Hi everyone!
This kind of gardening actually dates back to ancient times, when artificial light and daylight savings time had yet to be invented...
Most of this information can be found in the old farmers almanac, Ben Franklin also used this info when he published his paper in Philadelphia.
Farmers have been doing it for thousands of years.
The premise is pretty simple. Each "lunar" month the moon "aspects" different constellations in the sky. The ancient people knew this, because they lived by the seasons, and by the night sky. It was the rhythm of the earth. Aristotle added his 2 cents, and a whole way of thinking was born.
The church came along and said, "well we think this Aristotle was pretty smart, so we're going with him, the earth is the center of the universe for sure!"
When Copernicus came along and finally figured out that the earth revolves around the sun instead of vice-versa, he was called a lunatic by the Catholic church, and quietly withdrew his idea from the public eye and went to live somewhere where they wouldn't kill him for heresy. Later Galileo had a few insights of his own and finally convinced the church that his discovery was correct. Even he had a hard time though, and was forced to recant, because the way people lived back then was as if the earth were the center of the universe. (just like some PEOPLE I know--ha!) Even most medicine was practiced by casting charts for infants. It was considered "scientific". But no more! It was too late, the cat was out of the bag; the earth circled the sun.
Anyway- back to the gardening part...
So, as a result of all this new scientific thinking, this "moon and astrology" kind of gardening was relegated to the old hedge witch tradition, and considered first to be evil and then later superstitious and silly. Now, however, scientists are discovering there might be some basic truths to the whole thing.
The astrophysics of today, when compared against the old belief system, is proving that this is a quick and easy method to organise gardens and crops, and to use to just plain grow things! With the ability to measure electromagnetic fields some scientists are proving that the moons gravitational pull on earth affects the water table and availability of micro nutrients in the soil.
The rest of it is just kind of plain old common sense, applying the old zodiacal signs to the garden.
It's not just the zodiac either, as the Native Americans had names for all these different moons, try:
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/full_moon_names_2005.html For instance, the moon is always "New" in Taurus when the sun is in Taurus. This always happens in April or May of a year, any year. (Remember our calendar is man made, the heavens are not, so the new moon is never going to be at the exact same time.) So, the moon is new, meaning it is pulling up the water in the earth, and the soil is warming up, because its late April or very early May, and so its a great time to
plant something that needs to be put in the ground for harvest in the fall.
This is long winded, and sounds way too
, but I thought it might help to clear up what it is that i love to do, and why i do it.
May you all have a bountiful, peaceful, happy day!
HB
this info