Astrological Gardening with Louise Riotte
The Dirt Doctor pages have a block at the very bottom that links to the Moon Connection site that offers information on lunar topics about timing activities according to the phases of the moon. And when readers or callers ask about the graphic, Howard Garrett explains about lunar influences and always notes that the most informative book he found on the subject of the moon and zodiac timing is Astrological Gardening, from Louise Riotte, an organic gardener from Ardmore, Oklahoma.
Louise Riotte (1909 – 1998) was an active life-long organic gardener who wrote 12 books and a long-running newspaper column in her Ardmore, Oklahoma newspaper the Daily Ardmoreite. Her subjects ranged from the popular companion planting books (Carrots Love Tomatoes was her biggest seller) to husbandry, organic gardening, and several books discussing astrology in conjunction with these activities. (One reviewer on the Good Books site remarked that when she saw the book was from the 1970s she expected a hippy manifesto, only to find it was common-sense gardening book written by an elderly woman.) Those books were Astrological Gardening: The Ancient Wisdom of Successful Planting & Harvesting by the Stars, Planetary Planting – Organic Gardening Zodiac Signs, and Raising Animals By the Moon: Practical advice on breeding, birthing, weaning, and raising animals in harmony with nature.
There weren’t many published interviews with Ms. Riotte in her lifetime, and this particular author bio has turned up on most of the sites that sell her books:
Beloved author and life-long gardener Louise Riotte passed away in 1998 at the age of 89. During her life, she wrote twelve books on gardening, companion planting, and garden lore, among them the ever-popular Carrots Love Tomatoes. Her father taught her how to practice astrology, while her mother was an herbalist. Together they greatly influenced her life and her books, including Roses Love Garlic, Astrological Gardening, Sleeping with a Sunflower, Catfish Ponds & Lily Pads, and Raising Animals by the Moon. Riotte was an artist as well as a writer, and her own drawings appear in all of her books. She took great pride in her garden near her home in Ardmore, Oklahoma.
A tidbit more turned up in another review site:
Before authoring books, Riotte was a ghost writer for Simon & Schuster and for Jerry Baker’s radio gardening show, and she also wrote a number of articles for Organic Gardening. Riotte took pride in her garden near her home in Ardmore, Oklahoma, which her son Eugene helped care for in her later years.
Whether you are interested in Riotte’s use of astrological signs, use the North American Aztec Xiuhpōhualli 365 day calendar, or simply use the monthly pages of the modern Gregorian 365 day calendar, timing in gardening is important and when combined with good organic principles, these help gardeners in their annual garden planting and production.
 Table of Contents from Astrological Gardening |
All of Riotte’s books are available to checkout online through the Internet Archive. In particular, these two:
Astrological Gardening: The Ancient Wisdom of Successful Planting & Harvesting by the Stars
Planetary Planting – Organic Gardening Zodiac Signs
An interview by Steve Dobbs with Riotte from August 15, 1992, is available via YouTube (and the video embedded at the bottom of this library entry.) A transcribed portion gives more information about her interest in and use of astrology in her organic gardening and animal husbandry activities. It was edited to correct typos and remove pauses:
Riotte: Well I became interested in gardening a great many years ago. My husband was a graduate of New York State Agricultural College and we went in pretty heavily for all types of gardening and animal production. We raised milk goats and ducks and chickens and rabbits and of course we had a big garden and a great deal of our garden refuse such as the carrot tops and beet tops and things of that nature were fed to the animals. It all worked out together and then in turn the manures from the animals and the stable cleanings were put on the garden to increase productivity.
My father was German and the Germans are very big on astrology and I was the youngest of five children. I had four older brothers and I was the youngest by 10 years but I was the one who became most interested in gardening and astrology and that pleased my father a great deal so he spent a lot of time with me and taught me astrology.
The good planting signs which are Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces and the signs under which you cultivate such as Aries and Leo and Sagittarius are exceptionally good for harvesting and the sign of Libra is very good for flowers or plants that bloom such as blackeyed peas or beans or okra and the signs that are best for planting in the summertime are Taurus and Capricorn because they make a short sturdy growth that will stand up well in the heat.
Dobbs: In her garden this summer Louise has also been growing some of the older tried and true vegetable varieties.
Riotte: My ocra variety is called Gold Coast and it’s an heirloom variety that has been in my family for a long long time and it is supposedly one of the varieties that came over from Africa and it has an exceptionally thick wall and it is very very productive. It comes into production very early and it stays very late it will stay in production until oh just the very last twiggle out of the summer.
Dobbs: Louise believes that gardening can be a powerful therapeutic tool for the physically and mentally challenged.
Riotte: My brother came back from the World War somewhat handicapped and very depressed and he was brought back to a more responsive attitude through gardening so when I was writing in Nature’s Hands I discussed this with my editor Holly Maguire and we decided that we would include some things in the book [about mental health benefits of gardening.]