Not So Loony Gardening ?

Do you garden by the moon? I get a monthly gardening magazine which gives a guide to the phases of the moon and advises on what should be done in the garden at each stage - from sowing to pruning. But I have to admit that I rarely follow it. My gardening schedule tends to depend much more on what I've got time for each week than what I think really ought to be done. Occasionally I do follow the guide, but always forget to label the plants so that I can compare them with others which were sown (or whatever) at the "wrong" time, so that I can see if it makes any difference.

But I was interested to see an article on the BBC site from back in May explaining how 600 volunteers were going to be working on a National Trust site planting annuals in sync with the moon and also explaining why it's supposed to make a difference. The article explains :

The Biodynamic Sowing and Planting Calendar predicts how plant sap and water table levels will be impacted on by the moon's gravity, and identifies optimum times for sowing certain types of plants.
According to the calendar, the moon's gravity produces varying conditions for planting, and is much more specific about the exact time when a flower, root or plant should be placed in the soil than conventional planting schedules.

Too late now for my summer planting, as everything's in. But perhaps it's a project for the autumn. Watch this space ...

Acknowledgement

Thanks to gonzalo_ar for making the photo of the moon available under Creative Commons Licence via the flickr site