moon planting???

[King Carrot]

thanks guys...

very interesting read, ive heard about it before though, and too be honest i still don't fully understand it !! The mayans ( mayan culture)were great gardeners, they used fish waste from the sea bed as fertilizer and must have got great results ( high in nitrogen) and the mayans were heavily inspired by the moon and stars and there calender goes up to December 2012.

what's the plan after 2012 then? - whatever happens "unless the moon falls out of the sky" and so on , I reckon we'll still all be able to moon garden if we so wish.

[muslimgrower]

what's the plan after 2012 then? - whatever happens "unless the moon falls out of the sky" and so on , I reckon we'll still all be able to moon garden if we so wish.

nothing...

the mayan calender ends on that date.

there could be a serious polar shift

i was reading a scientist point of view on December 2012 and he was saying something about a serious "sun storm" heading to earth which will knock out the satellites..

but polar shifts have happened before through history and they are devastating to all life.

[King Carrot]

This is the most interesting thread i've seen in a long while!
This has bothered me for some time, back in my academic days I studied plant sciences, including the effects of parasites on crops etc.
So with the utmost respect;
yes Wellie what you're saying sounds like shite.
Zazen a percentile increase in crop per seed sown doesn't actually mean anything.
Bride XIII your notes on the lunar orbits effecting the water table are interesting, as is your hypothesis on sunlight reflected from the moon. Your argument about some people don't trust the use of herbs in medicine is utterly irrelevant, you may as well say that some people don't believe in the tooth fairy or the flying spaghetti monster (by the way should you meet any of these naysayers again you could mention the uses of herb extracts cocaine, opium, aspirin, ibuprofen, digoxin, codeine, quinine, inulin to name but a few, in fact the word drug comes from the dutch DROGUE meaning dried root)
Don't even get me started on faith Snakeshack
Sounds to me that that is part of the problem, a possibly valuable device for growers has become clouded in 'new-ageism'
There may be something to moon planting, there may not be, it's an interesting hypothesis
The only way to know is by testing the hypothesis
Which I intend to doJust as soon as I'm back from the arctic wasteland that is Canada, which is a few weeks away
I sincerely do hope I haven't offended anyone, but I also sincerely believe that there is a need for truths in this world
(ducks for cover)

why don't we all just experiment, have a bit of fun etc. take note of any results and find out stuff together - and can I have some more dried roots please if there's any going spare

cheers,

KC

[jimbojetset]

maytreefannie i do indeed hope that bride is correct and that crops are significantly increased if they were planted at a certain lunar phase, if it were true the effects for mankind would truly be a paradigm shift
the advent of message boards like this one has re-awakened the passing down of knowledge, and i doff my cap to users like bride who can pass on their immense knowledge to those of us who are mere apprentices
but questioning is important, it's what makes us human beings, and more to the point it's the sort of trait that makes great human beings great
if authorities hadn't been questioned then people would be living under oppression, if beliefs hadn't been questioned then we would be living in ignorance
i think it's our duty as human beings to question, what's more it's an offense to these great humans to blindly follow
think gandhi, think darwin, think wilberforce, think einstein, archimedes ... and so on
show me a liberator, an inventor or anyone who has contributed for the good of humankind
and i'll show you a person who asked questions
moving on
zazen, apologies i realize my sentence may have been a tad curt
simply i meant that the statement '46% increase in crop per seed sown' doesn't actually mean anything
i find it very interesting that less 'non-moon' plants made it to harvest
however the use of the word 'crop' doesn't mean anything, ideally if you were to test the validity of moon sowing against output it would need to be quantified, by for example mass
also the statement 'per seed sown' strikes me as an after thought, a massaging of the truth, a need to make the findings statistically valid
or as disraeli would have it 'lies, damn lies and statistics'
and i'm not trying to say that [the patronisingly monickered] ancient people's beliefs aren't valid, i was trying to say that 'new-ageism' (ie the bastardization of indigenous people's beliefs by western culture) rather than modern man, has perhaps muddied the waters
once again i'm not aiming to offend, perhaps i'm being the devil's advocate, but i do look forward to testing these theories, and i hope that you will listen to my findings with an open mind
as i will test them with an open mind

[jimbojetset]

sorry been out for a bit, thought i sent that but hadn't

[King Carrot]

nothing...

the mayan calender ends on that date.

there could be a serious polar shift

i was reading a scientist point of view on December 2012 and he was saying something about a serious "sun storm" heading to earth which will knock out the satellites..
but polar shifts have happened before through history and they are devastating to all life.

A bit more sun would be well handy where I am, last year we didn’t get a single ray of sunshine from mid June to near on the end of July, just cloud, rain and drizzle, everything just stopped growing and the harvests were very poor except the cucumbers which revelled in the damp. After that any sort of sun will be good I've not got any problems if any satellites stop working as it's usually very poor quality viewing anyway(unless united are on) - we don't even bother having the aerial connected anymore and just watch DVD’s

cheers,

KC

[jimbojetset]

Hey Wellie
Yeah I know, I can't help myself at times, I'm just interested in getting to the bottom of things!
Apologies if i came across aggressive, it's just that your original post didn't really offer any sort of information, it simply said 'if you do this, you get that' rather than any reasoning.
Yes, I’m sure the Steiner group on biodynamics have great evidence about biodynamics, but that’s like going to a church and asking how much they believe in god, or popping in to the mosque and asking about how great mohammed is, or popping in to see my mum and asking how handsome I am!
Yes there is room in life for discussion, this is exactly what I’m trying to do! I think my previous post (the one i sent before seeing your response) pretty much sums up how i feel about that.
While we're at it I never mentioned I'd ‘got it all sewn up’ so it's a bit unfair to use quotation marks
I am simply suggesting learned knowledge rather than blind faith
Muslim grower – again great knowledge from (my most hated of terms) ‘ancient’ peoples (however lets not hacking each other to bits with shards of obsidian and using each others heads as cups like the Mayans just yet) - the Amerindians achieved a similar effect by simply burying a dead fish under tobacco plants - probably wouldn't be the most economic method these days! – great quote btw

[wellie]

Bless You!
And I wish you well in your future endeavours.

[Banana]

Ok so we know that Lunar planting to some extent has been practised for millennia, I'm wondering why we dont see massive increase yields. Therefore following Jumbojetsets idea of questioning everything, is this because:

A: We lost thousands of years of experience and knowledge last century and just aren't getting it right yet?
B: Plants we are using now have evolved so much in the 20th Century, artifically or naturally, that the effects are now negligible.
C: The effects never were huge, however pre 20th century, just a little bit extra went a long way and was worth the effort.

[zazen999]

zazen, apologies i realize my sentence may have been a tad curt
simply i meant that the statement '46% increase in crop per seed sown' doesn't actually mean anything
i find it very interesting that less 'non-moon' plants made it to harvest
however the use of the word 'crop' doesn't mean anything, ideally if you were to test the validity of moon sowing against output it would need to be quantified, by for example mass

It is indeed calculated by mass, if you click the link below the data is all there.

Ok so we know that Lunar planting to some extent has been practised for millennia, I'm wondering why we dont see massive increase yields. Therefore following Jumbojetsets idea of questioning everything, is this because:

A: We lost thousands of years of experience and knowledge last century and just aren't getting it right yet?
B: Plants we are using now have evolved so much in the 20th Century, artifically or naturally, that the effects are now negligible.
C: The effects never were huge, however pre 20th century, just a little bit extra went a long way and was worth the effort.

I assume that when we decided to pour chemicals on our crops to increase yields, yes - we lost a heck of a lot of knowledge. The same as the losses that we have had in the seeds that now no longer exist. We, as humans, like short cuts and 'gro-more' fertilisers and seeds that all provided the same results easier with less of an eye on the nature surrounding the crops was a short cut that farmers made.

What has happened here is that everybody is questioning - we are just all questioning different things. I'm questioning chemicals, and F1 seed production. Others are questioning the methods I'm using to question my particular issues, and what others are questioning - in their own way. This is why I do trials, to see what occurs. I'm open to anything that gives my hard work better results, without resorting to chemical based fertilisers and minimising F1 seeds where possible.

[jimbojetset]

morning!
hey banana
well first off some people do believe that you can get massive increased yields from lunar planting
if there was even a 10% increase in efficacy for lunar planting the ramifications for farming would be astounding
a) undoubtedly we have lost a huge amount of knowledge, and in the current atmosphere of wanting to know where food comes and wanting to return to a more victorian model of production, the effects are undoubtedly huge for the home grower, what the effects on lunar gardening are we'll probably never know
b) crops have been put under intense selection pressures since man first began agriculture, and yes possibly those plants that responded to lunar gardening (if indeed lunar gardening does or ever did work) may have been lost
c) if anyone can ever answer this question i'll buy them a pint

to summarize, lunar planting is a controversial method of farming and some people believe it works and some dont, i personally am sitting on the fence and i'm going to give it a go under strict scientific conditions and i'll let you know how i got on
given that no-one knows for sure then no-one can really answer any of the above questions!

zazen, fascinating stuff! apologies i'm still getting to grips with how to navigate around the message board
can i ask how the two non lunar plants didn't make it to crop?
also did you think that there was something in moon planting before you attempted the experiment
what were the climactic conditions on the days
did you plant them at the same time on each day
what sort of lunar calendar did you use? synodic, biodynamic or sidereal?

[BrideXIII]

Phew, this thread took off over the weekend !

I am gobsmacked at the faith placed in me by some on here Luckily just have to post what it says in the book .

my first 'control' experiment will be starting next week. i will try to plant on the same day at the same time under the same conditions as far as possible.

[zazen999]

zazen, fascinating stuff! apologies i'm still getting to grips with how to navigate around the message board
can i ask how the two non lunar plants didn't make it to crop?
also did you think that there was something in moon planting before you attempted the experiment
what were the climactic conditions on the days
did you plant them at the same time on each day
what sort of lunar calendar did you use? synodic, biodynamic or sidereal?

I'm not being funny, but I'm not writing an essay on the study. All pots were kept together, not separated out and were 'found' amongst the pots when things needed doing. Climatic conditions - well, it was a rotten summer for all the plants - the moon did not get priority treatment. The timings, were on the days - there is nothing to say that things need to be done at the same 'time' on the correct days, it's not about that. I do think it gives an edge, but I originally bought the Kollerstrom book because it had a diary in it and i found I was doing things on the correct days anyway. All the plants that did not make it to harvest just died during the study - there was nothing untoward, no obvious infestations or disease etc. The non-moons got signs of blight 2 days before the moon ones, and thus the whole lot was harvested on the same day to avoid losing too many crops.

What I like most is that it actively encourages me to do things and plan in doing things, rather than putting anything off. It also means I make notes and succession sow which lengthens the harvest.

Although, if we have 2 months of rain, and get a nice day - I'm not just going to do the 'moon' stuff on that day, I'll do what needs doing. I generally find sticking to sowing and planting out stuff on the right day means i get decent crops and things get done, and that's enough for me.

[jimbojetset]

hey zazen
apologies! i really am a pain at the mo' i realize!
one final thing, what happened to the two non moon plants that didn't make it?
thanks for your patience, but i do find this very interesting!

[zazen999]

All the plants that did not make it to harvest just died during the study - there was nothing untoward, no obvious infestations or disease etc.

Annoying...never!!!