Starting the Month at the New Moon

The moon runs through its full cycle in about twenty-nine and a half days, which makes a calendar month very nearly the right length of time to learn it properly. Begin at the new moon. For a couple of days either side there is nothing at all to see — the moon rises with the sun and sets with it, drowned in daylight — so simply note the date in your diary and wait. Everything that follows hangs on that entry. This is how the old almanacs worked: not by predicting the future, but by giving the year a rhythm you could set your work against.

The Waxing Fortnight: A Sliver in the West

Two or three evenings later, look low in the western sky just after sunset. A thin crescent appears, lit on its right-hand edge, and it will be close to the horizon — you may need a clear view and a walk to the top of the lane. Each night the crescent thickens and sits a little higher, further from the glow of the setting sun. The moon rises roughly fifty minutes later every day, so the time you noted yesterday tells you near enough when to go out tonight.

By the end of the first week you have first quarter: a clean half-moon standing due south at sunset, setting around midnight. Note these things as you go:

• Date, and the time you first see it
• Compass direction and height above the horizon
• Which edge is lit, and how much of the disc shows
• Weather, cloud cover and the quality of the light

Full Moon and the Turn of the Tide

The full moon rises as the sun sets and sets as the sun rises, so for two or three nights you have light in the sky the whole night through. This is the point where the moon's pull lines up with the sun's, and the tides respond: the highest highs and the lowest lows of the month, the spring tides. A fortnight later, at the quarters, the pull works at right angles and you get neap tides instead, with a much smaller range between high and low water.

For anyone on the coast this is the most practical part of the cycle. Spring tides expose the widest band of shore — good for rockpooling, for cutting seaweed, for gathering cockles and for digging bait on the mudflats. They also fill the narrowest creeks and push furthest up the estuary. A tide table tells you the height and the time; the moon tells you why.

The Waning Fortnight and the Morning Sky

After the full moon the pattern reverses. The moon now rises later each evening, so a waning gibbous will not appear until well after dark, and last quarter — the opposite half to first quarter — does not come up until around midnight. That last quarter hangs in the southern sky at dawn, which is the easiest way to catch it if you are an early riser rather than a late one.

The final week brings the waning crescent, rising in the small hours and sitting low in the east before sunrise. It thins night by night until it is a scratch of light above the dawn, and then it is gone. Your month is complete, and the next new moon is only a day or two away.

Moon Names and Country Folklore

British and Irish almanacs give each full moon a name, mostly inherited from farming and weather. January's is the Wolf Moon, February's the Snow Moon, March the Lenten or Worm Moon, April the Pink Moon or Egg Moon, May the Flower Moon, June the Rose or Strawberry Moon, July the Hay Moon, August the Grain Moon, then the Harvest Moon in September and the Hunter's Moon in October, with the Frost Moon in November and the Cold Moon in December.

The Harvest Moon is worth watching for: it rises only about twenty minutes later each night rather than fifty, giving farmers a run of bright evenings at exactly the right moment. Older sayings are less reliable but keep the eye trained — a ring round the moon is said to foretell rain, a clear moon to foretell frost, and there is a long tradition of felling timber and laying hedges in the waning moon, when the sap is said to be down.

Planting by the Moon in the Kitchen Garden

The gardening tradition follows the same logic. In the waxing fortnight, when light and sap are said to be rising, sow and transplant crops that fruit above ground: lettuce, spinach, peas, broad beans and the brassicas. In the waning fortnight, put your effort below the soil — carrots, parsnips, beetroot, turnips, and the planting of potatoes, onion sets and bulbs.

Treat it as a rhythm rather than a rule. Keep notes for a season and compare like with like: a row of carrots sown at the waxing moon beside one sown a fortnight later in the same bed, and see whether it makes any difference in your soil. What is certain is that you will be in the garden more often, with your eye on the sky, and that is no bad thing for a grower. Keep the diary going and the month will roll round again, the moon running its fifty minutes later each night, and you a little more certain of what comes next.