A garden almanac says plant on a waxing moon. A Kenyan smallholder plants when the soil is wet enough and the forecast is not a flood warning. Those are different jobs. This page dates the moon for Nairobi and leaves the rain to the office that issues rain.
timeanddate.com lists 2026 phases in Nairobi local time, with refraction and the Gregorian calendar. November 2026: new moon 9 November at 10:02 am, first quarter 17 November at 2:47 pm, full moon 24 November at 5:53 pm, third quarter 1 December at 9:08 am. December: new moon 9 December at 3:51 am, first quarter 17 December at 8:42 am, full moon 24 December at 4:28 am, third quarter 30 December at 9:59 pm. Those hours do not say whether a maize row in Kisii or a bean bed in Machakos is wet.
The Kenya Meteorological Department is the national weather service under the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Forestry. Its agrometeorology page says it issues 10-day bulletins on rainfall distribution, soil moisture, temperature and crop conditions, and agro-advisories that turn that data into guidance for planting, harvesting, irrigation and pest management. The climate services page adds monthly and seasonal forecasts and a State of the Climate in Kenya Report. None of those product lines, on the pages opened on 27 October 2026, attach planting to a lunar day.
KMD names the seasons it forecasts. The agrometeorology page links a report titled for the October-November-December (OND) 2024 Short Rains Season and a seasonal briefing labelled March, April, May (MAM) 2024. That is how this page uses the words "short rains" and the MAM season: as labels KMD already printed, not as a proverb. A 2024 report title is not a 2026 rainfall total. This page does not invent millimetres for 2026.
What KMD did publish for late October 2026 is a warning, not a proverb. A Heavy Rainfall Advisory issued on 23 October 2026, effective 24 October 18:47, expiry 30 October 2026 09:00, said moderate to heavy rain exceeding 20 mm in 24 hours was expected from 24 to 28 October, peaking between 26 and 28 October, over Coast, Northeastern, and Highlands West and East of the Rift Valley, with the listed areas also named as Coast, Western, Northern, Central and Eastern Kenya. Residents were told to watch for flash floods and poor visibility, not to cross flooded roads, and to follow official updates. That is a planting constraint. A waxing moon is not.
Maize and beans are the crops the custom names. This page does not assign them a sowing date. KMD's own Forecast-to-Farmer pilot, noted on the department homepage in a 23 September 2026 publication line, is the direction of travel: location-specific forecasts to farmers. Until a KMD page writes "sow beans on the first quarter", that sentence is not copied here.
You can still use a new moon as a reminder to open the 10-day bulletin. The reminder is personal. The bulletin is the fact. If the bulletin is a flood warning, as on 24-28 October 2026, the warning outweighs the phase name. If the bulletin never mentions the moon, do not add it.
The other custom, spending a harvest on a stake, is a different page: Harvest money and betting: what rural Kenya spends on luck.
KMD's climate page also says it issues monthly forecasts of rainfall and temperature for agriculture, water and disaster preparedness, and seasonal forecasts that look three months ahead for drought and flood risk. A three-month outlook is still a weather product. It is not a lunar month. Lunation 1285 in the Nairobi table runs from the 9 November new moon to the 9 December new moon, 29 days 17 hours 50 minutes. That duration is an astronomical cycle. It does not replace the OND or MAM labels KMD already used in its own report titles.
The same October 2026 warning cluster included a strong-winds advisory for coastal, eastern and northern areas, southerly to southeasterly winds above 25 knots, also expiring 30 October 2026 09:00, and a second heavy-rain note naming Kwale, Mombasa, Kilifi, Tana River, Lamu and Garissa. Those county names are KMD's. A moon table does not contain them. If you plant in Kilifi that week, the relevant sentence is the one about 20 mm in 24 hours and flash floods, including downstream of where the rain actually fell.
Lightning advice on that advisory - stay off trees and grilled windows, stay out of drainage channels - is safety, not agronomy. It still beats an almanac. The 10-day bulletin, which the agrometeorology page says runs all year, is the routine product when there is no CAP alert. Open that bulletin. Do not open a phase list and stop.
January through October 2026 phases are on the same timeanddate table if someone wants a date. This note does not reprint all of them. The method is the same in May, which KMD has treated as part of an MAM season in a 2024 briefing: the seasonal product is KMD's, the hour of first quarter is timeanddate's, and maize does not read either file unless a person does.
Sources: timeanddate.com moon phases for Nairobi 2026; Kenya Meteorological Department homepage, agrometeorology and climate service pages, 27 October 2026; Heavy Rainfall Advisory issued 23 October 2026; KMD publication titles for OND 2024 short rains and MAM 2024.
Published 27 October 2026. Editorial staff of gardeners-lunar-calendar.info.