Lunar Plantings

Located as close to the house as possible, the kitchen garden - l’orto - is an indispensable part of Italian country life. It provides fruit, vegetables and herbs for the family throughout the year, which are eaten fresh, bottled, pickled, dried, frozen or made into succulent sauces.

But a kitchen garden is much more than that for an Italian. It also provides an escape from the pressures of everyday life. Time spent caring for the orto provides an opportunity to get back in touch with nature, to till the ground and reap its benefits as generations have done before. It also generates endless conversational opportunities: there has been no rain, or perhaps too much; the sun has been kind and the vegetables are fat and healthy; or it has shone too hard and hot and all the plants are scorched.

Maybe marauding porcupine have eaten the melons, or a wild boar has trampled over the cabbages. Whether providing food for the table or food for thought, there is always a sense of continuity and tradition in an Italian kitchen garden. And, of course, it is prepared, planted and harvested with the most meticulous attention paid both to the weather and the moon’s most auspicious phase.

Although gardening using the moon is not that well known in Britain, it is an important factor in Mediterranean gardening. In Italy you can buy books and calendars on the subject which sport graphs and charts full of arcane symbols to represent the luna crescente, waxing moon; luna nuova, new moon; luna piena, full moon; and luna calante, waning moon. Of course, most country people don’t need books to tell them what to do, it is part and parcel of country life. They believe that just as the moon has the power to control tides and moods (think of the origin of ‘lunatic’, or watch how your children, animals and friends behave when the moon is full). It also has the power to pull water into delicate roots, or withdraw it when the time comes for the plant to be moved or harvested, so that it isn’t too traumatised by the activity. This same logic applies to anything that grows, from hair and nails to babies, both human and animal!