Australian Farmers Almanac — SE Queensland Edition
Best days to plant, fish and plan — built from 20+ years of local data, not a formula lifted from the Northern Hemisphere
The US almanac sites — Old Farmer’s Almanac, Almanac.com — are built for northern hemisphere seasons. When they say “plant after last frost in spring”, they mean March. In SE Queensland, March is when you’re pulling out your summer crops. The calendars don’t translate and the advice can actively cause harm if you follow it without thinking.
This almanac is built for Australian conditions, with a particular focus on subtropical SE Queensland — the Dayboro valley, the D’Aguilar hinterland, Moreton Bay country. The planting windows, moon phases, livestock dates and fishing calendars are all calculated for the right hemisphere, the right climate zone, the right growing conditions.
I’ve been watching this valley since 2004. On this moment the Lyndhurst Hill station has logged over 170,000 data points. The almanac uses that record, alongside the Inigo Jones cyclical methodology and BOM seasonal outlooks, to give you dates that actually match what happens up here — not what happens in Vermont.
📅 2026 Monthly Almanacs — Jump Straight In
Each monthly guide covers planting windows for all Australian climate zones, moon phase calendar, best fishing days for Moreton Bay and surrounds, livestock management dates, and the weather outlook from both the Dayboro Model and Inigo Jones cyclical analysis.
🌙 How We Work Out the Best Days to Plant
Moon phase planting is the part that gets people waiting on a straight answer — does it actually work? The honest position: there’s decent evidence that root crops planted near new moon establish better, and that leaf vegetables sown just after full moon show faster germination. There’s also a lot of folklore mixed in that doesn’t hold up. We separate the two.
🌑 New Moon → Root Days
Sap draws downward. Good for: carrots, beetroot, parsnip, potatoes, garlic, onions. Plant 1–3 days after new moon for best establishment.
🌒 First Quarter → Leaf Days
Rising sap, increasing light. Good for: lettuce, silverbeet, herbs, brassicas. Also good for transplanting seedlings started indoors.
🌕 Full Moon → Fruit Days
Peak moisture in soil and plant tissue. Good for: tomatoes, capsicum, beans, cucumbers, zucchini. Harvest fruit for longest shelf life.
🌗 Last Quarter → Rest Days
Decreasing energy. Good for: pruning, composting, soil preparation, weeding. Avoid planting if you can help it.
🎣 Best Fishing Days — Moreton Bay and Hinterland
Fishing calendars in the monthly guides use moon phase, tidal range, and sunrise/sunset data specific to Moreton Bay. The pattern that holds most consistently: the two days either side of full and new moon, with an outgoing tide in the late afternoon, produce better results than mid-quarter flat-water days. We don’t claim this is science — but it’s what the data shows across a lot of local fishing reports over several years.
Each monthly guide lists the top 6–8 fishing days for that month with tide state and moon phase noted. Estuary species (bream, flathead, mangrove jack) and offshore species (snapper, pearl perch) have different peak windows — the monthly guides separate them.
🐄 Livestock Calendar — Weaning, Breeding and Treatment Dates
This is the section the US almanac sites don’t have an Australian answer for. Weaning dates, pregnancy testing windows, drenching schedules and joining periods in SE Queensland follow the southern hemisphere calendar — calving in late winter/spring (August–October), weaning in summer (January–February for autumn-joined mobs). The monthly guides include livestock management notes relevant to the season and the subtropical climate, not generic northern hemisphere advice reworded.
❓ How Reliable Is a Farmers Almanac?
Worth answering directly, since the Reddit threads on this topic run hot.
Is the farmers almanac actually accurate?
For long-range seasonal trends — wetter or drier than average, warmer or cooler winter — the accuracy of any almanac, including ours, is roughly in line with BOM’s seasonal outlooks: around 60–65% for directional calls. For specific rain-day predictions more than 30 days out, nobody is reliably better than chance.
Where the almanac adds value is in the planting and activity calendars — these are derived from patterns that repeat year to year, not one-season forecasts. Best days to plant, lunar phase windows, seasonal transition dates — these are based on 20+ years of observed local data, not guesswork.
Our short-range 7-day Dayboro Model forecast sits at 87% overall accuracy — that’s independently verified against actual station readings, not a marketing claim. We publish the raw numbers. The almanac’s long-range seasonal calls are a different product entirely.
How is this different from BOM seasonal outlooks?
BOM seasonal outlooks are probability-based — they’ll say “60% chance of above-median rainfall” for a broad region. Useful, but they don’t tell you when to plant your tomatoes or what the frost risk looks like for your specific valley.
The almanac combines BOM’s seasonal signal with the Inigo Jones cyclical methodology (which reads 11-year and longer astronomical cycles) and the 20-year Dayboro station record. The result is more specific — not more accurate in a meteorological sense, but more actionable for local farming and gardening decisions.
More on how we build forecasts: Dayboro Model methodology.
What is the Inigo Jones method?
Inigo Jones was a Queensland meteorologist who, from the 1920s through the 1950s, developed a long-range forecasting method based on sunspot cycles, planetary alignments and historical weather patterns. His method was controversial in his time and remains so — mainstream meteorology doesn’t recognise it. But it has a following among Australian farmers who’ve found it useful as a rough seasonal guide.
We use Jones’ cyclical analysis as one input, not the only one. It’s worth reading alongside BOM’s outlook, not instead of it.
Does moon planting actually work?
The evidence is mixed. Some controlled studies show statistically significant effects on germination rates tied to lunar phase. Others show nothing. The mechanism — if real — is thought to involve gravitational effects on soil moisture similar to tidal pull.
The practical position I’ve landed on after watching this garden for 20 years: the moon calendar is a useful scheduling framework. When you’re deciding which week to plant rather than which day, you’re already thinking in a rhythm that tends to produce better results than planting impulsively. Whether the moon itself is doing something or the calendar is just forcing better planning — I can’t say with certainty. Either way it seems to help.
📖 About This Almanac
The Dayboro Farmers Almanac has been running since 2022. It’s produced by the same operation that runs the Lyndhurst Hill weather station — the only private weather station in the Dayboro valley with a continuous record back to 2004. The almanac is updated monthly, the underlying station data is updated every 5 minutes, and the methodology is documented publicly at forecast-methodology-2026 for anyone who wants to check the workings.
This isn’t a PDF you buy once a year. The monthly guides are free to read. Members get the full weather forecast integration — the 9-day Dayboro Model forecast alongside each month’s almanac, with frost alerts and spray window notifications tied to the same planting calendar.
Get the almanac in your inbox each month
Monthly planting guide, moon calendar, and the Dayboro Model seasonal outlook — delivered before the month starts.