Moon Magic for the Towerwater garden

Spending more time at Towerwater, allows me the opportunity to revisit alternative gardening ideas. Years ago, I belonged to the South African Organic Garden Growers Society. That was long before Facebook and social media. One paid a yearly membership fee that included a monthly magazine subscription packed with useful information and a price discount on books etc.

One month, I ordered a Moon Chart. I thought it might be put to good use in lunar planting in the garden. It was a basic novel tool. Quite useful if one is interested in gardening by the phases of the moon. I never really got into the habit of using it though. Towerwater has always been a project that we worked on when time allowed, making for intermittent activity.

Moon Chart and Dibbler for planting

Planting and sowing had to happen over weekends when we were there. The phase of the moon could not be considered in that schedule. There was unfortunately no time for waiting for a specific time of the month to do a specific task in the garden.

Detail of information on the Moon Chart

With the isolation required by the pandemic, our library became a welcome escape. When I came across the Moon Chart among the gardening books, it got me thinking. With the well-established ecosystem at Towerwater in place, perhaps it was time for me to pursue harmony with the universe.

Detail of information on the Moon Chart

Perhaps it was time to explore the mysterious effect of the gravitational pull of the moon on the earth and its effect on gardening outcomes. As the gravitational pull of the moon on the earth affects our oceans causing the tides, so does it affect the unseen water bodies of the earth, such as the underground water table and soil moisture and more.

Carrots sowed during the waning moon

This means that the lunar cycle impacts on the water available to the soil for seeds and plants, naturally affecting their growth. It takes the moon 27 days, 7 hours, and 43 minutes to orbit the earth. But it takes 29 days, 12 hours, and 43 minutes to complete a Lunar Month. A Lunar month is the time it takes the moon to pass through a complete cycle of its phases and is measured from New Moon to New Moon. The Lunar month is longer than it takes the moon to orbit the earth because the earth is constantly moving while it is orbiting the sun. The moon must travel a bit more than 360°to get from one new moon to the next.

The different phases of the Moon ( Source: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/moon-phases/en/)

The different phases of the moon will determine certain gardening jobs throughout the month. Lunar gardening is a practice as old as agriculture itself and deserves to be studied. One needs to understand how each phase of the moon impacts on the tasks in the garden. I am taking the easy way and will follow the concise instructions on the handy Moon Chart.

The Moon Chart makes it easy to plan one’s activity in the garden. By placing the rotating disc on the correct dates on the underlying board, one simply follows the advice graphically associated with the different phases of the moon.

I decided to try it out for the sowing of the winter vegetables. After I positioned the disk in place over the dates for the full moon at the end of March, I could see that the best time to sow and plant root crops was during the two days of decreasing light (waning moon). I sowed the onions, carrots, and beetroot during this period. I then waited for the nine days (waxing moon) over the third quarter between the new moon and the full moon to sow the spinach, lettuce, peas, and cabbage.  

I generally do not enjoy restrictive gardening that pre-determines that I should sow the seeds at different times. I like to get my seeds ready and sow everything on one day so I can stand back and enjoy the satisfaction of a completed task. Experimenting with gardening by the phases of the moon cannot hurt though. I might even be pleasantly surprised by the results. Time will tell if I am going to be converted to this type of gardening.

Pears and pomegranates for Easter

We celebrated a second Easter at Towerwater without friends or family. Celebrating on our own feels quite normal by now with the pandemic into its second year. With news of death caused by Covid as part of our daily lives, one can easily allow oneself to become very morbid. We have decided that we will do our best to survive this pandemic. Following the basic rules, we have managed to survive unscathed this far.

One good thing the pandemic has taught us is that there is no better time to live than right now. Do not save the best wines, food, and experiences for special occasions. Life is a special occasion. We only live it once and it is unpredictable. We celebrate Towerwater every day and with special occasions like Easter we put in a bit of extra effort.

Traditional pickled fish

We enjoy celebrating traditions and two weeks before Easter we pickled fish in preparation. On Maundy Thursday Keith baked a dozen hot cross buns for the Easter weekend. Good Friday was celebrated with pickled fish and fresh hot cross buns, in the Cape tradition. Easter Sunday we would normally celebrate with a leg of lamb, but scaled down for two, I prepared slow roasted lamb shanks instead.

With the fresh picking of Hereboontjies, I decided to make “sousboontjies”, a traditional bean salad. The pomegranate tree in the orchard was covered with oversize blood red pomegranates. Finding a few late pears on the tree, I was inspired to use both these fruits in a Rick Stein inspired dessert. I decided to make pears poached in red wine with pomegranates.

Poached Pears in red wine and pomegranates

Ingredients:

4 pears, peeled and cored leaving the stem intact
1 cup of pomegranate arils
500 grams of castor sugar
750ml red wine
1 cinnamon stick
4 whole cloves
5 fennel seeds
1 fresh bay leaf
1 sprig rosemary
150g fresh ginger
1 lemon
1 orange

Method

Zest half the orange and half the lemon. Squeeze the juice of the orange and lemon.

In a pot, bring the wine, citrus zest, ginger, herbs, spices, sugar, and pomegranate arils to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Strain the liquid and return to the pot.

Add the pears and citrus juice to the pot and simmer over a low heat for 45 minutes, making sure that the whole pear is covered with the liquid.

Remove the pears from the liquid and set aside. Simmer the sauce until it has a syrup consistency.  Strain through a sieve.

Pour the syrup over the pears and serve with cream.

The fragrance of spices filled the house on Easter Sunday. The spicy pears echoed the fragrant pickled fish and spicy hot cross buns. The two of us enjoyed lunch at the eight-seater table and a balmy breeze came in through the ‘new’ front door and left the house through the old front door. Through the open top of the stable door, I could see lazy autumn oak leaves floating down to the lawn.

As we celebrate the resurrection, we celebrated the restoration of human dignity and destiny. We were reminded that even this pandemic will pass.