Foraging in Libreville
Estuaire · West African Coast & Guinean Forest · hardiness zone 13b
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25°C · Overcast
Today
27° / 24°
Rain, 7 days
105 mm
Season
Fall
Weather read at 11:40 p.m..
Writing your field guide — reading the forecast, the moon and the map…
Behind this week's foraging
The day, the ground and the sky over Libreville
Slugs work all day, not just at night, and blight moves in wet warm air.
- Ground beetlebest now — Running the soil surface after dark, taking slugs, cutworms and larvae. One of the best predators a garden has.
- Earthwormbest now — At the surface after dark and in wet weather, pulling leaves down into the burrow.
Overhead · Libreville, Gabon
The sky over the woods
The two clocks nothing on the ground can argue with: the length of the day, and the phase of the moon.
The sun
12h 06m of light
Sunrise
06:07
Solar noon
12:10
Sunset
18:13
A month from now the day will be 0h 00m longer. Enough light for steady growth.
The moon
Waning Crescent
15% lit · waning · day 26 of 29.5
- Next full
- Oct 26 · 20d
- Hunter's Moon
- Next new
- Oct 10 · 4d
- Darkest nights
Planting by the moon: Last quarter to new: a resting phase — weed, prune, harvest, turn compost and prepare beds.
Anglers' solunar rating: good — the tradition says fish feed hardest in the days either side of new and full, and around moonrise and moonset. The evidence is mixed; light and weather matter more.
Turn of the season
Winter solstice
Dec 21 · 76 days away
Frost is rare here — most years see none, or a night or two at most.
Next moons
- New MoonOct 10
- First QuarterOct 18
- Full Moon · Hunter's MoonOct 26
- Last QuarterNov 1
Right now · Libreville, Gabon
Forces at work
Nothing here is a guess. Each of these is read from this week's forecast and this location's climate record, and each one is pushing the season one way or the other.
- Working for you
Decay
26.3 °C soil · 104.9 mm
Warm and damp: the fastest decay of the year. Compost cooks, leaf mould breaks down, worms work the surface — and mushrooms fruit two to seven days after a soaking rain.
Fungi and bacteria turning last season into next season's soil. The same warm, wet window that runs a compost heap also fruits the mushrooms.
- Worth watching
Rain
104.9 mm / 7 days
104.9 mm in a week is a lot. Expect blight pressure on tomatoes and potatoes, slugs at night, and blown-out, muddy rivers.
Sets the pace for everything: germination, fungal fruiting, slug nights, and how a river runs for the next three days.
- Quiet right now
Frost
366 frost-free days
Frost is rare here. Coldest night in the next week: 23.8 °C.
The hard edge of the growing season. Ice inside a leaf ruptures its cells — one night ends a tomato and sweetens a parsnip.
- Working for you
Soil warmth
26.3 °C
Warm enough for beans, corn, squash, cucumber and transplanted tomato and pepper. Roots run hard at this temperature.
Seeds read soil temperature, not the calendar. Six centimetres down is where the decision gets made.
- Quiet right now
Day length
12h 06m
Gaining about under a minute of daylight a day.
The one thing weather can't change. Plants count photoperiod to decide when to bolt, bulb, flower and go dormant.
- Worth watching
The moon
Waning Crescent · 15%
Waning, 26 days old. Full moon in 19 days. Anglers' solunar rating: good (a tradition).
It moves water — in the sea, in a lake's edge, and, by long tradition, in the sap of a plant. Fish feed hardest on the days around new and full.
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