This year - Gardening by the moon!

Something that has long fascinated me is  time, seasons, and how life interacts with the cycles of nature. One practical example of this is gardening.  Age old wisdom holds that the moon cycles hold the key to optimum gardening. Has it been scientifically proven to be so? I dont believe it has, and I am ok with that! Not doing something because it has never been "scientifically proven" would mean we miss out on a lot of historical wisdom and benefit. Personally I respect what has survived centuries over relying on modern man to rediscover lost wisdom.

enough philosophical talk! What am i referring to?

This year, we are going to follow the moon cycle panting approach.... which simply suggests the optimum days of the season to put seeds  or transplants into the ground for optimum yield and health. A powerful side benefit of this (brenda would say in my case the PRIMARY benefit) is that this gives me a schedule to follow. Admittedly I am horrible at timing. Not a problem that a farmer should have! but its true. I m very must a "just in time" planner. This often causes chaos here at little sprouts as we struggle to keep up with this week's emergency. Having the planting dates pre-planned by a predictable moon cycle is a huge benefit!

But.. this whole process of gardening by the moon is a bit more complex than I wish to master for now.  So I searched and searched the internet and finally found a simple tool  that does what I need.. plan everything based not only on moon cycle but also frost dates!  Thats the thing, at least for me, having the moon cycles charted out is only half the story, becasue then you have to account for frost dates and local rain to actually pick the days.  This software takes that all into account and gives you simple windows of availability for the particular varieties of seed we are planting.  SIMPLE! I love it.

The software we are using is called "Moon Planting Matrix"  available from a website called "Gardening by the moon".   you can find the software webpage at : http://www.gardeningbythemoon.com/MoonMatrix.html

The cost is a bit higher than I would like to see, but there seems to be little if any competition in a locally downloadable system that tracks everything for you. That is the key for me.. it has to track everything!

So here we go on another new adventure for the year... Keying in our particular varieties and dates, then printing out the monthly windows of things to put in the ground. If optimum dates are missed for whatever reason, then we just choose the next available date. Simple!

Stay tuned to see how this goes. We plan on growing the majority of vegetables this year for pig and goat food, so we have set aside a large section of pasture for this. If all goes well.. we can start harvesting in as little as 30 days!