I came upon these sites, and thought it might be an interesting study object to help coming through the rest of the dark winter months.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/astro/ml/ml18.htm
http://www.plantea.com/planting-moon-phases.htm
Is there anyone who has ever experimented with sowing, planting , harvesting according to the phases of the moon ?
After all it might not be so unlikely as moon phases causes the tides of the sea and oceans and we must all know stories of the influences of the full moon on people and animals, so why not on plants ? The major part of plants like everybody knows consists of water.
Gardening by moon phases: superstition ?
Nah sadly its a true thing.
I hate all that hairy fairy stuff but it does work. You find that things like Fuchsia cuttings grow more in the greenhouse when there is a full moon and clear skys.
There are people round here that make a fortune out of this kind of thing.
they also dance round trees at night, but thats a whole new thread.
Worth trialling on a more scientific basis though.
Mike
Mike,
It would be really interesting to do tests on a scientific basis.
I'm also not so found of all that what you call 'hairy fairy stuff ', but that doesn't mean we should trow the baby with the bathwater.
Very interesting you mention the increase of growth on your fuschia-cuttings by full moon and clear skies.
Dad used to sow seeds and plant things out according to the phases of the moon. I don't know if it made any difference, but he seemed to think so. There have been scientific studies on it and I think it was something to do with the gravitational pull during the different phases. I'll have to dig the info out - I've not read it for ages.
The gravitational pull during the moon phases surely explains the tides of the oceans.
I am not in the possibility to do experiments on a large enough scale, due to lack of space and accommodations.
Perhaps I could ask if there is any interest in the propagation forum.
A very simple experiment could be to sow 4 times the same type of seeds in exactly the same substrate, the same light conditions etc.. but on the 4 main moon phases and see what happens ?
There is some very detailed evidence on www.astro3.demon.co.uk/evidence.htm
The book I was thinking of was written by Maria Thun. There is also a biodynamic planting calendar telling exactly when to sow and plant etc.
There is lots of literature on the subject if you enter "books on sowing by the moon" in Google.
So i'm guessing we all agree it works, but why?
I know we think its to do with gravitational pulls etc but why should gravity do much to a seed?
I guess that the increased light level at night helped stuff grow. Not sure it was the right type of growth though. Possibly too soft for its own good, so you wouldn't want to encourage it all the time.
But germination? Whats the science behind it?
I copied this from the site Patbarr found:
'Do seeds germinate better at some point of the lunar cycle? My experiments with seeds grown at constant temperature tended to confirm the results published by Kolisko in the late 1930s, namely that seeds would usually germinate better if sown around the Full Moon, and especially on the day or two prior to it.'
The next full moon is on the 2nd of February.
So good times to sow would be 31Jan to 2nd of Febr.
But why????!!!!!!
Mike, I don't know!!! But I would like to find out!
Science hasn't found out yet, as far as I know, but there are more mysteries that have not been unraveled yet, nature is full of them.
In quantum physics, scientists have found out that thoughts can influence the behaviour of atomair particles, but they haven't found out yet why that is so.
This reminds me of a book I have which is called 'The secret life of plants'
by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird (Pinguin Books 1974) In there one can find some really interesting observations about the behaviour of plants in relation to the feelings and intentions of the one who takes care of them.
One of the experiments, for example was the effect of music on plants;
When playing classical music for a period of time, plants grew towards the music boxes, while on the other hand subdued to hard rock, plants were growing away from them!
The authors of the book are not some kind of weirdo's.
Chistopher Bird was a biologist and anthropologist.