Since moving here to Italy I’ve been immersed in the world of planting and harvesting. We plant a garden every year. And, when I say a garden, I’m not talking about 3 or 4 tomato plants and a couple of peppers, etc. This year we planted about 70 various types of tomato plants, 50 eggplant, 21 regular peppers, plus hot peppers, watermelons, 3 other types of melon, beans, lettuce, zucchini, etc. This is a monster garden! We even put in a drip irrigation system to make it easier to water.
Last year we planted 100 plants of San Marzano tomatoes alone. We ended up with 300 bottles of chopped tomatoes, plus there were still some on the vine. Consequently, this year we decided not to plant so many.
Now we have some seeds to plant, specifically various kinds of pumpkins to use for our Halloween party. When we mentioned this to some people, it prompted some serious discussion. Why? Because, we can’t plant them right now, we have to wait until the moon is waxing. Right now it’s waning. I had never heard of this before, but apparently, for seeds to sprout the best, you have to wait for the waxing of the moon.
The moon is “consulted” when cutting down trees too. It was quite a few months ago when we last cut some trees down for wood, but I remember we had to cut them all in one day because of the phase of the moon. I don’t remember what phase it had to be in. Once the tree is felled, of course, you can chop it up whenever you want. Interesting.
So, since we obviously want our pumpkins to grow well, we checked the calendar and found that the new moon is on May 16th which means that we have to wait until the 17th or later to plant our pumpkin seeds. It’s easy to figure out what we’ll be doing on the evening of the 17th.
I do have to wonder what else I need to consult the moon for.
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Bel sito. Complimenti!
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Yes, planting by the moon is very big in this part of the world. Though I was doing some work with an Italian gardener who, while planting according to the moon, would plant vegies into solid clay and hurl tons of chemical fertiliser at the plants. You have to wonder …
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At least we use organic fertilizer. But, when the bugs come calling, we do use chemicals to kill them or else they’d eat everything. I wish we didn’t have to.
I’ll go with the prevailing wisdom and wait until the right phase of the moon. Everyone I talk to here has a story about the time when they planted seeds anyway, even though the moon wasn’t right, and the seeds never sprouted. We’ll see.
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