It was a 'super moon' full moon last night, according to Dale Harvey who came to speak at the Te Atatu Floral Circle last night, the moon is at it's apogee and the gravitational pull is at balance, so we all feel heavy and water retentive. Which is good for plants right?
For the moon is reflected sunlight, and plants grow by sunlight AND moonlight. But when the moon is waning, they get less light and thus for us gardeners its that's when its time to plant root vegetables and bulbs, and when it goes into the last quarter its the time to cultivate the soil and kill all your weeds. For the gravitational pull of water is below ground But if you wait till the moon waxes after the new moon, above ground growth is all happening again, and thats the time to plant and prune for leafy growth.
I hope I got that in a nutshell and resolve to now garden by the moon or by instinct because when I'd been doing it all wrong, plants failed to grow or died when I wanted them to grow. All this is garden wisdom handed down by the ancients who followed the seasons and the moon its only in our modern, crazy, mixed up computer generated round the clock gas guzzling 24/7 instant gratification society where one can turn lights on at the flick of a switch and grow plants under glass and plastic and in chemicals out of season that we are surfeited with an abundance of junk gardening...us gardeners just didn't settle for buying plants then forgetting about them from the shop and employing others we attempt to grow our garden ourselves.
So much food for thought so am closely following my lunar calendar although I have often wondered whether at certain times of the month I should be feeding plants with my own blood but that's not talked about in garden circles and possibly a taboo topic. Wiccans and Rudolf Steinerites can mix up cow horns and chant and dance around the oak trees in the nude but I don't think I will go that far.
The good thing about following the lunar calendar is, you can say, I won't be doing any work today because its the barren period so no, am not going to clip or mow or anything or I will kill the plants. Perfect excuse to just laze around and finish catching up with all my garden magazines. I have ones from 1999 so I don't suppose it ever gets old. That's the thing with wisdom you have to dig deep for it. Also when it's full moon perfect excuse to have garden parties by moonlight, and also that's the time to go on your honeymoon.
I had someone wish me Happy Valentines on February 14th which is weird because I only celebrate SAD - Singles Appreciation Day. They then said don't be sad, eat chocolates. Thing is I didn't receive any chocolates from anyone so how can I eat them when I don't have any. I thought the whole purpose of the holiday was so that people would buy you chocolate, but I have actually never had anyone give me any. Maybe they give chocolate to the sad people, and flowers to the happy ones? I don't know but I looked in my letterbox and didn't see any chocolates. However I always have flowers year round so I guess it didn''t make any difference!
