BELIZE AGRICULTURE MOON LORE! ( Real thing - TRUE )

THE MOON´S EFFECT ON TROPICAL AGRICULTURE IN BELIZE.

You can´t trust these lumber yards anymore. They are cutting and selling lumber outside of the FULL MOON period. All you get is wood that is full of termites and wood lice and goes to hell within one year.

I first learned about the effect of the moon from Mayan rural people, back in British Honduras days. During the full moon, particularly in the pine lumber of the time, used for house building. If you got properly cut pine lumber, the house would last for over a hundred years. Indeed many such houses still exist that are over a hundred years old and when you sand off the paint, the lumber is like new today. By the same token if you did not cut that pine tree during the full moon period, you would be lucky to get six years out of your house, and 13 years would be about maximum. Even now, the lumber used for my greenhouse trestles, is pretty much gone. I got about 4 years out of the planks. Rotten right through. Not like the old days when lumber yards only got lumber cut during the full moon.

I learned about thatching material, either cohune leaves, or bay leaves from the Maya in the Toledo District. A roof with cohune leaves cut during the full moon, lasts about 6 to 8 years, while one made with BAY leaves lasts about 15 years. If you do not cut the leaves on the full moon, your roof will start to leak in 6 months and fall apart in dust.

I watch with sadness and amusement when new immigrant "KNOW IT ALL people" come from the USA or Europe and start building thatch buildings. They learn the hard way.

For instance, if you want fence posts to be permanent and start roots, you cut them during the NEW MOON. If you want dry fence posts, then you cut the trees when the moon is FULL, ( sap has risen ) and stick them in the ground during the NEW MOON. Go outside of this and you are throwing away your labor, time and money.

Crops are sensitive to the phase of the moon, in tropical Belize. Vegetables that grow on top of the soil, should be planted during the NEW MOON. Harvesting and pruning is done on the FIRST QUARTER MOON.

Harvesting potatoes for instance is done during the a DESCENDING MOON. Most ROOT VEGETABLES are this way. Don´t harvest during a FULL MOON, because the plants are full of water and will rot quickly on you. Other types of vegetables are best harvested during the ASCENDING MOON. First or second phase.

As the Mennonite farmers have discovered, corn and beans must be harvested at the right time. Or you will quickly lose your harvest to weevils and in the case of peanuts get wormy.

Cutting grass, or hay is best done during the NEW MOON phase.

Over 50 years I got tired of hearing new farmer immigrants POOH! POOH! mention of the MOON EFFECTS, they experience in Northern Temperate Zone agriculture. Let them suffer and lose their labor and money. The soil has more moisture for plants during the NEW and FULL MOON in tropical Belize.

A Dr. Frank Brown of Northwestern University did a ten year research confirming much of the MAYAN folklore and having built houses and wooden boats in my life time, I know damned well, my boat lumber MUST be cut from the tree on the FULL MOON, or the boat will rot to pieces in a very few years. Otherwise we have a lot of wood boats in Belize that are over a 100 years old.

Cattle for instance need to be castrated during a waning moon, It is during the full moon phase that there is an increase in insect activity, snails in your vegetable plots and animals get internal parasites.

Anybody who lives in tropical Belize, better know their MOON LORE if they wish to live well and maximize their products, produce and labor.