Moon planting is one of those ideas that divides gardeners – but does it actually help? In this video, I break down the simple, practical benefits of moon planting, without the mysticism. We look at how lunar cycles can act as a useful timing tool, why many gardeners find it helps with consistency and confidence, and how it can fit neatly alongside a seasonal, reality-based approach to growing food.
This isn’t about rules or dogma. It’s about whether moon planting can offer a gentle framework to guide sowing, planting, and observation, and how you can test it for yourself, at no cost, in your own garden.
If you’ve ever been curious about moon planting, sceptical of it, or somewhere in between, this one’s for you.
🌱 Let me know in the comments: have you tried moon planting, and did you notice a difference?
#biodynamic #moon #gardening
24 Comments
This is why I don’t follow moon planting and I love following moon cycles; I like the idea of it but I have limited time around my job to follow this properly. Also if I’m exhausted from my job I find the added pressure of trying to also fit in a rigid system in my growing causes stress which defeats the object of using growing to help reduce the stress and be a calming pursuit away from my job and daily life. Maybe when I’m retired this could be a good opportunity to trial this and see how and if it works for me 😊
I love that you created this content! I think there's merit in the power of moon cycles but I hit the same wall with time constraints. When I became stressed and felt a lack of productivity, I went back to the basic principle…seed, soil, warmth, moisture and my plant will grow. It doesn't know and it just wants to do it's job. I haven't studied if I'm losing yield or vigor, but I would love to. However, I am growing and that's the most important thing. Thank you for your channel. The YouTube community of teachers, including you and Charles Dowding from across the pond, have greatly influenced my food producing trajectory. ❤😊
Moon planting is just bullshit. Stop giving these ideas a platform.
So is biodynamics.
I'm 63. I have a quarter acre garden that I take care of myself with no help, and no power equipment. We live in an arid part of the American West so I have to water every day in the summer. I can, freeze and dehydrate my harvest. I also have a small business to run and a family to take care of. I get my garden work done when I have time. Period. Do I lose out on some productivity because I am not planting by the moon cycles? Maybe. But I can only do what I can do.
Do people actually believe this stuff? It sounds like psychobabble and a waste of time.
I have followed for years and yet have never seen Mr Richards struggle to bring legitimacy to a horticultural framework as Moon Planting. Every positive thing mentioned skirted the real issues that many horticulturists care about.
This video seems as much an uncomfortable struggle to produce as it was to finish watching.
I am open to the possibility of being proved wrong in many things but when one discusses a type of 'energy' with absolutely no definition or mechanism for measurement ; then it seem no more than horticultural astrology. We as humans have begun to measure things that were never thought to have existed in Nature (e.g. in physics) ; please do not tell me we have nothing tangible on which to peg 'Moon planting'. I would even accept some notion of the Moon's gravitational pull on the water (and thus nutrients) in seeds, plants and fruit as having some effect ; as we see with tides and other observable and quantifiable natural phenomena.
Who would follow this? I get that it may be a way of managing your time in the garden. But other than that, it sounds like pagan voodoo sophistry. What do you mean by energy? What moon energy? I’ll stick to my frost dates, thanks.
Gardening for people who believe in magic
I'm sorry, you talk about energy but don't explain what type of energy you are talking about! This is nonsense.
As a paleo ethnobotanist and a farmer in the Ariege I can tell you all that this simply originated from the dawn of agriculture, before calendars, so that people could coordinate or indeed get ahead/be the last to crop a food stuff. Buried in Magic and Myth, I have tested it and it is for me a nonsense. Hippies re-appropriating science to fit a narrative. Nothing more. Please explain this 'energy going down' from what, and how that makes a carrot behave like a carrot. It's very low risk because: it doesn't matter when you plant based on the moons position. What happens if it's raining? Please…
Thanks Huw. Positive, informative & kind outlook on what could be poppycock is so refreshing. Great video Love your channel. Thanks again 🩵
I’ve never thought about it honestly but I’m inclined to think after watching this that transplanting might be better around a new moon for a darker night to recover from the trauma 🤔
Controlled scientific studies have found no consistent, statistically significant effect of moon phases on:
– germination rates
– plant height
– yield
– root vs leaf development
“Practical timing beats perfection.” This is what I need to remember during my Christmas preparations, never mind gardening! Thanks, and a Merry Christmas to you, Huw!
There is a reason most babies are born during full moons. The moon effects a lot of things in your life.
Over the years I've definitely noticed that cuttings root best around the full and new moon. I've never noticed anything extraordinary in other practices like planting seeds tho sometimes seeds pop up in a day and other times they take a week but I've never mapped that with moon cycles.
As a biologist (phytopathologist), this all "biodynamic" stuff sounds like a real nonsense (and without any scientific backup). What a weird content this time…
May as well plant things in alphabetical order, it would have as much impact 😅
its fun how you must really say its wonderfull but i dont use it BUT you really should do it if you want. While every serious person know its a sect delirium backed by nothing and just a scam to sell you products for lots souls.
biodynamic is also a sect gret income, its all directed by the anthroposophy's sect. this is a sister sect of the moon calendar's creator's.
This was really awkward to watch. Huw, you presented this like an seventh grader who doesn't fully grasp the subject matter. Not enough to pass it on with any kind of conviction. That being said, I've chosen not to garden this way, too.
ONE THINGS lacking… flexibility ??? you mean RESULTS ?
no harm in moon planting ? are you counting the fact that you finance a dangerous sect ?
While I can see the argument here I am very hesitant to give biodynamics even an inch. Steiner wasn't just unscientific, he was antiscientific, wanting to purge intellectualism form most aspects of society. He' wanted to re-enchant the world any means necessary, creating a worldview that dovetailed so well into nazi Germany that you might wonder if it wasn't a coincident (it wasn't). To me he's ideas goes against stuff like food sovereignty and other similar ideas, because he was trying to shape a people not feed them. Steiners utopia wasn't self sufficient farmers, it was purified farmed producing for a purified people.
I wish science at school was this fun 😂