Gardening with Natural Rhythms

Simon, the coordinator of the Sandfly Food Garden Group, has used moon planting principles in his food garden for many years.  I asked him what moon planting is and how our food gardens can benefit from it.  Here is what he wrote:


I have had an organic food garden for most of the last 43 years, and for perhaps 30 of those I have practised what is commonly described as ‘moon planting’.  I first came to this through contact with biodynamic farmers and gardeners, both in Tasmania and Victoria.

Rather than use the term ‘moon planting’ - which I think is an incomplete and misleading term - I would prefer to say that I garden in accordance with various natural rhythms.  Like everyone else, I garden in accordance with the seasons; but I also garden in accordance with daily rhythms and with the monthly rhythms that arise with certain lunar cycles.  I do this for two reasons.  One is horticultural: I am satisfied that doing so helps my plants and so gives better results.  The other reason, almost predominant in my mind, is that this imposes disciplines upon my gardening, which help make sure that I sow, plant, and carry out other gardening activities at the right time.

Thank you, Cornelia Flueras of Arad in West Romania, for allowing us to use your photo (1)

The specific practices that I follow, so far as is possible, are -

1. to sow on the waxing moon (between new and full)
2. to sow in the first half of the day
3. to plant out seedlings in the first week after full moon (the third quarter of the lunar cycle)
4. to plant or prick out seedlings in the second half of the day
5. to avoid sowing or planting in the second week after full moon (the last quarter)

The rider “so far as is possible” is important.  I see working with these natural cycles as very helpful, but as needing to be overlooked on occasions.  What they do is provide beneficial influences that are good to harness, but which are not essential.

For instance, my golden rule, if I have one, is not to work wet soil (because to do so damages soil structure).  So, if the weather is wet, as it was for so much of the past Spring, I will wait for the soil to be in the right condition before I sow or plant.  I might even sow or plant in the last week of the lunar cycle in such a situation, if I think I have no alternative.

From this perspective, you could say that the weather imposes rhythms that are horticulturally more important than any of the other natural rhythms mentioned.

I need to elaborate on the reasons for the practices that I have listed.

I am sure that, although they may not recognise it, most people experience different moods as they progress through the seasons of the year.  In Spring, we tend to get a lift of energy and optimism as the days lengthen and grow warmer, and as the plant and animal life around us responds.  We then maintain heightened energy through the warmth and longer days of summer, and then feel our energy contract through Autumn, as we head towards the season of hibernation.

Similar influences can be felt during the day, and the lunar month. (2)   There is a lift in energy in the morning, which subsides as we move past midday to evening.  And there is a lift in energy as the moon waxes, and a decline in energy as it wanes.  The energy around full moon is really palpable, as you can feel very strongly if you walk at night under a full moon.

Another way of looking at these influences is to compare them with breathing in and breathing out, or with the ebb and flow of the tide.

The practices that I have listed pick up on these influences.  It is good to sow in the morning on a waxing moon because you get the benefit of two surges of energy – the surge from the daily rhythm and the surge from the lunar rhythm.  It is good to plant in the afternoon or evening in the first week of a waning moon because you get the benefit of two ebbing influences – the ebbing of the energy of the day and the ebbing that is occurring in the lunar cycle.  In the course of that ebbing, the seedlings that you have planted out get settled into the earth.  They also, much more practically, get the benefit of a night to adjust to being transplanted before they have to face daytime conditions.  A seedling that is transplanted late in the day, and watered in well, will usually have adjusted very well to its new conditions by the following morning.

The practices I have listed are relatively unsophisticated.  My concession to the levels of complexity that are possible is to also follow the sowing recommendations in a moon planting calendar when I can, but often this doesn’t fit in with whatever is going on in life at the time.  The calendar I have used in recent years is the Astrological Calendar and Moon Planting Guide produced by Thomas Zimmer of Mt Cougal Rd, Tallebudgera Valley, Queensland 4228.  This is usually obtainable from Eumarrah, or from the Babylon bookshop in Victoria Street, around the beginning of each year. The calendar gives the optimum time in each month for sowing leafy annuals, sowing fruiting annuals, and sowing or propagating root crops and perennials, explaining that it is best to sow leafy annuals in the first week of the lunar cycle, to sow fruiting annuals in the second week of the cycle, and to sow root crops and sow or strike perennials in the third week.  It also explains that you should avoid sowing or planting 12 hours before and 12 hours after the exact change of a lunar phase, and gives the time of each change.  The recommendations in the calendar also refer to the passage of the moon through the signs of the zodiac, recommending sowing or planting when the moon is in a “fertile” or “semi-fertile” sign, and recommending against these activities during “barren” signs.

The latest edition of Easy Organic Gardening and Moon Planting, by Lyn Bagnall, Scribe Publications, 2012, also provides details of the best gardening days through to 2017 (as well as being a great reference on organic gardening). This is available as an e-book through Kindle and iTunes, and also in hard copy.  Lyn Bagnall recommends the Zimmer calendar, and she applies similar principles to the ones that he uses.

Another possibility is to use a biodynamic calendar.  Brian Keats, who lives locally in Kingston, produces two calendars each year, which are obtainable from his website at http://www.astro-calendar.com.  His simple calendar is entitled ‘Moon Planting Primer’.  The other is more complex, and is called ‘AntipodeanAstro Calendar’.  Along with Stefan Mager, Brian has also produced an illustrated booklet called a Biodynamic Growing Guide, now in its second edition, which explains biodynamic principles in a relatively simple way.  The booklet deals with cosmic, solar and lunar rhythms, discusses the production and application of the various biodynamic preparations, and also contains some brief historical material about biodynamics (3).

Although I believe in the power of the various influences that I have talked about, and try to harness them in my gardening, the most powerful reason for working in this way is that it imposes a very beneficial discipline.  It acts as a natural framework which helps ensure that you remember to do things at the optimum time.

The approach or arrival of the new moon prompts me to draw up a seed list for the month, which then in turn prompts me to get on and sow the seeds. The passing of the full moon then prompts me to put in the seedlings that I have grown from earlier sowings and which are now ready to go out. Other garden jobs develop around these basic patterns.  I doubt that I would be as disciplined as a result of keeping an eye on the calendar months as I am as a result of watching the lunar cycle and seeking to harness the influences that arise within it.

You may wonder what science has to say about moon planting.  I haven’t spent much time looking into this, but know that some detailed work was done many years ago by scientists associated with the biodynamic movement, most notably the Koliskos, Maria Thun, Franz Rulni and Agnes Fyfe. (4) They were not questioning the sorts of influences I have spoken of, but were more concerned to understand them better.

My view - and I have heard this said by a very competent biodynamic farmer, Terry Foreman from NSW - is that good horticultural and agricultural practices are much more important than the refinements that go with biodynamics.  Moon planting is best seen as providing a beneficial gloss, on top of good practice, and not as being essential to good results.  This is why I have used the word ‘influence’ so much in this article.

This brings to mind an observation which I recently saw in a publication from the Diggers Garden Club - that a good gardener is more a choreographer than a commander.  Working with daily and lunar rhythms adds an additional dimension to the planning behind my food gardening, as I try to get our food plants to express their full potential, in fruitfulness, flavour and disease resistance.


Many thanks, Simon, for this very interesting contribution to the Food Garden Group blog!

Footnotes:

(1): you can find more photos by Cornelia Flueras at https://www.flickr.com/photos/24117329@N06/page1/

(2): The four phases of the lunar cycle are sometimes compared to the seasons, with the first quarter being seen as Moon Spring, the second quarter being Moon Summer, the third being the equivalent of Moon Autumn, and the fourth being Moon Winter.

(3): The Keats calendars provide information about two additional lunar cycles which can be worked into farming and gardening practices, beyond the cycle involved in the waxing and waning of the moon (29.53 days), and the cycle involved in the passage of the moon through the signs of the zodiac (27.32 days).  He charts the 27.32 day cycle whereby the highest point reached by the moon at night varies from day to day – a cycle of ascending and descending in the sky - and a 27.55 day cycle in which the distance of the moon from the Earth moves between perigee (its closest point), and apogee (its furthest point) and back again.  The ascending/descending cycle is said to influence plant growth, with ascension providing a “mini Spring and Summer”, drawing the energy of plants upwards.  It is also thought to be beneficial to plant root crops at perigee, and I usually wait for perigee before planting my potatoes.

(4): See John Soper, Biodynamic Gardening, Bio-dynamic Agricultural Association, 1983, pp 8-11