HOW do we calculate when Easter falls?
This main religious festival can vary from the beginning of March to the end of April.
Believe it or not, it is based on the phases of the moon.
The first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox determines the date of Easter.
It is strange to think that this most important religious festival is ruled by the moon when we pay so little attention to it at other times in our lives. Or we?
Water also plays a big role. The theory is that the moon exerts a gravitational pull on the earth’s water table that is highest when the moon is full.
Therefore, vegetables that ripen underground – root crops such as potatoes, parsnips, carrots, and beetroot – are best planted at the time of the new moon, and vegetables that grow above the ground – cabbage, corn, rhubarb, tomatoes, and flowers – should be in the first quarter of the moon to be planted when the water table falls.
You may find that idea irrelevant these days, but every year the BBC’s Moon Gardens correspondent publishes a guide to auspicious planting days.
But, sooner or late, Easter (and many of the Saints’ feasts) rules the work rate and schedule for a sizable group of gardeners.
It regulates everything they do, from preparing the soil to sowing, planting to staking out and eventual harvesting.
I have never engaged in activities like this before (apart from mixing concrete under moonlight and artificial light many years ago) but I am intrigued.
I believe that gardeners before us became much more aware of the natural world and took certain lunar dates and holidays much more seriously than today’s young growers.
Were they more gullible and more superstitious?
After all, the Banshee and the Wisps vanished when electricity arrived to light up our darkest nights.
Still, the way gardeners long ago worked with nature, and not its exploitation, was wise.
Sometimes I feel sorry for gardeners and our modern, colorless paths. You can therefore get directions from this site or from books and television, but in the old days we would all have had far more interesting ways of adapting the task to the day.
It involved a close observation of the moon, nature and a spirit never far from the great feasts of the Christian church.
This main religious festival can vary from the beginning of March to the end of April.
Believe it or not, it is based on the phases of the moon.
The first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox determines the date of Easter.
It is strange to think that this most important religious festival is ruled by the moon when we pay so little attention to it at other times in our lives. Or we?
Water also plays a big role. The theory is that the moon exerts a gravitational pull on the earth’s water table that is highest when the moon is full.
Therefore, vegetables that ripen underground – root crops such as potatoes, parsnips, carrots, and beetroot – are best planted at the time of the new moon, and vegetables that grow above the ground – cabbage, corn, rhubarb, tomatoes, and flowers – should be in the first quarter of the moon to be planted when the water table falls.
You may find that idea irrelevant these days, but every year the BBC’s Moon Gardens correspondent publishes a guide to auspicious planting days.
But, sooner or late, Easter (and many of the Saints’ feasts) rules the work rate and schedule for a sizable group of gardeners.
It regulates everything they do, from preparing the soil to sowing, planting to staking out and eventual harvesting.
I have never engaged in activities like this before (apart from mixing concrete under moonlight and artificial light many years ago) but I am intrigued.
I believe that gardeners before us became much more aware of the natural world and took certain lunar dates and holidays much more seriously than today’s young growers.
Were they more gullible and more superstitious?
After all, the Banshee and the Wisps vanished when electricity arrived to light up our darkest nights.
Still, the way gardeners long ago worked with nature, and not its exploitation, was wise.
Sometimes I feel sorry for gardeners and our modern, colorless paths. You can therefore get directions from this site or from books and television, but in the old days we would all have had far more interesting ways of adapting the task to the day.
It involved a close observation of the moon, nature and a spirit never far from the great feasts of the Christian church.
