall below minus 8 to minus 10 degrees.
The Central Otago quick chart (page 161)
The 24 crops most people grow, with the sowing months printed for Central Otago. This table is copied from the book.
| Crop | Days to first pick | Spacing cm | Depth cm | Sow months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tomato | 85 | 60 | 1 | Dec |
| Lettuce | 55 | 25 | 0.5 | Jan, Feb, Oct, Nov, Dec |
| Carrot | 85 | 5 | 0.5 | Jan, Oct, Nov, Dec |
| Beans (bush) | 65 | 20 | 3 | Dec |
| Peas | 75 | 10 | 3 | Sep, Oct, Nov |
| Broccoli | 90 | 45 | 1 | Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec |
| Spinach | 55 | 20 | 1 | Feb, Mar, Aug, Sep, Oct |
| Basil | 65 | 25 | 0.5 | Dec |
| Capsicum | 100 | 45 | 0.5 | Dec |
| Cucumber | 60 | 50 | 2 | Dec |
| Zucchini | 60 | 80 | 2 | Dec |
| Pumpkin | 120 | 150 | 3 | Dec |
| Silverbeet | 60 | 30 | 1.5 | Jan, Feb, Mar, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec |
| Kale | 70 | 40 | 1 | Jan, Feb, Mar, Sep, Oct |
| Beetroot | 65 | 10 | 1.5 | Jan, Feb, Oct, Nov, Dec |
| Onion | 180 | 10 | 1.5 | Aug, Sep, Oct |
| Garlic | 210 | 15 | 3 | Apr, May, Jun |
| Potato | 90 | 30 | 10 | Jan, Oct, Nov, Dec |
| Sweet Corn | 90 | 30 | 3 | Dec |
| Strawberry | 90 | 30 | 1 | Sep, Oct, Nov |
| Rocket | 40 | 15 | 0.5 | Feb, Mar, Oct, Nov |
| Coriander | 50 | 15 | 1 | Oct, Nov |
| Parsley | 80 | 20 | 0.5 | Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec |
| Spring Onion | 60 | 10 | 1 | Jan, Feb, Mar, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec |
The symptoms and fixes chart (page 145)
14 symptoms, each with the likely cause and what to do, written for New Zealand gardens. The likely causes it covers:
- Nitrogen hunger or age
- Iron or manganese; pH too high
- Magnesium
- Root rot or collar rot
- Heat stress
- Caterpillars or grasshoppers
- Flea beetle or earwigs
- Tomato-potato psyllid
- Leaf miner
- Early blight or bacterial spot
- Powdery mildew
- Heat above 35, too much nitrogen, no pollinators
- Codling moth; report maggots in any other fruit
- Phosphorus, cold wet soil
The app bonus: three months of Pro
Each planner has a reader code on page 160 for three months of Planting Season Pro. Scan the QR code on that page, or enter the code at plantingseason.co.nz/redeem/. One claim per account, on any phone or computer.
Pro is for the whole property: more than one garden bed (free members edit one), the Pro plants (fruit trees, natives and bush foods, and exotic and tropical perennials), the Orchard's tree records, Flock, Bees, Livestock and Worms with their health records, and Projects.
Everything else in the app is free for everyone, code or no code: one bed with all its logging, the planting calendar, the plant library, pest and disease help, the journal, frost alerts and the weekly email.
The Central Otago planting calendar behind the month pages is free to read any time at plantingseason.co.nz/grow/central-otago/.
Specifications
| Format | Paperback, glued spine, printed on demand by Amazon |
|---|---|
| Size | 8 x 10 in (20.3 x 25.4 cm) |
| Pages | 162 |
| Interior | Black ink on white paper |
| Cover | Matte |
| Dates | Undated: write the year on each month page and start in any month of any year |
| Weeks | Monday start |
| Units | Metric (cm, mm, degrees Celsius) |
| Spelling | New Zealand and Australian English |
| Edition | Central Otago, calendar data as at October 2026 |
| Author and publisher | Planting Season |
| Sold on | Amazon Australia (amazon.com.au) |
| Editions | Paperback only at launch. Amazon does not publish write-in books as Kindle books. |
Want it to lie flat? Add a spiral
Amazon prints this planner as a paperback with a glued spine, and print on demand offers no spiral or lay-flat binding. Many planner buyers take theirs to an office supply or print shop and pay to have the glued spine cut off and a spiral or coil binding put on. The inner margin on every page is 16 mm (0.625 in), so the punch holes land in blank paper, clear of the writing areas.
Ask the shop to trim as little as possible from the spine edge.
Questions
When will the Central Otago planner be out?
It is not on sale yet. The New Zealand editions launch after the Australian ones. Leave your email on this page and we will tell you when it is on Amazon Australia.
Can I buy it in New Zealand?
Yes. New Zealand buyers order it from Amazon Australia (amazon.com.au), which ships to New Zealand. The price is A$19.95 and there is no NZ$ price.
Is it dated?
No. The planner is undated, so you write the year on each month page and it works in any year. Start it in whatever month you buy it.
How is it different from a blank garden planner?
Every month opens with a page already filled in for Central Otago: what to sow, what to start in trays, what to plant out, what to pick, the jobs that matter and the pests to watch. The sowing windows come from the Planting Season calendar for Central Otago. The facing pages are yours to write in.
Is Central Otago the right edition for me?
This edition is set for Alexandra, Cromwell, Queenstown and Wānaka. If you are not sure which region you garden in, enter your postcode on the Find My Region page. If you garden across a boundary, use the later date.
Is it spiral bound?
No. Amazon prints it as a paperback with a glued spine and offers no spiral binding. Many owners have an office supply or print shop cut the spine off and add a spiral; the inner margins are wide enough for the punch holes to miss the writing areas.
What does the reader code give me?
Each planner has a reader code on page 160 for three months of Planting Season Pro. Scan the QR code or enter the code at plantingseason.co.nz/redeem/. One claim per account. Pro adds more than one garden bed, the Pro plants, the Orchard's tree records, Flock, Bees, Livestock and Worms, and Projects. The calendar, frost alerts and one bed are free without a code.
Will there be a Kindle or PDF version?
Not at launch. Amazon does not sell write-in books like this one as Kindle books, and the paperback comes first.
Other New Zealand editions
Each edition carries its own region's calendar. See every planner or find your region.