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Broad Bean comparison Moon & Control Beds

13 comments


We’ve harvest all the broad beans now with a goodly number tucked away in the freezer to eat over the winter. Each time we harvested we weighed the beans in their pods and then when they were podded… Remember that both lots of broad beans were grown organically, the only difference is that the ones growing in the moon bed were sown, weeded etc on the specific days of the lunar cycle whilst the ones in the control bed were sown, weeded etc. on the ‘wrong’ days.

This is what part of the moon bed harvest looked like

And the results you ask? the yield from the moon bed was 2.5 k of beans in pods and 785g podded. In the control bed the yield was 2.1 k of broad beans in pods and 543 g of podded beans. The broad beans in the moon bed not only performed better but the ratio of beans to pod was higher too. In the control bed there were ‘blind’ pods and pods with gaps in, the moon bed pods were all properly filled.

Just like this example below

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Comments

 

They are so big!!! Fantastic crop.

23 Aug, 2010

 

WOw that is amazing. They all look so heathly and so nice to eat my mouth is just watering looking at them.
Looking forward in hearing how the runner beans done do you think you get the same result over all the crops??

23 Aug, 2010

 

The potatoes we have harvested to day all had greater yields from the moon bed than they did from the control bed Pottyd. Runner beans are not part of the trial. Next up will be peas :-)

23 Aug, 2010

 

Its obvious yield is improved Moongrower, but at the risk of asking a daft question is the resistance to pests and diseases and general health improved aswell?

23 Aug, 2010

 

Good crop MG, you have proved your point there.

23 Aug, 2010

 

Hi Dido, not a daft question at all. Yes the broad beans in the moon bed had less black fly on them and seemed to be totally unaffected by those that were there; we were regularly nipping off leaves from the control bed beans that the black fly had overrun. The stems of the beans in the moon bed were sturdier than those in the control bed and there was better leaf growth on the moon bed plants. In fact that you for asking that question I've got to write an article later in the year on this trial and need to include what I've just written!

Thank you Dr B I know it hasn't worked for all the veg. and will says so as we harvest them.

23 Aug, 2010

 

I'm sorry if you've been asked this many times before Mg,but how come this isn't done more commercially ?
Surely this has to be better than GM,irradiation and whatever else they like to use to interfere with our food.
At the risk of answering my own question, could it possibly be that we have come to expect our food out of season and from any country ?

23 Aug, 2010

 

Hi Aster valid question. In part it is that we want to eat out of season food, I certainly would not want to exist on a diet of tatties, kale, neeps and a few other brassicas in winter; though with greenhouses you can grow more than that.

It is certainly feasible to farm by the moon, this is biodynamic agriculture. BUT it requires more labour than commercial growing using chemicals and thus is more expensive. This however does not justify GM or irradiation which are both used to make money for big business not the farmer.

If the commercial farmers would even rotate their crops it would help. The field at the end of our garden is sown to spring barley with, possibly, an area of seed potatoes, every year. In order to keep the grain growing the farmer has to add more and more artificial fertiliser and sprays regularly to destroy weeds and insects life. This simply isn't healthy.

I'm going to stop now or this will turn into a rant!

23 Aug, 2010

 

Hopefully sometime soon they will see sense :) I wonder if farmers in Africa or Asia grow by this method,they surely have enough labour,but that's politics-better not go there for fear of more rants lol :))

23 Aug, 2010

 

Lol Aster... Frankly I have no clue how subsistence farmers grow. Certainly they do not use artificial fertilisers and pesticides!

23 Aug, 2010

 

Thanks for the reply Moongrower, it never fails to amaze me what a difference it makes... Is it an article we can all read?

24 Aug, 2010

 

It will be Dido, will be in, I think, the December issue of Grow It!

24 Aug, 2010

 

Thank you, I will look out for it

24 Aug, 2010

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