Welp. It turns out that starting a new business while learning modern website technology (the last time I did anything with a website at work, it was 2005!) and new accounting skills, plus a very late planting and a very on time frost, means I didn’t have much of a bean harvest and I don’t have much good data from last year’s experiment. I did learn a lot, mainly about being organized and not taking on too much (though the todo list for this summer does look… long).
I’ve reorganized my files since last summer, which of course means I don’t have my hard data on hand now to share with you all. Hopefully it will turn up but in the meantime I can say from memory that Libra did have the most flowers but we were hit with a killing frost before more than two bean pods matured, both of which were from Aries-sown plants. This aligns with what Louise Riotte says in her 1989 book, “Astrological Gardening”
…since it gives the fastest maturity, Aries can be used advantageously by market gardeners to get an early crop (page 20)
Fire signs—Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius—rule fruits and seeds. None are typically considered good planting signs, but this little experiment shows that each of the signs can be good for some things, even if they can’t all be the most fertile. The Scorpio- and Libra- planted beans were taller, leafier, and more lush than the Aries-planted beans, but none of their many flowers matured before the frost came.
Happy Gardening!
Toby
