Moon phases

emiff6

Who decides which is a 'root' day etc, anyway? And if you plant things like carrots on a 'root' day, and lettuce on a 'leaf' day, where does that leave asparagus? Or cauliflower? Florence fennel and kohl rabi? Are leeks roots or leaves?

Having said that, my grandfather never made a move on his allotment without consulting Old Moore's Almanac first.

Good care of the soil and maybe companion planting seems to me a surer way of encouraging good growth and healthy plants

cootambear

lostinrates wrote: »

The practical part of me agrees is probably hogwash, but the part of me seeking to reconnect with ''the natural world'' thinks this is quite a nice way to further that. The greater part of me is horendousy disorganised and behind schedule and is grateful when anything gets done roughly at the right time.....

You are a living breathing intelligent primate, which is as natural as it gets.

cootambear

emiff6 wrote: »

I've not looked at this idea, but could it be something to do with the extra light you get at full moon? Planting seeds that germinate best in the light at the full, and those that like the dark at the new moon etc?

Lux, or luminous flux is a measure of the total "amount" of visible light present;

10,000–25,000 lux Full daylight (not direct sun).
32,000–130,000 lux Direct sunlight

compared with

0.27 lux Full moon on a clear night

So by my reckoning, a full moon would produce 400,000 less light than direct sunlight.

To put it another way, a plant that photosynthesised at night would have to `stay up` for 400,000 nights to receive the same energy it would gather in just one day of daylight.

There are exceptions of course, some fauna like fungi which do not use sunlight, but feed on rotting plants, need no light at all.

lostinrates

cootambear wrote: »

You are a living breathing intelligent primate, which is as natural as it gets.

I'm actually a vampire cat-fairy with a boob job, so for me being close to nature is a novelty

Sambucus_Nigra

I've actually done a few moon/non-moon trials and the results were more than significant......

However - the practicalities are that it isn't always sunny/suitable on the days that you want to sow or plant out or harvest......

If only!

It's about the pull of the moon, not the light. I also know the lady that designed the Biodynamic garden at Ryton and she is one of the most down to earth sane people I've ever met....

If I could I'd do it all the time but life/the job/the weather doesn't always work with us.

Before we had massive agriculture - the moon phases were used for farming, it's not as bizarre as it sounds. It's just impractical.

[It's also not about fairies - the moon is clearly visible in the sky and does affect the water on Earth - for example tides....it's just an extension of this].

cootambear

Biological dynamic agriculture, a.k.a. biodynamics, is a system of agricultural management based on a series of lectures given by Rudolf Steiner in 1924.

It urges the production of `biodynamic compounds` eg two of the compounds are prepared by packing cow manure (preparation 500) or silica (preparation 501) into cow horns, then buried for a number of months before the contents are swirled in warm water and then applied to the field. Cow horns are utilized as antennae for receiving and focusing `cosmic forces`, which are transferred to the materials inside. The other six compounds (preparations 502-507) are extracts of various plants either packed into the skulls or organs of animals (i.e. deer bladders, cow peritonea and intestines) or into peat or manure, where they are aged before being diluted and applied to compost.

These processes were not developed through scientific methodology, but rather through Steiner’s own self-described meditation and clairvoyance. In fact, Steiner declared that these spiritualistically determined methods did not need to be confirmed through traditional scientific testing, but were “true and correct” unto themselves.

While such methods above would certainly enrich the soil, this could be equally done as well by chucking some rotted dung or leaves on the soil. I also would be embarrassed about going to the abattoir and locating an animal skull.

As with all pseodosciences, anyone can come along with their own little theory to broaden the myth, in this case moon power, though organic farming principles have also grown to be included.

As a small gardener I have neither the time nor money for artificial fertilisers and pesticides (except for slug pellets), I have a ready supply of leaf mould, and a vicious neighbours cats that keeps the birds away.

cootambear

Sambucus_Nigra wrote: »

I've actually done a few moon/non-moon trials and the results were more than significant......

However - the practicalities are that it isn't always sunny/suitable on the days that you want to sow or plant out or harvest......

If only!

It's about the pull of the moon, not the light. I also know the lady that designed the Biodynamic garden at Ryton and she is one of the most down to earth sane people I've ever met....

If I could I'd do it all the time but life/the job/the weather doesn't always work with us.

Before we had massive agriculture - the moon phases were used for farming, it's not as bizarre as it sounds. It's just impractical.

[It's also not about fairies - the moon is clearly visible in the sky and does affect the water on Earth - for example tides....it's just an extension of this].

I`m sure that the lady is a nice and sane person, but even nice and sane people sometimes believe irrational things, they always have; eg wolfmen, some still believe that rates of mental illness go up at certain moon phases (lunacy).

I agree that the moon phases were used for farming in the past, such methods were useful for standardising planting times when we didnt have clocks and calendars or knew how plants worked.

The Moon affects the tides, so why not people (80% water) and plants? The argument is invalid because the Moon causes tides only in very large unbounded bodies of water like the world's oceans. Bounded bodies of water such as land-locked lakes, unless very large like the Great Lakes, are negligibly affected.

So forget tidal effects in humans and plants unless they are of planetary dimensions.

cootambear

lostinrates wrote: »

I'm actually a vampire cat-fairy with a boob job, so for me being close to nature is a novelty

The woman of my dreams!

cootambear

Lotus-eater wrote: »

The idea is simple, the execution, is as complicated as you want to make it.

Ah but its not. First you have to decide which of the 3 `biodynamic` systems you will employ (they all contradict each other). Then you have to do some voodoo rituals with skulls and guts.

Sambucus_Nigra

cootambear wrote: »

So forget tidal effects in humans and plants unless they are of planetary dimensions.

This is why I did various moon/non-moon trials. And they ALL came back with better results for the moon ones.

You can't disprove something just be typing that it doesn't work; the only way to find out is to do it yourself.....and you forget that the water in soil is a HUGE dimension...thus it could quite easily be affected.