When to Plant Collard Greens by the Moon: Traditional Days for 2026 and 2027

According to almanac tradition, collard greens are a leaf crop, and leaf crops go in during the first quarter, between the new moon and the first quarter moon. In 2027, the days that combine that rule with a fruitful or semi-fruitful Moon sign fall in February, March, August and September. No effect of the Moon on collard greens has been proven, so treat these dates as a custom to follow or skip. Your state’s calendar comes first.

What the tradition says about planting collard greens

The quarter rule

The almanac rule is that gardeners who plant by the Moon sort crops into three types, and collard greens belong to the leaf type. That group covers leafy crops and crops whose seed grows outside the fruit, with lettuce, spinach, cabbage, broccoli and celery as its other members. The tradition assigns leaf crops to the first quarter, the stretch from the new moon to the first quarter Moon. For the full background, see planting by the moon, and for the phase itself, planting in a waxing moon.

The fourth quarter, from the last quarter Moon to the new moon, is a rest period in this tradition. It is reserved for weeding, pruning, turning the soil and composting rather than sowing.

The Moon sign layer

Many almanacs add a second filter. The Moon passes through the twelve zodiac signs, and one common convention labels Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces fruitful, Taurus, Libra and Capricorn semi-fruitful, and the rest barren. The traditional days on this page require the first quarter and a fruitful or semi-fruitful sign together. So this convention labels Pisces and Scorpio fruitful, and Taurus and Libra semi-fruitful, which are the signs that appear in the table below.

What the Moon does and does not do

No effect of the Moon’s phase or sign on germination or yield has been established. The numbers point the same way. NASA’s Moon Fact Sheet gives a phase cycle of 29.53 days and an orbit against the stars of 27.32 days. From those constants, the Moon’s tidal pull at the Earth’s surface comes to about 1.1 millionths of a meter per second squared at its strongest. That is roughly one ten-millionth of gravity, far too small to move anything as small as a seed or a root. The custom is a calendar habit with a long history, not a measured mechanism.

Traditional collard greens planting days, 2026 and 2027

The days, month by month

Every row below falls in 2027. Each day combines the first quarter with a fruitful or semi-fruitful Moon sign, as the convention above labels them.

How to read the rows

The months shown are those when gardeners in much of the country plant collard greens. Your state may start earlier or later, so only the rows that fall inside your own state’s window count. A row outside that window is not a planting day for you, whatever the Moon is doing.

Days are read at noon Eastern time (ET), and the Moon changes sign during the day. Treat the first and last day of each run as soft edges. A day listed as Libra/Scorpio means the Moon moves from one sign to the other somewhere in the run, and both signs carry a label that qualifies under this convention.

If a run of days misses your planting window by a day or two, the tradition offers no adjustment, and this page does not invent one.

Check your state first: when to plant collard greens where you live

Step one: the state calendar

The order of decisions matters more than the Moon. Start with your state’s planting calendar for collard greens. It tells you which weeks are open for sowing or transplanting where you live, and it accounts for things the almanac never mentions: your last and first frost dates, how warm the soil is, and whether you are planting for a spring or a fall harvest. The state guides are the place to look, because planting dates differ a great deal from Minnesota to Georgia, and from the Pacific coast to the Appalachians.

This page gives no planting date, soil temperature or frost date for collard greens on purpose. Those numbers belong to your state’s guide, and repeating them here, with no knowledge of your county, would only invite mistakes.

Step two: the Moon, if you want it

Once you have a list of dates that are open in your state, you can bring in the tradition. The Moon never overrides the calendar of the place. Frost dates and soil temperature decide whether a crop can go in the ground. The Moon, for anyone who follows it, only chooses among days that are already open.

In practice, that means laying the table from the previous section next to your state’s window. Some years, a traditional day will fall inside it, and you can pick that day. Other years, none will, and the tradition has nothing to say about it. You plant on a day your state’s calendar supports, and you lose nothing the almanac can measure.

The months in the table are an approximation. They were chosen to cover the stretch when gardeners in much of the country plant collard greens, not to match your zip code. If your state’s guide shows a window in a month the table skips, no traditional days were computed for it here, and a different almanac may show different ones.

A fair way to try it

Since the Moon’s effect on crops is unproven, the only way a home gardener can judge the custom is by testing it on their own plot. A fair test is simple, and it takes some discipline.

1. Choose a week that falls inside your state’s planting window and contains at least one traditional day from the table.
2. Split the planting in two. Put half the collard greens in on a traditional day, and the other half on an ordinary day inside the same week. Use the same seed packet or the same batch of transplants, and the same bed or beds with matching soil and sun.
3. Label both halves clearly with stakes or tags that state the planting date and which group each belongs to.
4. Keep notes. Record when seedlings emerge or transplants settle in, how each group looks over the following weeks, and when and how much you harvest from each.

One season will not settle anything. Weather, pests, a shaded corner or a wet spell can swamp any difference tied to the Moon, and two half-rows are a very small sample. If you repeat the split over several seasons and the notes keep pointing the same way, you will have something worth believing. If they do not, you will have a tidy record of your own garden, which is useful whatever you conclude about the Moon.

Questions about planting collard greens by the moon

Does the tradition say to plant collard greens in a waxing or a waning moon?

Waxing. According to almanac tradition, leaf crops such as collard greens go in during the first quarter, which runs from the new moon to the first quarter Moon while the Moon is waxing. The waning half of the cycle is assigned to root crops in the third quarter, and to rest tasks in the fourth.

What if the traditional day falls on a frost?

Your state’s planting calendar decides. The tradition has no rule that outranks it. If a traditional day lands on a date your state’s guide does not support, the usual almanac answer is to wait for the next window rather than plant out of season. You can also plant on an ordinary day that your state’s calendar supports. Frost and soil questions are covered in the state guides.

Do I need to follow the Moon sign as well?

The quarter rule is the core of the tradition, and the sign is an extra layer that some almanacs add. The days in the table already combine both, which is why the list is short. If you follow only the quarter, you have more days to choose from. A separate system, the biodynamic one associated with Maria Thun, calls Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces leaf days, and Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn root days. It uses a different logic than the fruitful and barren labels, so the two systems will not always agree on a given date.