Full Moon, Full Bed

Hey, plant lovers and plant killers.

I'm Jonathan.

And I'm Jeanette.

We're two old high school friends, current geriatric millennials.

This is Plant Sluts, the podcast where plants meet pop culture, sex, gossip, and

all the dirt in between.

Coming to you from a backyard in

Salem, Oregon, and a rooftop in Montreal,

Quebec, where plant Sluts.

We're Plant Sluts.

Hey, Slats.

Oh, hey, Sluts.

Jeanette. Welcome back to Plant Sluts. It's spring. It's exciting time for us gardeners. And, Jeanette, I want to hear what's

going on in your garden.

What's your status update?

Yeah, everything's popping in the garden. We got a lot of roses blooming and all the plants are just going wild. I've been putting out some pumpkin and different squashes.

Oh, yeah.

I have some beneficial nematodes I'm going to spray to try to get rid of some of those vine bore bugs. But my biggest struggle I had this kind of last couple weeks was I got a garden box to put some salad greens in to put close to the kitchen. And I found, like, a really cheap one at a garage sale. And I built it. It's kind of like waist high, so I filled it with soil. I threw a bag of compost on, and I should have stopped there. Cause I noticed a couple fungus gnats in the compost.

Like, how do you notice that?

I'm just curious.

Little flies.

Okay.

And I was like, okay, maybe it's just like the. The. The compost doesn't have manure, but it had a manure smell. And then I see all these little, like, flies. And I was like, are those fungus gnats? What's going on? And I was like, whatever, I'm gonna keep going. And so I. I mixed it in. And then I put my vegetables, like lettuces, dill basil, the Thai basil seeds you gave me. And now I'm noticing there's still fungus gnats. So I put out some sticky traps, which have only captured fungus gnats. They haven't been capturing any, like, pollinators because there's no flowers.

Yeah.

And then I also put some of my death drops to water it. And so I think I need to, like, dry it out. It's a whole thing. Like, I should just throw it away and start over.

I always just thought fungus gnats were something that was really, like, a nuisance inside the house, but outside, like, wouldn't you just wait for other beneficials to come and kind of, like, consume them?

There's Some spiders starting up on there, But I think because it's like a raised bed, they're not quite in the thick of it with all the other bugs. So I'm a little concerned that they might not come in and, like, kill everything. So I kind of want to get some, like, lace wings maybe, and throw them on there and get them to eat the fungus gnats or maybe the nematodes will help.

Throw everything you got at them.

Yeah. Because I've just heard stories of people having bags of either soil or compost with fungus gnats, and it just causing this big infestation that they can't get rid of. And I'm hoping that that is not the case with this garden. But this year feels like everything is. Like, I have to try it again, start over, try it again. Just like when I started my seeds and all the labels melted, I had to start over. And that's kind of what's been happening all year. We're in the point where I need to start enjoying the garden, and it has to stop being just, like, the list of chores of things I need to do, and I need to, like, sit out there and, like, enjoy my roses and flowers and, you know, that kind of thing. What about you? How's your gardening going?

I had all these, like, positive things to say, but now that you ended with that, I'm like, yeah, you're right. Like, I just want to enjoy my garden. It's like, everything is just all over the place. I'm in, like, the thick of spring cleaning, I guess. I. I didn't do spring cleaning last year, so I think I'm kind of going all out this spring. So I. I decided to refinish my deck in the backyard, so I had to, like, sand it, restain it, and finish it. But the thing is that, like, everything from my deck is now, like, in the garden space. I can't even, like, sit in the hammock and read. There's, like, my compost machine is there and, like, a bench that's, like, up on its side, like, sticking out. So that's been a bit crazy. I did also do pruning of my cherry tree. So this cherry tree I planted in, like, 2018, and I haven't really, like, pruned it back at all. And it was, like, higher than my building, so it was, like, over three floors tall. And I think I talked about it in our habit stacking is. I. I was trying to get one of my neighbor gardeners to come and, like, bring his. Like, I don't know what they use, but like a, you know, like some sort of machine to. To really hack it back, but wasn't able to reactivate that one. Yeah, I. I cut back a whole bunch, like, a lot. And what ended up happening is I. I rented or I borrowed a telescopic bypass trimmer from the library because the library loans out, like, equipment. And I think I tried to cut a branch that was a little bit thicker than what it should. What it can handle. And as I was, like, pulling on that. So how it works is, like, you have basically, like, it's telescopic, and then you have like, a big string drawstring that you pull.

Yeah.

And that's what, like, lops off the branch. Well, I was, like, on the second floor on my neighbor's balcony, like, really, like, just being like. And then finally, like, the cord snapped, and I, like, I don't know. Okay. Like, I don't really know what happened because I only noticed later on, but I have this huge ass bruise that's like the whole side of my. My knee and my lower thigh. And it even, for some reason, like, started moving to the other side of my leg. Like, it looks like I have gangrene or something. But I. I really, like, I did a lot of damage on my body. I. I don't know. And went to the osteo, and he was like, do you have a bruise on your stomach? And I was like, oh, I probably do, because I noticed that it was kind of sensitive, but I can't see. And I also have a bruise on my stomach from that. From that. That pruning. But it really. It makes it so that I can actually reach the cherries. Last year, there was so many cherries, I ended up leaving in the tree.

Cause I just couldn't reach it.

Oh, okay.

I have a giant ass. I can't think of the word.

A giant ass.

Do you know it in French?

Escabeau. Yeah.

Oh, an escab.

Uh, the thing that you use to. To climb up to things.

Ladder.

Yes, a ladder.

Oh, or bilingual podcast.

Yeah. So a ladder. I have, like, a giant ass ladder that can. But. And I still wasn't able to get it, so that's good. Forsythia. I think I sent you some photos because my forsythia is, like, popping.

Yeah.

I think I want to mention it here because it's one of those things that I had, like, a design idea and, like, foresight into, like, the future. So I planted this forsythia behind a box in the bed, and you can't see it from the kitchen. But I knew that eventually it would grow big enough that you could see it from the kitchen and that the yellow flowers. So forsythia are the. They're shrubs that have these beautiful yellow flowers that come out in the spring. And so this is the first year where it's really, like, popped. And I love how the bright yellow contrasts the red brick behind it. And I just like, oh, yeah.

I was like, oh, that's pretty.

And it just makes me feel like, oh, yeah. Like, I can do good things because, like, you.

Yeah. Well, it takes time. And then you have all these, like, delays, and, like, you know, everything gets fucked up. But there are moments to enjoy. I know, for. For me, like, in our front window, have our big pink rhododendron bush that you can only see for a couple weeks in the spring. And we try to sit there and, like, enjoy it. And this year, there's a robin's nest. And there was a whole controversy. I don't even know if this is. Would be considered tea, but some neighbors.

We're moving on to the tea section.

Well, I mean, it's still kind of like my status, but, like, the neighbors were letting their cats out. Our next door neighbor was hosing the cat away from the. From the nest, the robin's nest. And then Nathan was hosing it away from the robin's nest. And finally we had to go on our group chat for our neighborhood and be like, whose cat is this? Can you leave it inside for a couple weeks? So these robins have, like, a chance because they already. Cats already got a nest in one of our Arborvita trees. And so the owner agreed to try to keep the cat inside for a couple weeks. And I think the robins have grown up enough that they have left the nest, so I think we're safe. But it is fun to be able to just see those big, puffy pink rhododendron flower clusters that are like. I think it's like 12 to 20ft tall. It's really big.

Wow.

There's some nice, nice moments. And then there's, like, my yellow peppers that are, like, two months old, and they have, like, two leaves. And I'm just like, these are never gonna be.

That's exactly like, what I have. I have these yellow peppers, as literally have just, like, two tiny leaves. They lost their. Their cotyledons. Like, their. The first ones.

Yeah.

I don't understand what's going on. Like, why?

I don't know. Like, what am I doing? Like, we have the heat. I have, like, the lights, I have the wind and they're just like, I don't know if I need to put some more fertilizer. I bought fish liquid fertilizer to try to like, fertilize some things without the little pellets. I spilled it on my shoes. It got all over my hands. The smell's everywhere. Yeah, smells disgusting. But I, I, I'm wondering if I should be fertilizing because they've been growing for like two months. I think they need fertilizer at this point. I'm not sure. So just learning.

I, I did read somewhere that temperature differential is sometimes important. Even like the difference between the temperature of the soil and the plant. One differential increases growth and the other one maybe like, does something else. So you just to say it's complicated and we'll never understand and one year it'll be good and the next year it won't and you won't. You just like, have no idea why.

Yeah, I shared that frustration.

I don't eat that many peppers. It's fine.

I love peppers.

Well, yeah. So we're in the thick of spring and those are our status updates. It's time for tri weed. Yay.

I know that we call it try weed, but some things are not weed. Right, but they're just things that are around on your everyday and that kind of thing.

Yeah, we see it a lot, but we don't eat them.

Exactly.

It should be like eating her every day or something like that.

Eating yard debris.

So today I have hosta shoots.

Hosta shoots. Okay, interesting. Have you ever had a hosta shoot?

I have not.

Have you like, researched that these aren't poisonous and gonna kill you?

Yes, yes.

Okay, Okay.

I have, I have. And actually they're in the asparagasi family and I think that's why you can eat them. The only thing is that hostas grow low to the ground. I live in a city. People walk their dogs. And so I spent a long time walking around trying to find hosta shoots that were like elevated in like a bed or something like that.

Yeah.

I ended up finding one that was like in an alleyway. And I just kind of like looked around, I grabbed my knife out and I was, I felt a little bit silly, but I, I brought them home, I washed them, like triple washed them, just in case.

Yeah.

And then I just pan fried them with oil.

Okay.

Yeah.

I feel like this is a really good solution because I get overgrown hostas that I need to split and move and throw away. And so, like, if I just Started eating the shoots. If they're any good. I think this would be a good solution for my own yard.

Yeah. Okay.

Let's see. Trying hosta.

Mm.

Are they good?

Yeah.

Okay. I'm imagining a dinner party where it's all just yard debris. Dandelion wine, hosta shoots, an early spring nipple wart that we tried.

Okay. So I would compare it the most to literally, like, asparagus. Hmm.

Okay. My asparagus grows one asparagus every year for the last three years. Only one comes up, but I get tons of hosta shoots. So, like, if I want asparagus, maybe I should be going for the hostas and leave that one asparagus alone.

Yeah, you probably would cook this in the same amount of time as asparagus. Like, it actually cooked up really fast. What I did is I. I harvested ones that were just beginning to unfurl so that I could also make sure that they were, in fact hostas and not. Not like, lily of the valley or something. Cause they kind of look similar when they open up. It was a.

At a hosta for sure.

And there were other ones that were already open.

Okay.

I don't rec anybody at home to

harvest from anywhere where they aren't completely

sure that it is a hosta. So long as they're probably the same thickness as an asparagus, you could probably cook them all together because they would have the same cook time. The big question, though, is, does it make your pee smell like an asparagus? So we'll have to take a break sometime. And, like, I don't know about you, but when I eat asparagus, my pee smells right away.

I don't think mine smells from asparagus,

but you know what? I heard about that. So the thing is, is that people who say that they don't smell when they eat asparagus, it's actually they can't smell that smell. But their pee does smell asparagus. There's a genetic. There's like, some sort of genetic. I guess it's similar to, like, coriander. You know how some people don't like coriander or cilantro because it tastes like soap? There's a gene where people just cannot detect the smell of. I forget what the name of the chemical is, but if someone were to smell your pee, they would be like, that fucking reeks.

I feel like I've smelled asparagus pee before, though.

On your husband?

I don't know, just probably yours. I flush, smash, or pass hosta shoots. What are we thinking?

Smashed.

Yay. All right, yeah. Head out. Grab those hosta shoots if they're still starting up in your area. Time to grab a mug, pick some herbs and smell. Spill the tea. What tea do you have for us this episode, Jonathan?

Okay, so today's episode, we are going to talk about something that is more toxic than Monsanto's roundup. We're going to talk about how racism shows up in the garden. So I have two stories for you. One is actually listener email, and the other one is a story from my own experience in the neighborhood.

Yeah.

The person who wrote in is a member of this community garden. There's this one gardener. We will call her RG for racist gardener and racist gardener, one day is in the garden, looking around and notices that there is a POC Garden member who is, like, rummaging in someone else's garden plot. And so Race's gardener, of course, true to her name, reports this person to, I don't know, like, the president of the community garden committee or something like this and says, oh, you know, this POC gardener is stealing from other people in the garden. It turns out to be a big deal. The committee starts to do a bit of investigation to figure out, like, what's going on?

Why are people.

Why is this person stealing from others? Who have they stolen from? What do we do? And so the end of the day, what they find out is that this gardener, the POC gardener, is actually just

taking care of another family.

Garden plots. I guess it's like, you know, they have other family members in the neighborhood and, you know, within the family from different households, they have different plots. And so they're just, like, taking care of each other's shit, you know?

Yeah.

So POC Gardner kind of feels a little bit aggressed. Not even, like, microaggressed, but, like, macro aggressed.

Actual aggressed.

Yeah.

What does the committee do?

Do you think they kick out the racist gardener and give full justice to the gardener of color who's just minding their own goddamn business?

No. Oh. So what they end up doing is telling POC Gardener that if they don't feel comfortable, they can go to another garden. And so they find another plot at a different community garden. Yikes for POC Gardener. But, like, I'm pretty sure that the other person, that part of the same family, the other plot, they still are there. So it's still a really uncomfortable and unsafe environment.

Yeah.

I mean, garden Karens, they're everywhere, I guess.

So they exiled the victim because they didn't want to Deal with the racist lady throwing a tantrum.

Yeah, basically.

Wow.

Second story. So a few years back, when I first converted the front of the house into a garden, and it was, like, nice and tidy. Before it was, like, jungle core garden that it is now.

Yeah.

Someone was walking by, you know, while I was gardening and just stopped and said, like, I just want to say,

like, I really like your garden.

Like, I love what you're. What you've done to it. And without any hesitation, she just kind of goes like, oh, you know, like, the neighborhood is, like, so much better because of people like you coming and making it nice.

Yay. Pat on the back. Okay, so far, so good.

But you, like.

She just loves gardeners. She's like, I'm glad you know what plants are. Is that not the vibe?

No, no. The vibe is like, thank God you're gentrifying the neighborhood, because I'm tired of looking at poor people or whatever. I call her Safari Nurse. So she lives across the street from me.

Huh.

Do you want to know why I call her a safari?

Please.

Yes, please tell me why she's Safari Nurse.

She told me she was a nurse. I mean, that's okay. You know, I think she's actually a retired. A retired nurse, and I call her Safari Nurse because she was wearing a safari hat when she stopped by and said all this.

But there's more.

There's more. There's more. I think we were just small, talking about herself and. And what we were doing or whatever, and she starts talking about how she does not like Arab men.

And then, wait, wait. So, like, she comes up to you gardening, and she decides that your little flower bed was a safe space to just unburden her soul on her hatred of Arab men.

Yeah. She went on, like, this story about how her sister had traveled, I don't know, like, to Tunisia or Algeria, and she had been, like, assaulted while she was traveling, and that someone had gone into her room at night, and basically she trauma dumped, like, the rape story of her sister, and it's like, what are you supposed to do with that?

I'm just imagining you, like, on your knees with, like, a shovel and, like, some flowers, and you have, like, your little, like, apron on, and you just have, like, dirt everywhere, and she's just telling you a graphic sexual assault story of a family member?

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Fun. That's the vibe you want when you're out relaxing and gardening in your front lawn. And that's why I don't garden in the front lawn, by the way. You got to really be prepared to go out front because people will come up and talk to you about shit.

Since then, I've just, like, avoided her like the plague. Like, anytime I see her walking around. Luckily she lives on the other side of the street, so we're not really, like, crossing paths paths very much.

Yeah.

But I see her across the street. I see her, like, gardening with her safari hat.

I'm glad she makes herself known with the hat so you don't accidentally walk in front of her. It's like you see the hat from a mile away and you can pivot.

Exactly. Wow. So I guess the moral or the common thread across these two stories is that you can't really escape a lot of these toxic things in the gardening world. That's there just as much in other parts of our world.

I've noticed that you think of, like, you and me gardening. You think of it as a safe space. Like, we want to help, like, nature and improve soil, and we have all these, like, good intentions and then you kind of expand outside of our bubble and you. I was jokingly talking to someone about opening, like, a medicinal plant nursery, and I was like, I really could never do that. As much as I love, like, making teas, I wouldn't want the people that come in that are like, anti science, anti vax, anti everything. Making a safe space in a nursery that sells, like, lemon balm and like, passion flower. And suddenly I'm in, like, the depths of crazy anti science. Like, it's a slippery slope with, like,

self sustenance and growing your own food. It's like, there's also a lot of overlap with preppers. Right. Anti establishment, but, like, just anti taxes, anti, you know, like all of that shit.

The world's ending. So, like, we don't need to improve anything. We just need to take care of ourselves. We don't have to work for a better society for all. We need to just protect ourselves, our family, our kids, whatever. Yeah. So it is very interesting. I. I think you can see that a lot when you get into the garden. Social media, like we've done with this podcast and different things, and you're like, woo, wrong side. I want to make my own tea. I don't want to be a trad wife. My algorithm admittedly falls on the woo woo side of things. I don't know how that happened, but I sent Jonathan on a quest to research if planting by moon phases is a real thing or just like a superstition. Kind of like avoiding making a big purchase when mercury's in retrograde. Or like dating an Aquarius. So Jonathan, I know you've heard of this before, Planting by the moon phase.

Yeah, well, I talked about it when I was talking about the Italian seed packets, like having instructions on the back based on the moon phase. So I did a bit of digging and it seems like planning by the moon isn't actually just like a quirky kind of thing in Italy. It's actually, if I can say, agricultural law. The lunario, the lunar calendar is really embedded in Italian agriculture. And it's so embedded that commercial seed companies still print the sowing instructions based on the lunar calendar because that's what gardeners expect.

Okay, so this is exciting. Planting by moon phases is real.

Yeah, it's real in that like people do it. Let's say that when there is the Luna Crescente, or the waxing moon, which is when the moon is growing like towards the full moon, this is when the gravitational pull supposedly draws moisture up into the soil and pulls the SAP up into the plants. So the rule is during the Luna crescente, the waxing moon, this is when you plant things that produce yield that is above ground, like tomatoes and peppers. Sir.

And this is also when you do your money spells, just so you know.

Okay. Thanks to that. I was really wondering. The Luna Kelante, the waiting moon. This is when the moon goes from full to new. And as the moonlight decreases and the gravitational pull lessens, the plant's energy focuses downwards into the roots. And that's when you would plant like root vegetables or when you would prune, harvest and weed because the quote unquote SAP is low and the plant isn't going to like bleed out its SAP, its life force as much. So like it goes by title theory, basically that the superstition is that just as the moon controls the water in the ocean and the tides, it creates these like microtides within the groundwater and within the plant itself in terms of the SAP.

So do you think this is like legit scientifically?

There is research that shows that the amount of water in the plant isn't substantial enough for the moon to be able to have effect on the SAP,

but in a more like second degree way.

The moon and its effects on the oceans would presumably have an effect on global weather patterns. Right. Which then affects the plant.

So maybe the actual effect on the plant is more the weather patterns rather than this like SAP moon relationship. Right.

The research looked at the movement of SAP in the plant and not necessarily whether the moon cycles and the plants had a positive relationship. So there is still Hope, I guess.

Let's get into the origins of man planting by moon phases.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, for it to be non gendered, you can also say like anthropogenic.

Oh, mankind. Do you mean like mankind planting phases

people would use like humankind? Or like anthropogenic, like man made anthropogenic, like humankind instead of mankind.

Anyways.

Okay, sorry.

Well, like man. Man. I don't know. Okay.

As a man who's a feminine.

I'm just kidding.

I'm trying to mansplain you. I'm trying to mansplain to you how to talk about edits. Okay, so before written calendars or weather apps, the moon was actually the original Farmer's Almanac.

It was the only reliable clock people had. So we used it, you know, for our period, we knew it was nighttime, etc. And then the Roman author Pliny the elder from the first century A.D. he wrote extensively about agricultural superstitions. For example, he advised farmers to only pick fruit at the full moon so it wouldn't rotate and to shear sheep during waxing moons so their wool would grow back faster. And today, both the Farmer's Almanac and the Old Farmer's Almanac still include moon phases in their forecasts. So you may recognize these books from like the grocery store checkout, if you're not buying them already. And it's actually two different books, which I didn't know until recently. The Old Farmers Almanac, it's the yellow one, and that's the oldest continuously published periodical in North America. While the Farmer's Almanac will cease publication after its 2026 edition.

No, I didn't know that there was two farmers almanac.

Yeah, The Old Farmer's Almanac relies heavily on the moon and astrology. Its formula uses like solar science, like sunspot activity, climatology, historical, historical weather patterns, and today it combines it with some modern satellite data. The Old Farmer's Almanac is known for weather forecasts and gardening tips, astronomical data. Or is it astrological data, which is based on a secret formula using sunspots, climatology, meteorology, and they claim an 80% accuracy rate.

They claim that's the Old Farmer, right?

Yeah, yeah, the yellow one. And analysts have concluded that the Old Farmer's Almanac is not that accurate. Like a USA Today article said that according to media analysis, they don't really get it right. And they get about 50% of the temperature forecasts and precipitation forecast correct, whereas a randomly generated forecast would be correct 50% of the time. But I don't Know exactly what they're looking at as far as those numbers and like, whether they're deeming it correct or incorrect. Like maybe it like rained the day before and not the day after and then that's incorrect. Or if it's. They looked into more than that.

Right. It doesn't really give me the impression, like, it's a worthy purchase. But I know that they also have story, like, not stories, but they also have, like, information in those things, like about different crops and whatnot. It's not just markets, right?

Yeah. It's like gardening tips. Like, when should you plant certain things? When is a good time to harvest? What could you expect? Like your last frost in your region? Stuff like that.

It's a good, like a time table before bed read.

Yeah. Or I think it's typically like a bathroom read because. Because they. They drilled a hole in it so it could be hung up, I think, in the bathroom and used as toilet paper back in the back when there was outhouses. In its bicentennial edition, the almanac stated neither we nor anyone else has yet gained sufficient insight into the mysteries of the universe to predict weather with anything resembling total accuracy. So just as much as watching, like the weather on the news or an app on your phone, it's not always correct. I think the almanac kind of falls into that. So I picked up a copy of a 1876 A American Almanac published by a chemist. And it was a marketing tool for a medicines like sparse, sparse sarsaparilla. Y' all know what sparserilla is?

Is that what root beer is meant, if we're going to say root beer?

Yeah, yeah, something like that. Yeah. So it contains weather forecast, astronomical data, gardening tips and agricultural information. And it's all kind of by where the planets are at the time and interesting things like that, as well as tips for a colder cough. You know, dose an adult 20 to 40 drops morning, noon and night. Consumption of the lungs is a disease so distressing and fatal that the person's attack with symptoms should once procure the best assistant possible for the recovery of their health.

It was like before they knew that it was like tuberculosis or cancer.

The first page shows what body part your zodiac sign is attributed to. Jonathan, can you guess, like, which body part an Aries is associated with?

I don't know. I don't know. Tell me.

Aries is the face and the head.

Oh. Oh, that makes sense. I guess like a ram leader, full force, all of those like, things kind of check it off.

And then cancer. My sign is the Breast. I think it's really interesting that we have this podcast where we talk about gardening, but then we also talk about like the zodiac. And we're really just following in the steps of like almanacs throughout time where we're not separating the stars and mysticism and like growing things. As you've seen, like with your, your yellow seedling peppers and mine. It's so hard to know what's going to happen with your plants that sometimes you just need to like make a wish into a spell and hope it works out.

And it's about a 50%. 50% positive outcome.

Yeah, I can buy a $20 fertilizer and it's still 5050 of whether my plants will grow. You know, I can buy a heat mat and some lamps and it's still 5050 whether or not I get any plants. That's the thing about gardening. It's a very faith based hobby in my opinion. So I just thought that was interesting how that was so part of gardening in the past where this was. This wouldn't have been like a very strange thing to read. Just like the Old Farmer's Almanac is very like, you know, legit. Like people buy it, like your grandparents read it, but then we've kind of abandoned that side of things and we've decided like, what's fact and what's fake. So, Junita, do you think we should start a plant slut Almanac? Because we're basically.

Yeah, yeah.

October will be cold and you gotta step up your frantic search on Tinder so you can get a warm human to cuddle with your bed.

I buy that.

I'd buy that.

I think we have something there. I think we should put that out for next year, 2027.

It could be part of our Patreon.

Yeah, yeah, get some merch going. So we also wanted to talk about biodynamic farming. So taking it all to the cosmic level. I've heard about biodynamic farming using the moon. I've seen it on like wine bottles and some European products. So, John, what do you know about that?

I did do a bit of research. Biodynamic farming does use the moon a lot.

It takes it a step further, though,

and it actually brings the zodiac into

the garden just like we do.

In the 1920s, Rudolph Steiner introduced biodynamic agriculture that treated the farm as like an organism. So like a massive, interconnected and mystical organism.

Later, a woman named Maria Thune expanded

on this by creating the biodynamic sewing and planting calendar. And she traced the Moon's monthly journey through the 12 constellations of the zodiac. She broke the calendar into four distinct types of days based on the elements. So they are as follows. Root days are associated with earth signs. So that is Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn, and these are days that are ideal for planting carrots, potatoes and onions. Leaf days are water signs. So Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces. And this is best for leafy greens, so like lettuce, basil, spinach, I guess because there's a lot of water in those tissues. I'm not sure. And flower days are associated with air signs, so Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius. And these are perfect for ornamentals and flowering herbs. And lastly, fruit days that are fire signs, like me, Aries, Leo, Sagittarius. It's the time to sow tomatoes, eggplants and beans.

Huh. Why does this make perfect sense to me, but also not at all? I'd switch fruit and leaf because fruits have large water content. Fruits would make sense there. Flower and root make sense to me. So those are my, those are my notes for Maria Thune. If she alive and redoing this a

little bit, you can write that to her on her LinkedIn profile.

Yeah.

To moon or not to moon, Jeanette.

And we're not talking about bare asses.

Well, okay, that'll be our next subject.

That'll be in the almanac.

What would you like? Garden by the moon. Like, what are you thinking?

I like the idea of like gardening by the moon and like knowing what phases the moon's in and really using that to help. But I think in my life right now, if I can just like get an hour to go out there and do anything, I need to just get whatever I need to get done. And like right now I have stuff I need to put in the ground. And if I had to go check what moon cycle it was and then wait for it, I think I'm already balancing a lot, like in my ADHD brain of all the things I have to do. And to add another element that I need to like consider would probably freeze me and I wouldn't be able to do anything. But I could see if I had like a big farm that was like doing one crop, I would maybe try to plan it along those lines.

Yeah, in those days Maria Thune didn't have like Instagram or social media distracting her and she probably work like a full time, 45 hour a week job. Yeah, I agree with you. I think that if you have the luxury of it, you could incorporate some of these things. Into your routine, There are just, like, some more obvious things that your plants need. Like, make sure you get all the other things right. There's also, like, a bunch of unknowns.

Yeah.

But, like, do first the things that, you know, work. You know, your plants need sun and nutrients and water. Make sure they have all of that. And if you have the time, like, if you're unemployed or if you're a student and you have the summer off, then, you know, you can start thinking about the moon.

Yeah, it's May, and I'm still trying to figure out a fertilizing schedule. So to add in moon stuff would make it very difficult.

My advice for this season would be to really just prioritize. Go out, just do one thing. Like, I know it's like, super over overwhelming, but, like, if you have 10 minutes, go out and just, like, weed a bit or, like, sprinkle some fertilizer. Like, you don't have to overthink it. It doesn't have to have, like, a framework of, like, an approach to that you have to your garden. You know, just like, yeah, that's like, what I'm trying to do.

Just, like, doing what we can, when we can, the best we can.

Like we were saying, jeanette, good enough.

Just, like, make it good.

Where we were talking about. What were you talking about? Job. Jobs. We're talking about work.

Everything.

Everything. Just, like, good enough is good enough. Literally.

Yeah. I'm definitely in my era of no more self improvement. I'm good enough right now and I don't need to fix anything. So sorry to disappoint everyone. On that note, thanks for getting slutty with us.

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