The new moon on September 15 is in the sign of Virgo. It initiates a month to clean up, sort out, and tidy up. It is the time for those of you who have been working like the busy ants in the fable to store your hard earned crops.   Many other chores besides planting are best done by paying attention to the moon. When you want to get rid of the mold that has grown due to the great humidity of the summer and want it to stay away, clean when the moon is waning (decreasing in size, going from full to new). A waning moon is also the best time to clean out the gutters and remove wasp’s nests.   The…

Now that Jupiter has moved from the fertile earthy sign of Taurus to the dry and windy sign of Gemini, we need to water the plants more often. For the best effect, water deeply when the moon is in the water signs of Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces. Those dates are July 26, 27, August 3, 4, 5 and August 13, 14. Hold off on experimenting with new plants or making major changes in the garden until Mercury moves into direct motion on August 8. August 1 is the holiday of Lammas, an ancient harvest festival. It was the time of the first harvest of wheat, and was celebrated by eating bread made from …

The new Moon in May is also a Solar Eclipse. This confuses the energy as eclipses portend endings, not new growth. The Moon is in Gemini, a barren sign. Beneficent Jupiter will move into Gemini on June 11 and will bestow gifts of ideas and fluent communication, not earthiness and fertility as he did the past year. You will have to water more this month and use more compost to feed your plants. Venus is now moving backwards in Gemini and will continue to do so this whole month. Venus rules gardens, flowers, fields and meadows, vineyards and orchards, all of botany and horticulture in general. …

You will find some of the best planting days of the year during this month. Taurus is one of the most fertile signs and this is his time. If you can overcome the inertia that Taurus loves (think of Ferdinand the bull sitting under the cork tree) and get yourself out to the garden to work, you will reap wonderful rewards.  The Sun and Jupiter are traveling side by side through this fruitful sign reminding you how lush and luxuriant the natural world can be. Of course, the weeds and bugs will also prosper under these planetary conditions, so you have to be vigilant to cultivate and exterminate …

Spring 2012 starts at 1:14 am on March 20. The New Moon in Aries is on March 22. Aries energy is full of innovation, beginnings, courageous undertakings, and blazing new paths. This year the symbolism must be modified because Mars, Mercury, and Saturn are in retrograde motion. They ask you to be patient with your new ideas and to wait to implement them, but to be sure not to forget or ignore them. Aries is a barren sign. You’ll get better results with your gardening by waiting a month until New Moon in Taurus to do the bulk of your planting. Jupiter and Venus have been prominent in the night …

Hold off on ambitious gardening projects even if the mild weather continues. Mars continues to move backwards in retrograde motion with Mercury joining him in March. It is a good time to rethink and redo your garden plan. Move things around and decide what structures you want to add, like those raised frames you’ve been thinking about. The energy of these two planets is in ebb as they reverse their steps and will hold back luxurious growth if you plant now. Neptune entered his own sign of Pisces on February 3. Pisces is a water sign; Neptune is lord of the oceans (remember your mythology?). …

Farmers have been using the principles of astrology as long as they have been putting seeds in the ground and moving plants from one place to another. They observed the moon and the movements of the planets through the sky, made pictures out of the star patterns and gave them names, and noticed repetition. They soon discovered that if you plant when a certain picture was overhead, the crops grew well. It is easy to watch the moon change every night as it grows and shrinks. When the moon is moving from new to full, it is waxing. When it goes from full to new, it is waning.  The waning moon is …