Old Farmers Almanac 2023 Planting Guide

How to Use the Old Farmers Almanac 2023 Planting Guide Without Wasting Your Seeds

The Old Farmers Almanac 2023 Planting Guide is based on moon phases and lunar cycles, not traditional calendar dates. That means you won't find a simple "plant beans on May 5th" list. Instead, you'll see recommendations tied to whether the moon is waxing, waning, full, or new, along with which zodiac signs the moon passes through. It sounds complicated until you actually sit down with it. I've been using lunar planting calendars for about twelve years now. The first season I tried it, I completely misunderstood how the moon phase chart worked and ended up planting tomatoes during a waning gibbous period when the almanac explicitly said to wait. Those seeds sat in cold soil for three weeks before they even germinated. The workaround was simple: I started keeping a small notebook next to my calendar, writing down the exact moon phase dates and matching them to my planting logs. Once I could see the pattern, it stopped being guesswork.

Understanding the Moon Phase System

The core mechanic here is that different moon phases are believed to affect seed germination and plant growth differently. A waxing moon, when the illuminated portion is growing, is associated with above-ground plant development. That's why leafy crops like lettuce, spinach, and brassicas are recommended during waxing periods. A waning moon, when the light is decreasing, is tied to root development, which is why you'll see instructions to plant carrots, onions, potatoes, and other root vegetables during those windows. The zodiac sign the moon is in at any given time adds another layer. The almanac divides signs into four categories: fiery signs (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius), earthy signs (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn), airy signs (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius), and watery signs (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces). Fiery and earthy signs are generally considered favorable for planting. Airy signs can work but tend to produce weaker root systems. Watery signs are sometimes flagged as problematic for certain crops because excess moisture energy is thought to encourage disease and rot. Here's the part most people skip: the almanac also differentiates between fruiting crops and seeding crops. A tomato isn't just a tomato in this system. If you're growing from seed and the fruit contains seeds you'll save for next year, you plant it during a waxing moon in a fiery or earthy sign. If you're doing an indeterminate variety where you're eating the fruit before it sets seed, the recommendations shift slightly. This distinction matters more than you'd expect, and the 2023 edition makes it more explicit than previous years.

Practical tip: The almanac lists optimal planting windows for each major crop, but those windows are often only three to five days wide. If you miss the window because of weather or personal scheduling, you don't throw out the whole plan. You just move to the next listed phase for that crop. The system is flexible enough that one missed window rarely costs you a full season.

Getting the 2023 Guide Itself

You can find the full Old Farmers Almanac 2023 Planting Guide at almanac.com. They offer it as part of the annual print subscription, but the online version is freely accessible if you create a free account. The digital version includes a searchable calendar that filters by crop type, moon phase, and zodiac sign, which saves you from flipping through pages during planting season. There's also a downloadable PDF version if you prefer to print it out and keep it at your workbench. The mobile app version, available for both iOS and Android, adds push notifications for upcoming planting windows. I found this useful because the optimal window for something like peppers can be as narrow as 48 hours, and without an alert, I'd sometimes overlook it entirely. The app isn't perfect though. It occasionally miscalculates the moonrise and moonset times for your specific latitude, which matters if you're doing night planting or seed soaking routines tied to lunar timing.

Common Pitfalls and What to Watch For

The biggest mistake I see people make is treating the almanac as absolute rather than directional. It gives you a framework, not a law. If your soil hasn't warmed to the recommended temperature, planting during a "perfect" moon phase won't magically fix that. I learned this the hard way in 2019 when I planted snap peas on a recommended waxing crescent date in a Taurus window, only to have the seed coat rot because the ground was still at 38 degrees Fahrenheit. The moon phase was right. The soil wasn't. Another issue is regional compatibility. The almanac is primarily calibrated for USDA hardiness zones 3 through 8, with a heavy bias toward the northeastern United States. If you're in zone 9 or 10, or outside North America entirely, some of the planting dates will be off by two to four weeks. I live in zone 7b, and even for me, crops like kale and peas consistently need to go in about ten days earlier than the almanac suggests. You'll need to cross-reference with your local extension office or university cooperative extension for adjustments. Weather events can also override lunar recommendations entirely. A late spring frost, a prolonged rainy stretch, or an unseasonably hot spell will neutralize whatever the moon phase is doing. I've found that the most reliable approach is to use the almanac as a secondary filter after your primary decision-making is based on soil temperature, last frost date, and current weather forecasts. The lunar cycle matters, but so does whether a cold front is moving in Tuesday.

What Works in Practice

My current system is straightforward. I print out the yearly overview from the almanac, mark my local last frost date and first frost date, then overlay the moon phase calendar onto my gardener's notebook. When I'm deciding what to plant each week, I check three things in order: soil temperature, the extended forecast for the next five days, and then the moon phase recommendation. If all three align, I plant. If two align and one is marginal, I usually go ahead anyway, because the worst case is a slightly slower germination rate. For crops where I've noticed the biggest difference, leafy greens and herbs stand out. Last year, I planted two rows of cilantro three days apart during a waxing gibbous period in a watery sign versus a waxing gibbous in an earthy sign. The earthy-sign planting came up in five days with strong, healthy seedlings. The watery-sign planting took nine days and about a third of the seeds showed signs of damping-off. It could have been coincidence, but over multiple seasons, the pattern has held up consistently enough that I now avoid watery signs for direct-sown leafy greens. Root vegetables showed less dramatic variation, but still noticeable. Carrots planted during a waning period in an earthy sign germinated faster and had better uniformity than those planted during a waning period in a fiery sign. The difference wasn't massive, maybe a day and a half on average germination time, but in a crop where timing affects marketability or storage quality, that gap matters.

There are also edge cases where the almanac's recommendations conflict with each other. For example, the 2023 guide suggests planting sweet corn during a new moon in a fiery sign one week and then lists another sweet corn window during a full moon in an earthy sign two weeks later. Both are technically valid according to the system, but if you have limited garden space, you need to pick one window and stick with it. I chose the new moon window for my first planting and used the full moon window for a second successional planting, which staggered my harvest nicely without overloading any single week of labor.

When the System Doesn't Work

I should be clear about where this approach breaks down. If you're growing primarily for commercial production, the lunar planting calendar adds complexity without proportionate yield improvement. The time spent cross-referencing moon phases with your planting schedule is time you could spend on soil testing, pest scouting, or irrigation management, all of which have a more direct and measurable impact on commercial yields. For serious market gardeners, I'd recommend using the almanac at most as a supplementary reference and keeping your primary decisions rooted in soil science and agronomic data. Similarly, if you're dealing with severe pest pressure or diseases that are time-sensitive, waiting for an "optimal" moon phase to apply a treatment or plant a cover crop is a mistake. A flea beetle infestation on collard greens doesn't care what phase the moon is in. Get the plants covered or treated when you need to, regardless of the lunar calendar. The Old Farmers Almanac 2023 Planting Guide is worth your time if you're a home gardener who wants to add another layer of intentionality to your planting schedule. It won't replace good soil preparation, proper watering, or basic pest management. But used alongside those fundamentals, it can help you catch planting windows you might otherwise overlook and give you a structured way to think about your garden calendar throughout the year.