holisticbiodynamicromantic

holistic philosophy, biodynamic technology, romantic gardens

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Wild strawberries that I grow at the base of citrus trees in my garden got officially Brix-tested, and the very high Brix reading they got proves they have very high nutrient content! 

I have been told by the nutritionist consultants of the company who makes the outstanding cutting edge live sourced supplements I prefer, that if I was always eating food of that high a quality, I would not even need any of their products! Eating real food translates into better nutrition and amino acids assimilation, and then no added pills are necessary even if they are the superior food based pills. 

There are many mainstream agriculture skeptics who, as a result of conflicting paradigms and practices, have doubts about farming the biodynamic way. But the fact remains that biodynamics yields higher quality, better tasting foods with superior nutrition and vitality. My sweet and delicious wild strawberry is the proof! 

Brix is a handy measurement (measured with a refractometer) in determining the nutritional value of crops: the higher the number on the Brix chart the higher the levels of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, antioxidants and trace minerals, in other words, nutrient dense food. 

And as a bonus, high Brix plants are insect and disease resistant! The only predator nuisances here in my garden are the squirrels, and the oleander aphids that come symbiotically with the milkweed I grow for the Monarch butterflies. 

My biodynamically nurtured soil is healthy, fertile and resilient; my high Brix plants and crops are strong, and bugs are not attracted; instead, they go away looking for the weak, low Brix plants which emit low electromagnetic frequency that attracts predators. Leave it to nature to devise such an elegant system as this.

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At last we started planting the kitchen garden in Malibu. First the fruit trees, then the blueberries, artichokes, next will be strawberries, tomatoes, many herbs, and many flowers of course. Around the perimeter we surrounded the garden with the fragrant old shrub roses... Growing food of the highest quality and flavor in nutrient-rich, biodynamically prepared soil.

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Nutrition makes the spirit manifest...

says Rudolf Steiner. Lately there’s been talk of the oncoming transhumanist or posthumanist society, a result of The Singularity, which is the hypothetical phenomenon of Artificial Intelligence overtaking us in the next 5 to 100 years; the suggestion is that we’re going to accept our fate as a cog in a machine  (sorry, industrial metaphor), passively, even enthusiastically relinquishing our individuality in favor of a universal will, a singular brain. “Well I say HA!”, as Stanley Kowalski drunkenly put it. And who but the most entrenched technocrats wouldn’t say ha to such an insulting insinuation? So why bring it up? Because who would allow their neighborhoods to be sprayed with chemicals when they’ve been given the choice to opt out? Plenty. and who would obediently take prescribed drugs whose dire warnings read like a comically diabolical description of the punishments of hell? Millions. and who would voluntarily expose their psyches to vicarious atrocities of the flesh and spirit? We know who we are. To what can we attribute this glaring lack of self-advocacy? If nutrition makes the spirit manifest, then might not lack thereof make the spirit disappear?

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BORAGE

To attract bees to our garden, we had plenty of blooming pollen-rich food all winter long. Bees were visiting the winter blooming trees and shrubs, the Rosemary, the Lavender, and many other herbs I deliberately left untrimmed to keep the bees well fed. But it was the beautiful delicate blue-flowering delicious Borage that surpassed them all: it bloomed unstoppable throughout the winter and now with a bit of a trim and clean it is still luxuriously spilling over the raised vegetable bed that it took over last spring.

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PEACE AND JOY IN 2015!!

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It's time to seed clover, this most beneficial and beautiful "weed". It blooms here in California May through October, providing food for pollinators, birds and other wildlife; Bees, Bumblebees and Butterflies love the fragrant flowers! Clover is so high in vegetable protein it makes a great forage crop, is used for crop rotation, soil restoration and as green manure. Red clover has many medicinal uses for us humans. The low growing White clover blends well sown into lawns; this way it is a GREEN choice (lush and green!), as clover fixes the nitrogen thus providing natural fertilizer, and it is wonderfully drought resistant. Lucky for us, is this hard working, ecology minded little plant.

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Rudolf Steiner believed that the soul abandons the body when the body is no longer attractive to it.

"How can it happen that the spiritual impulse, and especially the inner schooling for which you are constantly providing stimulus and guidance bear so little fruit? Why do the people concerned give so little evidence of spiritual experience, in spite of all their efforts? Why, worst of all, is the will for action, for the carrying out these spiritual impulses, so weak? I was particularly anxious to get an answer to the question as to how one could build a bridge to active participation and the carrying out of spiritual intentions without being pulled off the right path by personal ambition, illusions, petty jealousies, for these were the negative qualities Rudolf Steiner had named as the main inner hindrances. Then came the surprising and thought provoking answer. 'This is a problem of nutrition. nutrition as it is today does not provide the strength necessary for manifesting the spirit in physical life. A bridge can no longer be built from thinking to will and action. Food plants no longer contain the forces people need for this.'

A nutritional problem which if solved, would enable the spirit to become manifest and realize itself in human beings! With this as a background one can understand why Steiner said that "the benefits of the biodynamic preparations should be made available as quickly as possible to the largest possible areas of the entire earth for the earth's healing."

An account of a question Ehrenfried Pfeiffer posed to Rudolf Steiner from "The Birth of a New Agriculture, Koberwitz, 1924

The Science of Biodynamic Agriculture by Hugh Lovel

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Years ago when I started gardening it was called Companion Planting. Now it's called an insectary when we intentionally interplant a vegetable garden with plants and herbs that repel pests, and attract beneficial insects and pollinators. Here, fruit trees were underplanted with Chives and Comfrey, Carrots seeded near Rosemary, the Pine tree needles provide good mulch and protection for Strawberries, and Nasturtium in spring is great to repel aphids. We have the indispensable Catmint, Verbena, Salvia and Fennel, the Perovskia, and there is a mass planting of Lavender and Echium around the perimeter. This pretty habitat for helpful bugs keeps the biodynamic garden healthy.

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The biodynamic garden has thrived all through the dry summer, still harvesting abundant tomatoes, with a new crop coming up.

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In our Southern California- Mediterranean climate the best way to store water is in the soil. We are now building our Kitchen Garden terraces, on contour, to increase water infiltration, to conserve moisture and to mitigate erosion between terraces. Each terrace will have a shallow swale running through the middle where any runoff water will soak into the soil. The swale will become a mulched pathway, as mulching will also slow the water evaporation. It's a classic rainwater garden recipe.

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This must be the best book about composting because it is charming, playful, deeply poetic, philosophical, scientific, practical, simple and accessible, and something for the whole family. By appealing to children, the author manages to break it down for all of us, like glacier on rock. Leavening poetic euphemism, 'the circle of life', with blunt prose, 'Everything living or dead has something that will eat it', and  other provocative statements for adult contemplation such as, 'Rotting is nature's way of recycling the goodness', either one of which one can imagine in the mouth of an aging roué, Ben Raskin's handy book sparks our immediate interest. Read more

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Our Compost/Mulch pile was built with Sacred Cow biodynamic compost, wood chips mulch, well composted horse manure, topsoil and a hand full of sweet lime. To stimulate the compost with proper forces, we inserted into the pile a set of six biodynamic preparations: yarrow, chamomile, stinging nettle, oak bark, dandelion and valerian. The biodynamic compost that is made in the spring is applied to the garden in the fall, and compost made in the fall is applied in the spring.

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SOIL NEWS! SOIL NEWS! SOIL NEWS!

Fresh batch of the fabulous Sacred Cow biodynamic compost arriving in a few weeks…in May!

While we wait,  here is some quick advice for all you spring gardeners who want to to enliven your garden soil: go for genuine biodynamic preps, easy to mix and to apply as tea, and to great benefit. Easy to prepare, easy to order from the Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Biodynamics. http://www.jpibiodynamics.org

I highly recommend that you spray this very beneficial combination of BC compound preparation (Barrel Compost) and #BD500x (prepotentized Horn Manure). Stir them separately then spray together on soil, in the late afternoon, on a Root day. Your garden will thank you. Detailed instructions are included with the package. If you need more guidance… Ask Me [email protected]

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We are preparing to plant a 1/4 acre Kitchen Garden in Malibu with veggies, fruit trees and flowers. After 2 months of intense program spraying with biodynamic preparations to bring life to the soil, the soil was opened up, and sprayed again with horn manure. And then...we were in luck- it rained. Last week we added some Sweet Lime, then biodynamic compost, and a thick layer of mulched organic woody matter, then covered it all with straw and watered well.

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Prince Charles has been championing sustainability in the most practical ways for decades. A dedicated organic farmer for 30 years at his Highrove Estate in Gloucestershire and his Duchy in Cornwall, whose products, Duchy Originals, have been consistently turning a profit; his experimental, progressive methods, including Biodynamics (since 2005), has finally caused his critics to shut up and take note.

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The Biodynamic garden some 4 weeks after planting - it is thriving! Young seedlings of cover crops are pushing up along the wall where the Tomatoes will be planted in Spring.

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Just finished building another backyard vegetable garden, freshly planted with fruit trees, vegetables, berries and flowers. Soil amended with superior biodynamic compost, all fall/winter crops in place, then added some cover crop seeds: sugar snap and snow peas, and fava to enrich the soil for spring planting. Very gratifying to create gardens that aren't just pretty to look at, but that you can eat from.