URBAN GARDENER
BY ELSPETH THOMPSON

When I was in Italy last autumn, I spent time talking to Guido, the old gardener and estate manager at the house where l was staying. I was intrigued to find he used a system of planting and harvesting by the moon which, he said, had been practised throughout Italy for centuries. All sowing and transplanting was carried out at full moon or just before. Harvest time depended on what the crops would be used for - those for storage (potatoes, apples, even timber) were gathered at new moon, whereas those to be eaten fresh were picked when the moon was full. I resolved to research lunar gardening on my return home.

'Loony gardening, that's what l call it,' said my husband, as books, charts, calendars and almanacs decorated with stylised stars and moons and astrological runes started arriving through the post. 'You don't want to start getting into any of that weird stuff'. But it wasn't just weird, it was multifarious. Guido's system is just one of a number of practices, some of which seem to be as old as agriculture itself. Some recommend that root crops be planted at new moon and all other crops at full moon. Some say you can sow everything at full or new moon. Others divide the plant world into categories corresponding to the four elements - earth (root vegetables), water (leafy crops such as cabbage and lettuce), air (flowers, including broccoli, cauliflower and globe artichokes) and fire (seeds and fruits) - and allocate planting-days when the moon is in an astrological sign of that element.

Though such divisions will be familiar to those who have read Culpeper or Gerard's 1597 Herball, the most detailed charts of the past 100 years were refined under the auspices of Rudolf Steiner's School of Biodynamic Farming. And though this system is the most peculiar, it is the only one to offer any evidence to support its theories. In Germany in the Fifties and Seventies, Maria Thun (who publishes an incomprehensibly translated calendar of her own) carried out strict trials using potatoes. She recorded a 30 per cent increase in yield for crops sown on 'root/earth' days compared with other sowings. And in Britain, Reg Muntz, a market gardener from Sussex, and Colin Bishop, an amateur gardener and astrologer from Wales, have separately recorded increases of up to 50 per cent on sowings of beans, radishes, lettuces and potatoes.

Nick Kollerstrom, author of Planting by the Moon (see Clippings), is a science historian who became convinced of the benefits of lunar planting in the Seventies while working on a biodynamic farm. He has researched the moon's influence on farming (including a paper on its effects on horse breeding, published in last month's issue of Equine Veterinary Journal), and finds sowing around the full moon brings on faster germination, but has no evidence of an increased yield. In countries prone to drought, such as Italy, he thinks that increased moisture in the soil around full moon may account for the preference to plant at that time. In a further twist, he has found that peas and beans ('seed/fire' crops) sown on a 'leaf/water' day develop strong leafy growth but fewer pods than the smaller, higher-yielding plants sown at a more auspicious time.

Exciting evidence or a load of old moonshine? I'm prepared to give it a go. Steiner was, after all, the man who in 1923 predicted the BSE crisis. This year, I'll be conducting a little research of my own, and would be intrigued to hear from readers with experience in this field. I may be a crank, but I'm in good company.