Grow Your Own Magazine

LJ. Third quarter APR. 13. Water table at its highest and two days into going down on the 15th. The soil would have been nice and moist.

NTG. LOL ...did he sell you any tickets to the secret policemens ball?

Shortie. Granny and Nanny would never stoop so low. Well perhaps Nanny would have, when she was a lass. But thats a different story all together. It's all in the headology.

Absolutely... wiggling fingers in ears and all that... I see myself as more a well intended Magrat but often border on the Nanny side unfortunately

...anyway, where are my dried frog pills?

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Shortie

"There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children; one of these is roots, the other wings" - Hodding Carter

Jaxom, would like to join in the trial but have not put any bean seeds in yet. If you are planting out plantlets I suppose planting seeds at the same time will be ok? Should I put them into pots or straight out into the garden?

Am popping into town so will purchase some Blue Lake if I can find any.

In post #39 I wrote
As each platlet is planted in the ground to the outside of each stick insert a single Climbing French Bean seed 5cm deep as close as possible to the cane. This will extend your season and double the wigwam/frames productivity.
I understand from this that those who have not grown plants a month before could sow seeds instead.

Jaxom I now have two lots of broad bean plants ready to plant out. The moon gardening lot will be planted in the week commencing June 3rd but what about the second lot? What would be the worst date on the calendar to plant them out?

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The week starting June 18th which is the fourth quarter.
I know I'm new to this growing vegetables lark but with the growing season being so late, cold and wet this year I wonder how anything will fare regardless of the time planted?

Planted my runner bean plants earlier in week,cos they were desperatley in need of planting,but I've just sown another30+seeds around separate wigwams.Has anyone else done their moon planting?It really was moon planting as at 4.30 this afternoon the sun and moon were both clearly visible!I'll be very suprised if I get a good crop of anything this year, as my crops haven't liked this years weather at all!!(mind you...niether have I!!!)

I planted out my runner beans and french beans today a la moon gardening - await the results with bated breath. Never thought about sowing seeds at same time - will sow them tomorrow if I get a chance.

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Rat

British by birth
Scottish by the Grace of God

Blog updated Wednesday November 13th

My beans are planted. Due to lack of room they are now all over the garden. My fault for sowing so many varieties.
The peas planted at the correct time are now producing wonderful sweet tasting peas. The peas planted out of quarter seem to be behind somewhat even the ones planted before.
Too early to report on the beans planted 28 days ago as they have yet to grow sufficiently to flower yet. They are however two foot high.

The weather is also warm enough to go dancing skyclad but I don't want to shock the neighbours with all my flabby white bits

Getting back to the moon gardening Jaxom my runner beans are in and tomorrow the french beans, broad beans and borlotti beans will be planted. I am keeping a tray of broad beans back to plant later. Am I right that this is the best moon gardening week to plant courgettes and squashes?

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I planted some runner bean seeds on 3/6 - purely by accident I noticed that this is the day which you suggest for your moon gardening experiment... what do I have to do from here - should I just keep monitoring this thread for info??

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How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.”

Sunbeam what I am doing is planting two different lots of broad beans. One this week which is the best week for moon gardening and one in the week starting June 18th which is the worst possible week for planting beans according to the moon gardening theory. So if you could start some more runner beans off now they would be germinated by June 18th and you could then plant the beans outside. Then it is simply a case of which batch of beans gives the best harvest - the moon gardening ones or the ones planted at the wrong time.

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I would have thought so as the fruits are going to be above ground just like the beans. Courgettes and squashes would be planted out rather than sown. This and next week would give them maximum water at surface level to help establish root balls.

Root crops are sown in the first quarter, which gives them three weeks of maximum natural water to germinate and start to grow. The third week or third quarter would encourage them to send down roots to follow the water as the water table drops.

I will set a reminder to plant some beans on the 18th/6 too - it'll be interesting to see what happens!

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How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.”

Well, Following Jaxom's dates, I planted out my runners and climbing French during the recommended week as per the cycles of the moon, and planted out a second wigwam of climbing French the following week when the appropriate phase of the moon had passed - so here are the results .........................2-0 to the moon. All plants grown in same way, from same seed packs, fed the same, watered the same and the difference has been quite impressive. Now I'm not normallya great believer in hocus pocus and fairies at the bottom of the garden, and I will admit that I was just a wee bit sceptical but on the basis of this one season, I think I will definitely pay a bit more attention to the wacky hippies in the future - not that I'm saying Jax is a wacky hippy, noooo, not me, nuh-uh, no way

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Rat

British by birth
Scottish by the Grace of God

Blog updated Wednesday November 13th

I think the fumes from the Rowan & apple Jelly have got to you (very nice with wood pigeon btw)

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ntg

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.
A large group of professionals built the Titanic

http://grief-encounters.blogspot.com/

This has probably been answered in the thread but it all seems very technical to me and I don't fully understand it!
Is it proposed that everyone in the British Isles plants and harvests according to the moon? I would argue there is a lot of climatic differnce between north of the country and south and soil temperature and daylight length must be the main contributary factors? Excuse my ignorance but does the moon not behave differently regionally?....... My head hurts!!!!!!

My french beans that I planted as you did Rat, the one's that were planted when Jax said to, have done far better than the ones planted later! Even now that they are nearly over, they look much better than the others!

Hmm - Jax are you going to keep us up to date with planting times again next year!

I was a bit like you Snadger, but Rats results seem to show otherwise. Maybe this Link will explain it.

http://www.moongardening.cwc.net/

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ntg

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.
A large group of professionals built the Titanic

http://grief-encounters.blogspot.com/

Thanks for link ntg...might even put the book on my Christmas list!

- the beans planted @ the prime time have faired much better than those planted one week later...does this mean moon gardening is a success..? has anyone found results to the contrary?

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How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.”

Sorry for the long absence folks, but I hope more people feed back with results as this was my first year as well. Rat has kindly taken over this link to keep it going (Thanks) Not much accesss to a my old garden at pressent I will be interested to hear what happened to any other trials up and down the UK.

I'll give it a proper try next year. It's been a bit hit and miss this year with snatching what time we can to do bits, hence the weed problem on the second plot.

Tried the bio-dynamic approach as suggested in the mag with mixed results. Again probably need to be more organised next year to give this a proper try.

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Bright Blessings
Earthbabe
If at first you don't succeed, open a bottle of wine.