Moon calendar planting is often scoffed at, and on the other hand sometimes even given magical credence… and I’ve been asked about it often. Here’s a few FAQ’s around it…

DO I GARDEN BY THE MOON?
Yes, I do follow the moon calendar for planting. But here is the qualifier: *as much as I can*. This means that I don’t only ever sow above-ground crops in the week or so following New Moon. Life sometimes have different plans, and maybe you can’t get to your seeds or garden when the calendar says you should, and I for one, don’t always want to wait another 4 weeks (for the next “fertile period”) to put my seeds in when I didn’t quite manage to do so in the moon allocated time.

WHY DO I GARDEN BY THE MOON?
It is a great tool for me to schedule tasks in my garden, and give me a routine to work with. Otherwise gardening can become a bit-of-this and bit-of-that affair without any real focus or strategy. If I block off certain times of a month for certain tasks, I find more gets done, and I feel calmer about it all too. And if I am going to schedule my to-do, then I may as well do it according to moon calendar.

DOES IT WORK?
The theory around moon gardening works on 2 main principles, as far as I understand it at least – the main one being water and the moon’s gravitational effect on it, and the other is light.

Now anyone who lives near the sea, understands and experiences first-hand, the pull that the moon has on the bodies of water on our planet (tides). So too, says the moon-calendar proponents, will it have an effect on the sap of the plant, the water molecules in the soil, and the water table.

The other is that light affects germination, and with the increase of light after New Moon (the dark period), seeds may germinate better (at least the ones that need light to germinate).

I have found that although seeds will germinate and grow almost anytime, sowing and planting according to the moon calendar gives me better germination rates, faster sprouting times, stronger seedlings and healthier plants. The difference isn’t a shocking or awe-inspiring one, but there definitely is a benefit to growing by the ideal moon phases.