Life on Pig Row: lunar sowing

Andrew Oldham writes about Pig Row, which is three gardens over a quarter of an acre in Scouthead. Visit at www.lifeonpigrow.co.uk

SOME OF you have been sowing your seed for years oblivious of something that our ancestors did before even touching seeds. They looked at the moon.

Over the last few decades there has been a resurgence of lunar sowing. There has been evidence from our gardens, from laboratories and field stations that growing plants respond to the moon, just as oceans and we do.

For example, the full moon plays havoc with our sleep and super moons tend to send us battier than a box of frogs in a belfry.

The idea for sowing by the moon is simple: all that grows above ground should be sown and transplanted when the moon is waxing and all the things that go below ground should be sown when the moon is waning. It boils down to the force the moon exerts over the Earth during these periods.

So potatoes traditionally planted on Good Friday, often fell when the moon waned. Many growers swear by planting spuds out at Easter, any later was deemed ill advised.

Last year we had to hold off due to the cold spring and planted our spuds a month later, again as the moon waned.

Looking back over our growing diary and lunar calendars we can trace the years were we had a good spud crop. It always fell when we planted them on the waning moon.

We’ve had one bad year for spuds on Pig Row in 2012, a good year for sports but a wash out for growers; we found that the spuds had been planted as the moon waxed.

Our ancestors knew when to sow and what to sow, and the more we get detached from our food sources the more we forget that we are stood on the shoulders of gardening giants.