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You use the star calendar to help with …· applying the preparations · Sowing – all seeds you start in pots, and/or soak in water as well as those you sow directly into the ground · Planting – including planting out annual and herbaceous plants either bought in from garden centres or grown on by you from seed or plugs; planting shrubs and trees from a nursery or plant centre; and planting out your vegetables after germinating them in pots · Cultivation – that’s weeding, thinning, pruning, feeding, etc · Harvest – i.e. cutting flowers, picking fruit and vegetables Moon & PlantsAs I said, the Biodynamic Star Calendar works with more than just the Moon but it is the Moon that focuses the energy. This is because she travels around the Earth once every 28-29 days and, in so doing, she passes in front of each of the constellations – see the diagram above. As she passes in front of each of the constellations she collects the energy from the stars in that constellation and focuses it onto the Earth. She acts as a lens for collecting and focusing the energy of each constellation in turn onto the Earth. This gives the days when best to work with each element in the garden as each constellation carries the energy of one of the four elements – see the diagram below …
And these 4 elements, each carried by 3 constellations, affect and respond to a part of the plant – as in the diagram. In the star calendar each day has the moon in front of one of these constellations and so is called a Root, Leaf, Flower or Fruit day. Calendars ...All plants work best if planted and cultivated on the day which echoes the reason why we are growing them. So you need to get yourself a biodynamic growing star calendar. Use the calendar that applies to your own time-zone, or Maria Thun's conversions from GMT. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA all produce their own calendars. Stella Natura from the Josephine Porter Institute also has excellent articles in it. I find Maria Thun’s the easiest to use so I will be
quoting from it. Her approach is entirely practical and based on over fifty
years of scientific observation. Basic Principles ...
For instance, potatoes, carrots, beetroots, onions, swedes, parsnips etc are plants we grow for their roots. If you plant or cultivate them on a leaf, flower or fruit day they won’t be nearly so healthy, productive and tasty as they would if you worked them on a root day … as Maria found in her initial study with the radishes. This is because the energy of the constellations isn’t right for them. You might find that they produced good foliage (leaf day planting) for instance and few or small actual spuds or carrots. If you cultivate them – i.e. weed, feed, thin out, prune – on a root day you’ll enhance their growing and produce better spuds and carrots. If you use another day they won’t be as good. This affects taste and scent as well as appearance, so cultivating your spuds on a root day makes them much tastier when you come to eat them. Similarly, harvesting – if you dig up your spuds on a root day they will store much better than if you dug them up on a leaf, flower or fruit day. If you are working with leaf plants – hostas, lettuce, pulmonarias, cabbage, grasses, variegated ivy, herbs, etc – then you work on a leaf day. If you are working with flowers for your borders and beds, and for eating – e.g. calendula, cauliflower, nasturtium, roses, iris, hardy geranium, clematis, mock orange, broccoli, day lily – then you want to work on flower days. If you are working with fruits – holly, apples, spindle, Chinese lanterns, beans, raspberries – then you work on a fruit day. You’ll see, in the Star Calendar, each day is marked as a Root, Leaf, Flower or Fruit day. This means that, on those days, the Moon is passing in front of an earth, water, air or fire constellation. Root days are when it’s good to do anything connected with roots and/or the soil; sowing and cultivating plants which we grow for their roots, essentially root vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, beetroots. As all plants have roots these days can be used for anything to do with the roots of any plant, and rooting plants from cuttings too. And you can sow anything on a root day ... all plants have roots and need to grow them in order to live.
Leaf days are when it’s good to do anything connected with leaves. They are also good for sowing and cultivating plants which we grow fort their leaves such as Hostas, Pulmonaria, grasses, many trees & shrubs with beautiful leaves, as well as vegetables such as spinach, lettuce, cabbage. And the lawn.
Flower days are when it’s good to do anything to plants you grow for their flowers. They are also good for sowing and cultivating plants which we grow fort their flowers. Such plants might be all flowering perennials and annuals; flowering trees & shrubs like magnolia, roses and fuchsias; vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli, nasturtiums.
Fruit are days when it’s good to sow and cultivate plants which we grow for their fruit such as roses for their hips, crab apples, cotoneaster, firethorn, honeysuckles later in the year for their berries. Fruiting trees & shrubs, such as apples, pears, apricots, nut trees and bushes. Fruit such as raspberries, currants, strawberries. Vegetables such as beans, peas, tomatoes, peppers, courgettes.
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The principles behind the star calendar are both
complex and simple. The maths and astronomy (not astrology) are a bit complex
for most of us, so thank goodness for Maria Thun and those behind her who are
able to put it together so we don’t have to. But the basic concepts behind why
such-and-such is a root day, or a flower day, are easy to grasp even for the lay
person.