Healing herbs

Healing herbs
Echinacea and Calendula

Tuesday 28 May 2013

The Vegetable Gardener’s Guide to Planting by the Moon

In ancient times when man had not quite got round to inventing the wristwatch, the most reliable source of telling the time was the sun, moon, and stars. 

There seems to be several opinions of who came up with the moon planting calendar first. Was it the Egyptians or the Babylonians? It is more than likely that each and every farmer had a planting calendar based on the moon phases, and there would be different variations depending on the geographical location. 

As their calendars where passed on through the generations they evolved to cover the different crops they tried to grow, and the more productive farming techniques used. 

 It was noticed that different plants grow better when they are planted during different phases of the moon. Each of these phases imparts an influence on the way vegetation grows on the planet through the rising and falling of the moisture in the ground and in the plants.

To provide more accurate records it was noted that certain crops faired better when planted whilst the moon was in a specific constellation. As the moon can take only 2-3 days to pass through a constellation, the planting calendar was a ‘cutting edge’ technology.  

Planting was not the most important time for the farmer, harvest time also had to be recorded. If you harvest at the correct time your crops will last much longer. It is down to how the plant stores the water in the fruit/crop at different times of the Lunar cycle.

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