Arid and semi-arid planting calendar

What to sow each month

Each card lists the crops to sow or plant in that month in the arid zone; the current month is marked. Spring and autumn are the busiest months.

The full chart

Every crop in the calendar, month by month. Green cells are the months to sow seed or plant seedlings in the arid zone; the column on the right says the same in words.

sow or plantnot recommendedthis month

Heat, dry air and evaporation

Alice Springs averages 93 days a year at 35 °C or above, 17 of them over 40 °C, and 284 mm of rain. Evaporation from an open pan averages 8.6 mm a day there, more than ten times the rainfall over a year. Mildura, Broken Hill and Kalgoorlie are a little milder but still see 34–42 days a year at 35 °C or above, with 250–285 mm of rain.

In these conditions water, mulch and shade matter as much as the sowing month. Leafy crops run to seed quickly in the heat, and Green Harvest recommends shade cloth to slow them down. Midsummer is for heat-lovers; much of the best growing happens in spring and autumn.

Frost: the inland catch

Arid does not mean frost-free. Alice Springs averages 31 nights a year at 2 °C or below, from May to August. Further south and east the frost season is longer: Wagga Wagga and Shepparton average frost from May to October, and Tamworth, Dubbo and Albury from May to September, with 45–52 frosty nights a year. Only the north of the zone escapes: Tennant Creek has no frost on record in an average year and Mount Isa about three nights.

That is why spring plantings of frost-tender crops in this zone carry a risk in the colder towns. Pick your town in the calendar and it flags frost-tender crops in any month that still averages a frosty night or more there, or where the next month does.

The arid year

• Spring (September–November): the busiest time, with 24–27 crops a month in the calendar. Plant the frost-tender summer crops once your frosts finish: tomatoes, capsicum, eggplant, cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkins, melons, sweet corn, beans, okra and sweet potato.
• Summer (December–February): keep sowing summer crops for an autumn harvest, and from January to March start cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts in trays for winter. Shade young seedlings in heatwaves.
• Autumn (March–May): peas, broad beans, English spinach, lettuce, kale, Asian greens, carrots, beetroot, turnips, parsnips, onions, leeks and garlic.
• Winter (June–August): keep sowing peas, broad beans (until July), leafy greens and root crops, and plant asparagus and rhubarb crowns. From July and August, start chillies and tomatoes in trays under cover.

Towns in this zone

The arid and semi-arid towns in the calendar, with the Bureau of Meteorology station behind each frost figure. The inland towns of NSW and Victoria follow this zone for their hot, dry summers, but their frost seasons run later than Alice Springs'.

Questions