by Nick Kollerstrom 

Review by Alan Brockman, leading UK Bio-Dynamic farmer and formerly Chairman of the UK's Bio-Dynamic Agricultural Association, 

Published in Resurgence, May 1999. 

This ‘Gardener's Calendar' is well presented and of a useful size, over 200 pages. Although described as a calendar, it is really two books in one. 

A well-researched and comprehensive first section sets out very clearly the background and experiences, trials and results of working with planetary rhythms. The second section comprises a useful & easily understood guide to recommended work on the land & in the garden, day by day, throughout the year. 

As we enter the space age in the new millennium, it is appropriate to enhance our appreciation of how life on earth is related to the heavens. This calendar, including as it does many references to ideas & sayings of the past, reminds us that we stand in an evolving world process, such as includes our our relationship to the plants & animals. Having gone through the phase where all talk of planting according to lunar cycles was viewed as ‘moonshine' we are now approaching a new, scientifically-based appreciation of life-rhythms as linked to the cosmos. 

The many examples of practical trials & results here presented, especially those carried out in the UK, can be a great help in showing those of a sceptical turn of mind that there is ‘something in it.' These moon and other rhythms seem to be only really effective in connection with a ‘living' soil i.e. one where organic methods have been practised. This bears out a statement by Rudolf Steiner (founder of the Bio-Dynamic method of growing) that mineral fertilisers make the soil ‘deaf.' 

To organic growers the idea of working with moon & star-rhythms will make sense, as all life is carried on rhythms and life manifests through rhythms. The most immediate one is the diurnal cycle: the birds' dawn chorus is the expression of the power-wave circling the earth with the rising sun. This surge of life becomes really noticeable in February and gradually fades in July, which leads to our experience of the year's rhythm. Over the basic solar rhythm of the year is superimposed the moon's rhythm, that of waxing and waning. 

In earlier times shepherds would put the ram to the ewes when the moon was waxing, and take him off after full moon. We have often found that a whole flush of calves would be born around full moon time whilst the new moon period is much quieter. At full moon time especially in the summer, there is always an element of restlessness in nature. It is quite noticeable and many people experience this personally in sleeplessness. 

A ‘moon-stamp' has long been used on timber felled in the tropics to indicate that it was cut during the new moon period when the sap was down, so rotting and insect damage were at a minimum. 

Our experience has been that working with these rhythms increases the keeping qualities of vegetables and flowers. Carrots kept markedly better if harvested at the right time (shown by controlled test at the Balk institute in Holland). BD work in Australia includes well over one million acres with desert being reclaimed in some areas. The sprays are delivered by aircraft and 2,000 acres can be treated with the homeopathic doses in one afternoon, to catch the Earth's ‘in-breathing' period of the day. Earlier herbalists were convinced of a connection of plants to planetary rulerships, e.g. Culpepper. Perhaps our task now is to understand these forces and work with them in a scientific way. 

In this Calendar, Mr Kollerstrom has made great efforts to put us in a position to do that. The chapters include, Perspectives, Cycles of the Sky, Moon and Fertility, Moon and Crop Yields, Using the Star-Zodiac, and Gardening Aspects. The Calendar uses the Star-zodiac, i.e. the Sidereal, as used to this day in India. His thorough review of the divisions of the zodiac will be a great help to newcomers in the field. On a thoroughly practical level, two sets of month by month work planned for the gardener are included: Ken Whyatt's plan of work, and an eighteenth-century gardening year are especially helpful guides and reminders. The final chapter ‘How to use the calendar in farm and garden' is followed by the day by day calendar itself. A very readable book!