| Dear Eager Gardener,
Call us old-fashioned, but all of these newfangled ways of figuring out when to plant your corn or your kale or your cucumbers seem to be making old wisdom sound like a new thing. We love a good app as much as the next person, but planting by the phases of the Moon isn’t anything new. Gardeners and farmers have been doing it for ages. Best of all, it’s a fairly simple process.
Plant your annual flowers and vegetables that bear crops above ground during the light, or waxing of the Moon … from the day the Moon is new to the day it is full.
Plant flowering bulbs, biennial and perennial flowers, and vegetables that bear crops below ground during the dark, or waning, of the Moon … from the day after it is full to the day before it is new again.
For more specific dates, there is a Planting Table in this year’s Old Farmer’s Almanac that gives you the best planting days based on the Moon’s phases and your location. Going back to the kale, for instance, if you live in Area 1 (the southern U.S.), you can plant kale between February 11 and March 20.
However, if you want a favorable Moon when you plant (and who wouldn’t?), it’s best to plant from February 11–19 or from March 6–20. If you live in Area 3 (southern Canada and most of the northern U.S. except for the western half of Washington and Oregon), you can plant kale from May 15–31, but you only have 4 days of a favorable Moon, from May 15–18.
Join The Old Farmer’s Almanac and watch your flora flourish.
https://www.almanac.com/content/2019-old-farmers-almanac |
