Moon gardening -- as it has been done for the past forty-plus years by Cornish head gardener R J Harris -- is done during the day.
Not during the night.
The question is raised often.
The difference between Mr Harris's centuries-old way of gardening and modern gardening is a combination of
a more efficient, unfailingly organic and sometimes easier way to garden
a fitter garden that goes on getting fitter for as long as moon gardening as the head gardener moon gardens is practised
almost certainly, better results -- globally, not solely where R J Harris practises, on a privately-owned English estate.
A full explanation is given in R J Harris's Moon Gardening, a 256-page manual with index, clearly-presented instructions and explanations, and innumerable tips and information panels.
This regularly-updated website adds to the contents of R J Harris's Moon Gardening, records the head gardener's further explorations of moon gardening, and supports the manual's users by answering their submitted questions, discussing relevant issues and providing indexes (see side bar at right) to the manual's complementary information and tips' panels.
IN BRIEF
The moon has gravity.
The gravity is felt by planet Earth.
As, during the first half of the lunar month, the moon grows from new to full, its gravitational pull upon the ground beneath the gardener's feet increases.
As, during the second half of the lunar month, the moon dies, its gravitational pull decreases.
In response, Earth's water table -- which is beneath Earth's surface no matter where in the world gardeners tend their gardens and farmers farm their land -- is drawn up and then permitted to drop back, exerting increasing and then decreasing upward pressure.
This unfailing, precisely predictable monthly phenomenon creates unique conditions in the garden's top soil.
As example:
from new moon to full moon, the moisture in Earth's crust moves upwards under the pressure that is exerted by the rising water table. In consequence, an increased amount of moisture is made available within the top soil. This benefits the seed sown and the plant inserted at that time. Additionally, the same upward pressure encourages enhanced moisture absorption by seed and plant. This increases the possibility of germination and plant survival
from full moon to the next new moon, the pressure upon root systems exerted by the prevailing moisture reduces as the water table falls. It is the ideal time to prune, for example, because the reduced pressure causes reduced bleeding of cut branches.
Overall, every department of horticulture -- from preparation and feeding through to harvesting, crop storage and general management -- is aided when the moon is worked with, not ignored.
The 256 pages of R J Harris's Moon Gardening offer a clear account.
They also explain how to fuse moon knowledge to the now almost completely forgotten knowledge and practice that were common in the days when the major defence standing between an individual's family and hunger was that individual's ability to grow fruit and veg.
R J Harris, now almost half a century in professional gardening, carries out his head gardener duties in Cornwall, England, in the spirit and to the horticultural letter of those bygone days. He applies expertise and skills which -- until the advent of R J Harris's Moon Gardening -- were fated to die with him.
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R J Harris's Moon Gardening moved into its second phase on
15 April 2007 with the publication of its second edition.
Enlarging the second edition is already under way, and it has been decided that instead of being reserved for future editions the additional text will be posted on this website as it secures editorial approval.
Click for the first of these additions: black birds, club root, peas, onions, slugs, summer spinach and sweet peas. Click for the second: comfrey (as included in the first edition, and excluded from the second).
Newly (in March 2007) and, be it acknowledged, without prior planning, R J Harris's Moon Gardening bears upon the increasingly important matter of the fate of the British allotment. More and more the news and horticultural media, and television and radio, are reporting that the allotment is in danger and must be saved. Property developers and heedless local government are seen as constituting the enemy, supported by supine national government).
The threat is compounded by the lack of knowledge of allotment management on the part of many of the potential allotment users, who complain -- with justification -- that very little formal guidance is available to them.
It so happens that the first 26 pages of R J Harris's Moon Gardening explain how to prepare for the practicalities of crop rotation. Viewed from another standpoint, they explain, also, how to plan and establish the ideal allotment, with the remainder of the manual explaining -- again, without intention -- how to manage the implicitly described ideal allotment.
A preliminary study of the manual's second edition, made from the viewpoint of the allotment holder-to-be (who, probably, is as new to vegetable gardening as to allotment management) , highlights two key aspects: 1) watering; 2) workload overload, the two resulting in what Mr Harris refers to as allotmentitis.
WATERING
An apparently inescapable rule of allotment seeking is that the latest applicant to the already-peopled allotments' estate is offered the piece of ground that no one else wants. This is the plot that has disadvantages. Among the most major of these can be its great distance from the installed water supply, potentially entailing repeated, wearisome trips laden with filled cans.
Only the most dire of dry weather causes R J Harris's deep-trench bed and single-dug bed to dry out (and he cannot recall when it last happened), unlike the conventional beds employed by most allotment holders.
WORKLOAD REDUCTION
It is a familiar pattern: during the first season the new allotment renter throws all energies and available time into working over the whole of the newly-acquired ground and emerges from the season exhausted and with no heart to repeat the experience; during the second and subsequent seasons a reducing portion of the allotment is worked, leaving the remainder unused and, increasingly, an eyesore.
R J Harris's way sees one quarter of the allotment being developed during the first year, the next during the second year, the next during the third year, and the final quarter during the fourth year. During the four-year period the undeveloped quarters are subjected to organised weed removal. By the fourth year, the whole of the allotment is developed and under control, thanks to the application of
Mr Harris's four-year crop-rotation system. Allotmentitis, the disease that strikes during the third year and causes the new-comer to give up, is avoided.
Click for a printable guide to turning R J Harris's Moon Gardening into an allotment finder and management guide.
