SIMPLE TIMES BY SU Z Y Mc C RAY
THE CO-OP PANTRY
Planting and Living by the Moon Signs
Her best pair of sewing scissors and the Old Farmer’s Almanac always hung on a nail on the wall by her rocking chair. The little book was thinner then and the pages weren’t glossy, but in the late 1940s, it was almost the “bible” of the how-to’s and when’s of planting and completing other jobs around the farm, whether it was when to castrate a hog or the best time to plant peas. Going by the moon signs or working by the seasons wasn’t just considered folklore or superstitions in long years past. It was as calculated and carefully followed then as any modern science is now where GPS guides farmers in planting seed or distributing fertilizer. While many may scoff at the notion today, even those who are most skeptical seem to always have several remembered stories of how their grandparents or great-grandparents wouldn’t sow or reap unless “the signs were right” and how their crops always seemed to match their faith. This spring as my husband readied to plant potatoes in our now extended garden, he covered the
soil with plastic temporarily to deter the rainy season we were having (last year the first batch of potatoes planted tried to rot in the ground while those planted during a drier time flourished). Then he hunted an almanac to tell him just when to plant that first long row. Since our last year’s garden had increased fourfold in size, planting at the right times was even more important. Around here, most gardeners always said to plant your okra when the farmers around you planted their cotton. But there’s much more to it than that! As we’ve studied to go back to a simpler way of life, it’s hard not to believe that the way practiced by my grandparents, great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents right here on this patch of earth wasn’t based on some sort of truth! If you’re just trying to plant by the moon phases listed on a calendar (our bank calendar and the one from our insurance agent both show the moon signs), it may seem more complicated than it really is. That’s why I like to use an almanac to help my poor brain figure it out! April 2021
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