Seed and Bean

Oh joy! oh bliss!…a favorite writer in a favorite magazine on a favorite topic!  Check out Dominique Browning writing in Wired on gardening (or, as she calls it “domestic terraforming”).  I wholeheartedly agree with the first sentence!

Whole article can be found here.

I admit that when I first heard about gardening by the lunar cycles I was, to say the least, extremely sceptical – it just seemed a bit too woowoo for my stolid northern soul.  But then – and I don’t know why – I decided to try it out…and became a convert!  How could I not when my peas went from planted to harvested in less than a month, a good week and a half before the seed packet said they were supposed to be ready?  And I noticed other things too, like the fact that shrubs respond better when pruned during a waning moon, or that weeds take longer to come back if beds are weeded during a waning moon.

But don’t take my word for it…try it for yourself. 

I’ve included a link to an online site that shows phases and signs but I rely exclusively on the book  Guided by the Moon: Living in Harmony with the Lunar Cycles by Johanna Paungger and Thomas Poppe.  It’s the reference I use when, for example, I need to calculate the correct time to start sowing my seeds, which is what I did the other day. 

After calculating the number of weeks to last frost – typically, May 7th, here in Edmonton – and determining the length of time needed from seed to tansplanting for each type of plant, I cross-reference the date of planting with the moon phase and sign to find the optimal sowing date.  For example, tomato seeds need to be sown indoors 7 weeks from the last frost date which puts that sowing at March 19th.  But since tomatoes are a fruiting plant that bears above ground, they’re best planted during a fruit sign and a waxing moon.  The closest that those appear to March 19th is March 17th and 18th – Aries in a waxing moon.

Too complicated?  Sometimes it can only make sense if you do it but if you’re still feeling overwhelmed, I’m linking a spreadsheet showing my planting schedule based on the lunar cycle.  Using my schedule and the website I linked to, you should be able to calculate something similar, keeping in mind the following guidelines:

• Plants and vegetables that grow above ground should be sown when the moon is waxing.  The exception is lettuce, which should only be sown when the moon is waning.
• Vegetables that grow below ground should be sown when the moon is waning.  With the potato though, you should plant as close as possible to the full moon.
• Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius are fruit days.  All fruiting plants are marked in red on the spreadsheet.
• Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces are leaf days.  All leaf plants are marked in green on the spreadsheet.
• Virgo, Taurus, and Capricorn are root days.  All root plants are marked in orange on the spreadsheet.
• Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius are flower and medicinal herb days.  All flower and herb plants are marked in purple on the spreadsheet. 

2010-Planting-Schedule 

Tools too delicate to store in the shed

Along with the expected arsenal of gardening tools – trowel, spade, fork, pruners – I count my books; in particular, The Kitchen Garden: A Passionate Gardener’s Comprehensive Guide to Growing Good Things to Eat by Sylvia Thompson is the one I reach for most often. 

Every gardener who grows food is concerned with taste.  After all, isn’t that one of the strongest reasons why we put in all that time, sweat, and money? – to eat something that resembles a grocery store vegetable in appearance only?  But it’s difficult to find a book that has extensive information of even the most popular plants, forget the more unusual ones.  And taste seems to be a criteria that is rarely mentioned as part of the reason why one should grow a particular plant (unless it’s to rave about the sweetness of some cherry tomato).

The Kitchen Garden covers it all from yard-long beans to Jerusalem artichokes to edible flowers to lemon cucumbers to scented geraniums to lemon verbena to Asian greens to dandelions to tomatillos to strawberries to…well, I could go on and on!  But it’s not enough to merely list all the things you can grow in your kitchen garden, Sylvia Thompson can also describe what they taste like, describing ripe tomatillos as having a “sharp-sweet” flavor or garden sorrel being like a lemony spinach without the aftertaste.  And, while she describes the Sweet 100 cherry tomato as being sweet, she discouragingly says it’s “cloying” with no “sharpness”.  Strong opinions abound in this book, understandably so, since this was written by a gardener who’s spent a lot of time and effort trying out these different plants – if she felt her time was wasted, she honestly says so!

A small selection of my kitchen garden books

But it’s not just the extensive listing of edibles and notes on their flavor that makes this such a useful book; in fact, that’s just a small part of this book.  What makes it so helpful is the amount of information on the cultural requirements, history, aesthetic descriptions, recommended cultivars, and her personal experience of each and every plant.  And if that wasn’t enough, the charts at the back of the book detailing plant tolerances, optimal soil, optimal sun, seed/tuber life expectancy, length of growing season, optimal soil temperature for germination, sowing depth, days to germination, minimum weeks to transplanting size, intensive bed spacing, watering requirements, days to harvest, length of harvest…well, I’ve never found another book as comprehensive.

To top it all off, this a good book to just sit down and read for pleasure.  Sylvia Thompson’s writing shows her to be a truly passionate gardener and that passion is infectious.  Best $13.48 I ever spent on a tool!