I am another farm blog today as I enjoyed it so much!
I can hear her shaky voice like it was yesterday,
“You need to get
your taters in the ground tomorrow, ’cause the signs is right’.”
The last “Granny Woman”
of our family, my ‘Mamaw’ served
as a wealth of knowledge for most
everything we encountered
in our West Virginia community, and in the
springtime, folks from all over the holler
would seek her advice
regarding when to plant their gardens.
She was a firm believer in
“planting by the signs”.
Described as devilish by some and
extolled by others;
I never truly understood what any of it meant until
long after she was gone,
but as I age, I find myself becoming more and
more fascinated
by the complex astrological system she relied upon for
the better part of a century.
Today, most everyone who plants a garden
does so as a mere hobby
or at the very most in an effort to supplement
their grocery store purchases;
however, 150 years ago, a successful
garden was often the difference
between surviving the winter and
starving to death.
As a result, the folks “back in the day”
took a far more serious approach to planting
and the moon’s phases
helped to serve as a guide to improve
their chances of a successful
garden.
“And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide
the day from the night; and let them be for signs,
and for seasons,
and for days, and years…
And God made two great
lights; the greater light to rule the day,
and the lesser light to rule
the night: he made the stars also.” — Genesis 1.14, 16
In its simplest of forms, “planting by
the signs” means that you plant crops
that will produce their fruits
above the ground during the waxing moon
(the time between a new moon and
a full moon — when the moon is getting bigger),
while plants that
produce their crop below the ground must be planted during
a waning moon
(the time between a full moon and a new moon — when the moon is
shrinking).
Lori Elliott,
writes, “Many old-time farmers also planted and harvested
by the
astrological signs. Barren signs, such as Aquarius, Gemini, and Leo,
would have been considered ideal times for plowing and cultivating the
soil,
while fertile signs such as Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces would have
been considered
the best times for planting seeds.”
Old timers lived by these signs for
centuries, but the one question remains:
is there any science to back up
their traditions? And that’s the million dollar question!
25 years ago, the New York Times
set out to determine if planting by the full moon
was a bright idea or
lunacy; unfortunately, they were not able to reach any definitive
conclusion.
Scientists at NASA stated that planting
by the moon was pure “mythology”
and nothing more; however, Dr. Mac
Cathey Ph.D. in plant physiology,
told the Times that his grandmother
gardened by the signs in North Carolina.
“And she was a tremendous
gardener…
But all our high-germinating seeds and pesticides have damped
out our ability
to read the signs… It’s like music. We can’t sight-read
anymore.”
Regardless of whether you’re a believer
or not, chances are the folks
in your family tree religiously planted by
the signs only a few generations ago.
SHARED with THANKS from
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