adding Biodynamics in the Organic Gardening forum

[TheDante]

Would anyone be interested to know more about Biodynamics, I can share some info about it... if so, would it be possible to add it to the Organic Gardening forum… after Permaculture backslash / Biodynamics

Alternatively, I can just add it as a topic, think we have too many forum titles as it is… the forum might end up looking like an Encyclopedia!

[Nan6b]

Why don't you explain biodynamics in this thread? Give us a taste. I've never heard of it.

[TheDante]

Why don't you explain biodynamics in this thread? Give us a taste. I've never heard of it.

Hey Nan, I managed to find a perfect website for the North American gardeners to clearly explain and illustrate Biodynamics - the jist of it is working with nature, pioneered by a German fella Rudolf Steiner.

https://www.biodynamics.com/biodynamic- ... -practices

I mostly use the Biodynamics calendar as part of one of the practices. The calendar gives one the optimal time/period for sowing, transplanting, pruning, raking/hoeing the soil, harvesting, seed saving etc.

Another part of the practice is biodynamics preparations - both compost and ´sprays´ - all organic.

https://www.biodynamics.com/preparations

There is also a North American edition of the calendar. I use the European edition.

https://www.biodynamics.com/bdawebstore

ps: I am actually very surprised how much artificial/synthetic fertilisers are being used - I would like to reiterate, this is NOT to critic anyone who uses them. Just have been stuck in my own keeping it as organic and natural bubble is all. Dropped out of my Horticulture degree when I had to study Glyphosate (Roundup) as a part of one of my papers. My poor brain just couldn´t absorb the info. Once again, am NOT trying to stir up any controversy. Just another alternative gardening practice that I thought I can share with everyone and be open to is all.

[PlainJane]

I’m fooling around with permaculture in part of my back yard. The fun has been in experimenting with different fruit trees to see how chill and heat hours affect them, and in trying different guild plants. This winter I’ll be swapping out a non-productive pear for a low chill cherry. I also set up a worm bin factory using my old smart pots to absorb all our kitchen scraps. Work but fun work.

[bower]

There's certainly room for biodynamics in the organic forum. We can move this thread over there, and continue on.

[TheDante]

There's certainly room for biodynamics in the organic forum. We can move this thread over there, and continue on.

Thanks Bower, that would be fantastic =)))

[brownrexx]

Interesting. I have never heard of this before but I do garden organically.

[TheDante]

I’m fooling around with permaculture in part of my back yard. The fun has been in experimenting with different fruit trees to see how chill and heat hours affect them, and in trying different guild plants. This winter I’ll be swapping out a non-productive pear for a low chill cherry. I also set up a worm bin factory using my old smart pots to absorb all our kitchen scraps. Work but fun work.

I am totally with you about the ´work but fun work´ bit... the hubby always laughs when visitors see the size of our garden and laments how much work there must be to do... and I ALWAYS tell them ´das is kein arbeit, macht viele spaß´ - this isn´t work at all, this is a lot fun! And when I get overwhelmed... he will bring up my infamous phrase above!

If your worm factory is mostly used to harvest worm castings, it is a wonderful setup, thinking aloud, a compost setup is actually a mega-sized ´worm factory´

Permaculture kinda overlaps biodynamics… I do believe the former was pioneered by an Australian Bill Mollison.

Pretty big in some parts of New Zealand too, we were at one such farm in 2009 - Rainbow Valley Farm

www.permacultureideas.blogspot.com/2010 ... rm-nz.html

[TheDante]

Interesting. I have never heard of this before but I do garden organically.

I guarantee it will make gardening a whole lot more interesting and challenging and fun as well!

[MsCowpea]

Ah, Karen, we meet again. it is one of my hobbies to ‘study’ about different ways of cultivating and farming. Don’t know what led me to biodynamics but I jumped at the chance to tour a biodynamic winery (Benziger) while traveling. ( Incredible place) They didn’t go into detailed specifics but I had already read about Rudolf Steiner so knew vaguely about the method. I also had read Maria Thun’s Gardening for Life-the biodynamic way. Always game to try, I ordered
Some of the basic tenets necessary for the method from Josephine Porter’s
Institute of Applied Bio-Dynamics. We built a compost pile as instructed and one next to it with our normal method. The ingredients were very expensive though I am sure that if a person got into it , you could grow your own (like yarrow, chamomile, nettle, etc). Don’t know how an urban farmer would manage the cow horn with manure though. but If there is a will, there is a way. I am afraid we didn’t keep straight the two composts and got things mixed up. I don’t have any yea or nay opinion. But I just couldn’t do the moon planting sowing, planting, harvesting thing as I can barely keep track of what day it is. But I know you said you can do all this and I am really impressed.
I know in the US we have the Farmer’s Almanac and I think it gives planting dates according to the moon. The universe , planets, and earth’s spiritual connections kind of goes over my head. But it must be an interesting
plane to be on. Elaine

[bower]

The cow horn thing is certainly whimsical. I guess if cows and their byproducts are at the basis of your soil building then... why not? I know I have a collection of horseshoes that came with the horse manure from time to time, and I quite like them and do whimsical things with them including nailed over the door for good luck.
As for herbs in compost, I guess I should know all about it since my garden including 'weeds' is mainly herbs, they are pretty much the foundation of my compost. I mostly leave the straw standing in winter and then use it in spring, layered between weeds, to give structure and aeration to the pile. Oregano (a major weed) will often be cut fresh and layered on the pile in summer as a green (it smells fantastic when fresh cut which is a nice plus). Comfrey is another herb with special value for compost, as it produces lots of biomass and is rich in K - the big leaves have an opposite structure to the oregano, and that layer will form a 'cap' to hold in moisture and heat.
I don't have nettles here - I tried to seed them in the early garden and they refused... they like rich soil. There are lots at my friend's farm, and we've used them there tossed into the water barrel after a spring weeding. I think they have a good ratio of N to C which would also make them a valuable green in the compost.
Apparently nettles are a good source of Boron as well. https://pubag.nal.usda.gov/catalog/547792
As for the yarrow, it is one of a number of herbs which have allelopathic properties - they inhibit the germination and growth of other plants. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9f61/ ... 6fa2da.pdf
So it could play a role in compost, to inhibit germination of weed seeds ? I have always been a little reticent about putting too many allelopaths in the pile at one time, but it would make sense to layer that on top of some weeds that got ahead of you and set their seeds before pulling. I may try doing that.
For allelopathic effects on weed seeds in composting, there are others that should work as well as yarrow depending on what you have locally available - Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) is one, any of the Artemisias would work too.

[MsCowpea]

Comfrey. That is such an interesting herb. I am very enamored with it though I can’t get a stand of it to grow in South Florida for any length of time. don’t know if it is the rains in the summer that it doesn’t like or what.
Won’t give up. A lot of English (UK) books mention comfrey as a component in vegetable gardening using it as a tea. I am familiar with Alan Chadwick who developed a magnificent garden at Univ of Calif in Santa Cruz. I ‘think’ he introduced using comfrey in the early organic movement in US . (though not sure). Chadwick was a student of Rudolf Steiner.

[bower]

Yes, I've also seen folks from UK mention comfrey tea for tomatoes, and another also used it to trench potatoes - I tried it last year with a handful of chicken pellets as well, and it certainly had a great effect on the soil. Chock full of worms.
It can be invasive though - not a nice weed to deal with in the wrong place. Very hard to get the last bit of roots out, and it will come back from small pieces. So if you do get it, plant in a permanent place - maybe next to the compost bin.
Bees are crazy for the flowers too, if you forget to chop it and use it.

[SusieQ]

It can be invasive though - not a nice weed to deal with in the wrong place. Very hard to get the last bit of roots out, and it will come back from small pieces.

Same for (white) yarrow, I'm afraid. I was at my wits end last year and bought one of those flame throwers for weeds. While it was a great deal of FUN frying the little boogers, they just keep coming back.

[Nan6b]

Ditto for Tansy. I think I've finally got it eradicated. Pretty, but not so pretty once it started choking out everything else.

[bower]

Yarrow in my garden is a volunteer - I didn't plant it but have a few around. I know what you mean about the roots, especially when they get tangled up with other perennials. I had one around a rosebush and I have pulled it back a few times but I believe is still there and will keep crawling in.
I don't worry much about it because I have bigger contenders for 'invasive weed' awards. Tansy!!! You said it Nan. The few yarrows do manage to hold their own in my garden, and that's saying something.

[bower]

There's only one good thing about tansy - it is noxious to fleas. When I had the issue of rats around, we mowed the paths including quite a bit of tansy that I had been planning to dig out. But it mowed pretty well, and gave me some kind of reassurance that any rodents crawling around the place were less friendly for fleas to ride upon.

[TheDante]

Ah, Karen, we meet again. it is one of my hobbies to ‘study’ about different ways of cultivating and farming. Don’t know what led me to biodynamics but I jumped at the chance to tour a biodynamic winery (Benziger) while traveling. ( Incredible place) They didn’t go into detailed specifics but I had already read about Rudolf Steiner so knew vaguely about the method. I also had read Maria Thun’s Gardening for Life-the biodynamic way. Always game to try, I ordered
Some of the basic tenets necessary for the method from Josephine Porter’s
Institute of Applied Bio-Dynamics. We built a compost pile as instructed and one next to it with our normal method. The ingredients were very expensive though I am sure that if a person got into it , you could grow your own (like yarrow, chamomile, nettle, etc). Don’t know how an urban farmer would manage the cow horn with manure though. but If there is a will, there is a way. I am afraid we didn’t keep straight the two composts and got things mixed up. I don’t have any yea or nay opinion. But I just couldn’t do the moon planting sowing, planting, harvesting thing as I can barely keep track of what day it is. But I know you said you can do all this and I am really impressed.
I know in the US we have the Farmer’s Almanac and I think it gives planting dates according to the moon. The universe , planets, and earth’s spiritual connections kind of goes over my head. But it must be an interesting
plane to be on. Elaine

Hey Elaine, I enjoy chatting with you, in fact I love chatting with you Funny that you mentioned about what led you to biodynamics... think it was also the same for me. I came across Maria Thun´s Gardening For Life - The Biodynamic Way in a public library (before I embarked on my never completed Horticulture degree somewhere around 2008) and a friend who worked at the the library told me that the book was actually slated to be ´condemned´ because of it´s poor circulation. Thanks to me, it had to remain back on the shelf. I do remember though I could not put the book down and finished it in 1 sitting and was dying to put it into practise. I never really got to ´practise´ it until we only finally got our place. I might have not explained myself clearly except that I only use the annually printed Maria Thun Biodynamic Calendar since 2012. Sticking to this regiment alone can be a real challenge especially for the size of our garden and me doing all the tasks.

On saying that, I would be even more overwhelmed with not knowing what to do or where to begin with what tasks without this calendar. It certainly helps guide and organize what tasks I need to do. I am only overwhelmed because most of what we grow falls under the ´fruit´ category. Hence trying to squeeze a week´s work under 2-3 days...

The Biodynamic preparations is way too much of a hassle, especially pertaining to using a cow horn! And Bower, you are sooooo right! Where in the world am I gonna get that, even though we do have a cow farm up the street. Moreoever, we hardly have any of the problems that these preps are supposed to help. And also, our compost comprises a fair amount of the ingredients mentioned in the preps - comfrey, nettle, yarrow, dandelion. I would like to think that our compost is a mish mash of the preps.

Planting by the moon can also be a challenge if gardening is not one´s ´full-time´ job. I am lucky and thankful that it is. And I too have the same problem that if it gets too out there with the universe/planets/spiritual thingy - I will be soooooooooooooooooo lost! Only the hubby can appreciate ´complicated´ topics with the likes of Carl Sagan.

[TheDante]

If you aren´t able to get comfrey, another alternative is Borage. It is VERY similar to comfrey and they both are members of the same family. Borage is an annual whilst comfrey is a perennial. We have both. Borage is very easy to propagate from seeds and always come back again if left to go to seed. They both have really pretty purplish-blueish flowers. And bees absolutely love them! Found a link to provide some info. And borage is also known to be a companion plant to strawberries. Only problem is our borage always end up at least 3 feet tall

https://www.hunker.com/13426842/are-com ... same-plant

Oh a useful tip for anyone that makes liquid manure (from comfrey, nettle etc) that you don´t have a slurry that STINKS to high heavens - using this ´dry´ method - do not add water.

Put all the comfrey and/or nettles leaves into a big planting pot that has a hole in the middle of the pot. Place a heavy stone or brick on top of leaves to compress the big pile of leaves. And position the pot on top of a bucket to collect the ´juice´. Do not add any water. Keep adding the plant material as it starts to sink with time - you will get a nice dark, odourless solution. NO HORRIBLE SMELL at all! And then dilute accordingly to feed the plants. I use this sometimes to ´feed´ only my young seedlings before I finally transplant it into the soil. And I will use the ´dried out´ remains of the nettle and comfrey leaves into the compost to continue to breakdown. You do not need to do anything else and just let time work its magic. Just make sure that you can allow the eventual solution to be ´pressed out´ and be collected into a separate container- hence some hole to let the solution drain out into another container.

I hope this makes sense. Sometimes, it is hard to put words down on paper.

[TheDante]

Some recommended books along the lines of biodynamics, organic gardening etc

Gardening for Life - The Biodynamic Life - Maria Thun
The Biodynamic Year - Maria Thun
Culture and Horticulture - The Classic Guide to Biodynamic and Organic Gardening - Wolf D. Storl
The One Straw Revolution - Masanobu Fukuoka (start with this 1st)
Sowing Seeds in the Desert - Masanobu Fukuoka
The Natural Way of Farming - Masanobu Fukuoka
The Hidden Half of Nature - David R. Montgomery & Anne Bikle
Teaming with Microbes - Jeff Lowenfels
Teaming with Nutrients - Jeff Lowenfels & Wayne Lewis
Teaming with Fungi - Jeff Lowenfels
Farmers of Forty Centuries - Organic Farming in China, Korea and Japan - F.H. King
The Earth Knows My Name - Patricia Klindienst
The Curious Gardener - Anna Pavord
Second Nature - Michael Pollan
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver ( had to add this too)
How to grow world record tomatoes - Charles H. Wilber (thank you Elaine - forgot to add this - my fav now too!)