Planting by the Moon is an almanac custom, and no effect on crops has been proven. For August 2027, the custom splits the month into stretches for leafy, fruiting and root crops, with the remaining days set aside for chores like weeding and composting. Every rule below is tradition, and every time is Eastern time (ET). For the background on the method, see planting by the moon.
August 2027 at a glance
August 2027 opens with the Moon in its fourth quarter, waning and 1% lit on August 1, and the new moon follows on August 2 at 6:05 a.m. ET. The full moon, the Sturgeon Moon, falls on August 17 at 3:28 a.m. ET, and a second new moon closes the month on August 31 at 1:41 p.m. ET.
According to almanac tradition, the planting windows for the month are:
- Leafy crops (first quarter): August 6-8, Moon in Libra/Scorpio
- Fruiting crops (second quarter): August 9 (Moon in Scorpio) and August 13-14 (Moon in Capricorn)
- Root crops, bulbs, perennials (third quarter): August 18-19 (Moon in Pisces) and August 23-24 (Moon in Taurus)
These windows come from an old almanac convention, not from a measured effect, and your local frost calendar and soil conditions come first. The Moon, if you choose to follow it, only picks among the days your area already allows.
The Moon waxes from the new moon on August 2 until the full moon on August 17, then wanes through the rest of the month. Gardeners who plant by the Moon treat the fourth quarter as a rest period. In this month that covers August 1 and August 25 through August 31, and the tradition assigns those days to weeding, pruning, turning the soil and composting rather than sowing.
The Moon changes sign 14 times in August 2027. It starts the month in Cancer, enters Leo and Virgo twice each, and ends the month in Virgo. The sections below give the windows in detail, then the exact sign-change times and a row for every day. If you are comparing several months, the planting by the moon 2027 page lists the full year.
What to plant in August
Gardeners who plant by the Moon sort crops by the part of the plant that people eat. Leafy crops go in one group, crops that carry seed inside a fruit in another, and roots, bulbs and perennials in a third. Whether any of these crops can go in the ground in August is a local question. The planting season differs from state to state and often within a single state, so check your state’s planting guide before you pick a crop or a day.
Leafy crops
The almanac tradition puts lettuce, spinach, cabbage, broccoli and celery in this group, the crops that bear above ground and are eaten for their leaves, heads or stalks. Their traditional window is the first quarter, which in August 2027 runs from the new moon on August 2 to the first quarter on August 9.
Fruiting crops
Tomatoes, peppers, beans, squash and corn belong here, the above-ground crops that bear seed inside the fruit. The tradition ties them to the second quarter, between the first quarter and the full moon.
Root crops, bulbs and perennials
Potatoes, garlic and onions belong to this group, along with the roots that have their own pages on this site:
Turnips are not named in the almanac’s short list, but as a root crop they follow the same third-quarter rule. Each crop page explains how the rule applies to that vegetable.
Use the state planting guides to decide whether a crop belongs in your ground this month. If it does, the table in the next sections shows which days the tradition marks for its group.
Moon phases in August 2027
The month holds two new moons, one full moon, and a first and last quarter. All times are Eastern.
| Phase | Date and time (ET) |
|---|---|
| New Moon | August 2, 6:05 a.m. ET |
| First Quarter | August 9, 12:54 a.m. ET |
| Full Moon | August 17, 3:28 a.m. ET |
| Last Quarter | August 24, 10:27 p.m. ET |
| New Moon | August 31, 1:41 p.m. ET |
The full moon of the month is the Sturgeon Moon, the name the Old Farmer’s Almanac uses for August. It arrives on August 17 at 3:28 a.m. ET with the Moon in Aquarius, and it marks the switch from the second quarter to the third. Under the almanac rule, that is the point where the root-crop window opens.
Traditional planting days in August 2027
The rule
The almanac rule has two parts. The quarter of the Moon sets the type of crop: leafy crops in the first quarter, fruiting crops in the second, and root crops, bulbs and perennials in the third. The sign the Moon is in then narrows the choice, because the convention counts only the days when the Moon is in a fruitful or semi-fruitful sign. In this convention, Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces are fruitful, and Taurus, Libra and Capricorn are semi-fruitful.
The windows
| Crop type | Quarter the tradition assigns | Days | Moon sign on those days |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leafy crops | First quarter | August 6-8 | Libra/Scorpio |
| Fruiting crops | Second quarter | August 9 August 13-14 |
Scorpio Capricorn |
| Root crops, bulbs, perennials | Third quarter | August 18-19 August 23-24 |
Pisces Taurus |
No crop type is left without a window in August 2027. The fourth-quarter days, August 1 and August 25 through August 31, carry no planting window and fall under the rest tasks in the tradition.
Partial days at the edges
The days above are read at noon ET, but the Moon changes sign during the day. A window’s first or last day may therefore be partial, and the exact sign-change times are in the next section. A few cases in August 2027 show how this plays out:
- On August 7 the Moon is in Libra until 6:52 p.m. ET, then in Scorpio.
- On August 24 the Moon is in Taurus until 7:26 p.m. ET, then in Gemini, and the last quarter arrives at 10:27 p.m. ET.
- The Taurus stretch begins on August 22 at 12:32 p.m. ET, so August 23 is the first full day in that sign.
Gardeners who follow the rule strictly can use those clock times to see which part of a boundary day sits inside the window. Those who follow it loosely may simply treat the dates in the table as the window.
Moon sign changes in August 2027
Each row shows the moment the Moon enters a sign, the sign, and the tradition’s labels for it. The first label is the fruitful, semi-fruitful or barren class used by moon-sign gardening almanacs. The second is the biodynamic day type in the Maria Thun calendar, which groups the signs into root, flower, leaf and fruit days.
| Date and time (ET) | Moon enters | Almanac class | Biodynamic day |
|---|---|---|---|
| August 1, 2:24 p.m. | Leo | Barren | Fruit day |
| August 3, 1:57 p.m. | Virgo | Barren | Root day |
| August 5, 2:54 p.m. | Libra | Semi-fruitful | Flower day |
| August 7, 6:52 p.m. | Scorpio | Fruitful | Leaf day |
| August 10, 2:35 a.m. | Sagittarius | Barren | Fruit day |
| August 12, 1:34 p.m. | Capricorn | Semi-fruitful | Root day |
| August 15, 2:19 a.m. | Aquarius | Barren | Flower day |
| August 17, 3:11 p.m. | Pisces | Fruitful | Leaf day |
| August 20, 2:54 a.m. | Aries | Barren | Fruit day |
| August 22, 12:32 p.m. | Taurus | Semi-fruitful | Root day |
| August 24, 7:26 p.m. | Gemini | Barren | Flower day |
| August 26, 11:20 p.m. | Cancer | Fruitful | Leaf day |
| August 29, 12:42 a.m. | Leo | Barren | Fruit day |
| August 31, 12:43 a.m. | Virgo | Barren | Root day |
The two label systems do not always agree, and that is normal. This convention labels Pisces fruitful, while the biodynamic calendar calls the same sign a leaf day. Sources also differ on Virgo, Sagittarius and Aquarius, which some almanacs label barren and others do not. The windows on this page follow the quarter rule plus the fruitful and semi-fruitful signs, so the biodynamic column is there for gardeners who work from that calendar instead.
Day by day: phase and Moon sign
One row per day, with the Moon’s sign, quarter, percent lit and direction, all read at noon ET. Because the reading is taken at a single moment, a day can show a sign or quarter that changes later the same day.
| Date | Moon sign | Quarter | Percent lit | Waxing or waning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 1 | Cancer | Q4 | 1% | Waning |
| August 2 | Leo | Q1 | 0% | Waxing |
| August 3 | Leo | Q1 | 2% | Waxing |
| August 4 | Virgo | Q1 | 8% | Waxing |
| August 5 | Virgo | Q1 | 15% | Waxing |
| August 6 | Libra | Q1 | 24% | Waxing |
| August 7 | Libra | Q1 | 34% | Waxing |
| August 8 | Scorpio | Q1 | 45% | Waxing |
| August 9 | Scorpio | Q2 | 55% | Waxing |
| August 10 | Sagittarius | Q2 | 65% | Waxing |
| August 11 | Sagittarius | Q2 | 74% | Waxing |
| August 12 | Sagittarius | Q2 | 82% | Waxing |
| August 13 | Capricorn | Q2 | 89% | Waxing |
| August 14 | Capricorn | Q2 | 94% | Waxing |
| August 15 | Aquarius | Q2 | 98% | Waxing |
| August 16 | Aquarius | Q2 | 100% | Waxing |
| August 17 | Aquarius | Q3 | 100% | Waning |
| August 18 | Pisces | Q3 | 98% | Waning |
| August 19 | Pisces | Q3 | 95% | Waning |
| August 20 | Aries | Q3 | 90% | Waning |
| August 21 | Aries | Q3 | 83% | Waning |
| August 22 | Aries | Q3 | 75% | Waning |
| August 23 | Taurus | Q3 | 65% | Waning |
| August 24 | Taurus | Q3 | 55% | Waning |
| August 25 | Gemini | Q4 | 44% | Waning |
| August 26 | Gemini | Q4 | 33% | Waning |
| August 27 | Cancer | Q4 | 23% | Waning |
| August 28 | Cancer | Q4 | 13% | Waning |
| August 29 | Leo | Q4 | 6% | Waning |
| August 30 | Leo | Q4 | 2% | Waning |
| August 31 | Virgo | Q4 | 0% | Waning |
A few rows can look odd until you compare them with the phase times. August 2 reads 0% lit and waxing because the new moon arrived at 6:05 a.m. ET, before the noon reading. August 31 reads 0% and waning because the next new moon comes at 1:41 p.m. ET, after noon. In the same way, August 16 shows 100% waxing and August 17 shows 100% waning, since the full moon falls at 3:28 a.m. ET on August 17.
The quarter column shifts on August 2, August 9, August 17 and August 25. The Moon is in Sagittarius at noon on August 10, 11 and 12, in Aquarius on August 15, 16 and 17, and in Aries on August 20, 21 and 22. Those runs of three days fall outside every planting window listed above.
Questions about August 2027
When is the full moon in August 2027?
The full moon is the Sturgeon Moon, on August 17, 2027, at 3:28 a.m. ET, with the Moon in Aquarius. The Moon is waxing until that moment and waning afterward.
When is the new moon in August 2027?
There are two. The first is on August 2 at 6:05 a.m. ET and the second on August 31 at 1:41 p.m. ET. Between them the Moon passes the first quarter on August 9, the full moon on August 17, and the last quarter on August 24 at 10:27 p.m. ET.
Which days are the traditional days for root crops in August 2027?
According to almanac tradition, the root-crop windows are August 18-19, with the Moon in Pisces, and August 23-24, with the Moon in Taurus. The August 24 window closes in the evening, because the Moon leaves Taurus at 7:26 p.m. ET. Your state’s planting guide still decides whether a root crop can go in the ground in your area.