Biodynamic Agriculture

 Here’s a bit of biodynamics the dogs prepared earlier.

 A cow horn preparation courtesy of Howard Sooley

I got some very interesting feedback from last week’s article about homeopathy in the garden. Some people say that water has a conscience and you can even alter it with mind control even before adding drops of plant extract. We’re not without the odd sceptic too, which keeps everyone on their toes, or their feet on the ground anyway. Here’s what EK said about water. “Water should work as a homeopathic remedy for all preparations, as it would have had the substances dissolved in it before. The controversy surrounding homeopathy is that the dilution recommends a dilution of 10 to the power of 60 - i.e. the original solution is diluted to one million billion billion billion billion billion billionth of the original strength; diluting any active ingredient out of solution.” EK isn’t a fan.

There are more down to earth techniques to use in the garden though if you fancy delving into the work of animal parts. Biodynamic Agriculture is proving to be very popular and although criticised as pseudoscience by scholars, biodynamics is practiced in more than 50 countries worldwide.

Biodynamic Agriculture

Biodynamics originated out of the work of Rudolf Steiner around talks made in 1924 and is considered to be one of the most sustainable methods of farming.
Biodynamic agriculture is a method of organic farming that emphasizes the holistic development and interrelationships of the soil, plants and animals as a self-sustaining system. Biodynamic farming has much in common with other organic approaches, such as emphasising the use of manures and composts and excluding of the use of artificial chemicals on soil and plants, it’s very widely used in moon cycle gardening techniques.

The 500 Preparations

The classical biodynamic preparations are usually known by the names given them in 1928 when they were being investigated by early BD experimenters keeping their cards close to their chests. These are the numbers 500 – 508. And fascinating they are too, if you try this at home please let me know!:
500 - Take a well-developed horn from a cow that has had a calf; fill it full of firm and fresh cow manure. Bury it a foot or so down beneath a rich soil over the winter. Identify the site well! Exhume it around Easter and, for each acre, about 50 grams of what comes out is put into about 20 litres of water and stirred vigorously for an hour. Make sure there are vortices one way and then the other which reach to the base of the bucket or barrel, and interrupt them vigorously to change direction. After stirring, take this to your land and sprinkle it over the soil. 500 is sprayed when soil cultivation is taking place and before new crops are planted. It is thought to act primarily upon the soil and roots.

501 - Uses finely crushed crystalline silica in a cow's horn and is buried in the soil over summer until Michaelmas. Much less is used in the stirring and it tends to be used in the foliage to increase its use of sunlight. Together, 500 and 501 are known as the 'field sprays'.
502 - 507 - The 'compost preparations'. A pinch of each of the following are placed in holes bored along manure and compost heaps.
502 - Yarrow (Achillea Millefolium) flowers are stitched into a stag's bladder and hung up over summer. These are then buried over winter.
503 - Chamomile (Matricaria Chamomilla) flowers are stuffed into the small intestine of a cow like sausages. These are buried over winter and then exhumed.
504 - Nettle (Urtica dioica) is buried in the soil for a year from June to June.
505 - Oak bark (Quercus robur) is kept in a domestic animal's skull and left under flowing water and organic sludge over winter.
506 - Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) flowers are wrapped in a cow's mesentery and buried over winter.
507 - The juice from valerian (Valeriana officinalis) is squeezed out and sprinkled over the heaps when they are created.
508 - Equisetum arvense is boiled for 15 minutes and cooled, diluted and sprayed to minimise fungal infestation.

Now where’s my cow horn?

Homeopathic Gardening

Homeopathic Gardening
I’m in the kitchen attempting to open a jar of curry paste. The lid is stuck tight and try as I might it just won’t come off. Tapping the lid with a knife could work as could giving the jar to a stronger member of the family to open (that’s all of them). As no one else is around I pretend I am an oak tree with big roots harnessing the earth’s energy. Sounds a bit daft but it worked. Homeopathy is another thing that sounds a bit daft, but it seems to get results in eradicating pests and diseases in the garden.

Homeopathy and plants
Homeopathy works by adding tiny amounts of plant extracts into a solution to the body, (or plant in this case) to help eliminate problems that chemicals are generally used for. For example Calendula is used for damage during repotting , and Calcium phosphoricum can be used for root rot. For an idea just how watered down these solutions are, there are generally only 20 drops of the homeopathic liquid in a litre of water. It doesn’t end there. This litre is then added to 19 litres of tap water and stirred. Some scientists say that the amounts used are so minimal that it’s only the memory of the solution present in the water.

One of the leading lights in this field is experienced Dutch homeopath Vaikunthanath Das Kaviraj. Kaviraj stumbled by accident upon the homeopathic treatment of plants (called Agrohomeopathy) when he was asked to treat a rust problem in apple trees. The apples had dark red rings on the skin and needed more watering than normal. The symptoms of redness with thirst fitted the remedy Belladonna, which he duly administered. To everyone’s surprise, the rust problem disappeared. What‘s more, the apples the following year tasted noticeably better. For Kaviraj, this was a turning point. In the next twelve years, he undertook intensive research in this area, employing homeopathy for all kinds of plant diseases. He has published a book on the subject that focuses on the homeopathic treatment of plants in cases of malnourishment, parasitic and fungal attack, bacterial and viral disease, damage, and weed infestation.

Here are a couple of examples how homeopathic remedies could help.


Powdery Mildew
For powdery mildew use Silicea or Sulphur as a remedy. Both are good remedies to cure fungal diseases. However, they should not be used simultaneously.
Ants
Ants do not like the smell of Marigolds. Mentha piperita and Calendula are both remedies that can be used to deter ants. Also Tagetus.
Blossom End Rot
Tomatoes love Basil, in the kitchen as well as in the garden. Ocymum basilicum is the remedy to use. Silicea is also a remedy to use, but that is more useful to soak the seeds before planting them.



Suppress the weeds
As well as preventing and curing plant problems homeopathy also helps to keep weeds down. VDK has this to say about the issue. “In homoeopathy we have nothing that kills. However, we do have a remedy that will suppress weeds for a considerable time. It also inhibits the seeds from germinating. It is called Juglans Nigra. In order to use this, it must be applied thinly to existing weeds, which will then stop growing any further. Three days later, plant the crop. It will be safe to plant other plants 72 hours after application. The weeds will remain suppressed for up to 7 months.” He tells us.


Quick Return
There are other natural ways of treating plants. You might be familiar with Dr Bach's Rescue Remedy for a sick house plant, then there’s Maye Bruce’s 'the herbs are enough' policy of healing. She developed her own 'Quick Return' (QR) method based on homoeopathic dilutions of herbs and honey. Maye was originally associated with the method of Biodynamic agriculture but branched out on her own to get away from using animal parts such as the horns.

Those Darn Dogs....

I got fed up of running up and down the road this week trying to track down my wayward dogs. Both of them found a way out of the garden even though I am constantly piling up chopped branches and anything else I can find to block up escape routes.

As soon as I took my vigilant eye off them for a second they were away, high tailing it to one of three places where food is left out. The first port of call for them is the neighbours who leave food out for the cats, and if you have ever had cats you will realise that most of them are grazers popping back and forth to their dinner bowls when the urge takes them. It only takes one sitting and a couple of seconds for the plate to be licked clean when one of my two get there. Another destination is a few hundred yards away where someone puts food out on the lawn for the birds. Bird feed isn’t very well digested by dogs and looks the same going out as it does going in. The third place is at the edge of the park where someone is a bit sloppy putting their leftovers in the bin. They feast on spaghetti one day then a pile of mashed spuds the other.

Making the most of every opportunity

The dogs make the most of every opportunity to get food. Julie’s dad came over the other day and delivered a beautiful homemade loaf. It was a bit early in the day and as we were in bed he decided to leave it in a “safe place” in the garage carefully wrapped up in a brown paper bg. The safe place was on top of the boiler so it didn’t take much for one of the dogs to get it down and devour it. It also didn’t take much to see who the culprit was. Chips, the daftest of our two dogs could hardly walk let alone run when I took them for a walk later, her stomach was like a balloon.

I had to do something about the dogs escaping so I went down to the wood yard and bought myself 75 metres of 2”x1” strips of wood to make a sturdy trellis. I did a bit on the other side of the garden so knew what I had to do. There is a really wavy concrete block wall that rises to about 3 feet high so I screwed vertical posts onto these for a start before gauging how far to space the horizontals out so the dogs couldn’t squeeze through them. It took me all day to build the trellis, and fine looking it is too.

It took the dogs less than three minutes to break the defences and high tail it down the road again.
I wasn’t going to be beaten so after getting the pests back I got my lad to let them out of the house whilst I hid in the neighbour’s garden undergrowth to see exactly where they were getting out. I couldn’t believe what I saw. Because the wall has a slight wave of subsidence to it, the dogs found the bit that had the biggest gap and twisted themselves sideways to get out. The gap was only inches tall; you would never guess they could sliver through such a tight gap; they looked like flapping flatfish that were trying to escape a net.

Let them witness the work

I chained both dogs up to their kennel and let them witness firsthand how I unscrewed each section then lowered them following the contours of the wavy wall. It looks a bit odd, but there is now a uniform gap all the way along the wall. I sauntered over to the kennel and let them off their leads. I went indoors and when they thought I wasn’t looking made a bid for freedom. Their attempts were foiled, try as they might they couldn’t find a gap.

I’ve won this round. It probably won’t be long until they find a way to climb up the trellis like a ladder. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Choosing seeds from Catalogues

Choosing seeds from Catalogues

It’s time for us to be looking at seeds now for planting out in the garden for the coming spring. I was talking to garden guru Klaus Laitenberger from Milkwood Farm recently and he thinks the same. So much so that he has set up a mail order seed company in conjunction with Quickcrop selling small packets of carefully selected vegetable seeds that will be ideal for our climate.
I asked Klaus how he went about choosing the right seeds for his company called “The Vegetable Seed Co”

“We selected the best varietes for the Irish climate and for taste and flavour.” Klaus tells us. “They are also chosen for ease of growing.” Klaus also realises that some of the older varieties have a natural resistance to pests and/or diseases “For example Parsnip 'Javelin' is resistant to canker, pea 'Greenshaft is resistant to mildew and onion 'Golden Bear' is resistant to downy mildew and other moulds. “

Klaus has also researched the fact that most customers don’t need thousands of seeds so he is keeping the packets down to a manageable quantity and better still keeping the prices down so we can have more variety in the garden . “All seeds (with the exception of some toms and cucs) are only €2 per packet.” Klaus says proudly and continues. “We stock some interesting mixes , for example a cabbage mix for all season, kale mix, lettuce mix, oriental salad mix. This saves money. One packet of cabbage will give you cabbages from July until January and all from one sowing.”

Klaus is also offering you the chance of saving more money by buying 20 seeds and getting a free metal tin to keep the seeds dry for only. Check out the choices on www.quickcrop.ie

Here are Klaus’s top ten home grown vegetables seeds for this year; all of them have been especially chosen to give great results in our cold, northern gardens:
Klaus's Top Ten Choice:
Broad Bean – Witkeim Manita
Beetroot – Pablo F1
Cabbage – Mix of all seasons
Carrot – Rothild
Courgette – Ambassador
Lettuce – Surprise Mix
Parsnip Javelin F1
Pea – Greenshaft
Scallions – Ishikura
Swede – Gowrie


As we are on top ten lists, let’s have a look at top tips for finding what you want when searching seed Catalogues:

Most descriptions are self explanatory and help us decide what’s best for our own garden.

• Early Maturing -If you want the crop early before main crop harvesting.
• Large Fruited
• Ideal or Suitable for Pots, Raised Beds
• Good for Freezing
• Compact Variety
• Resistant to Bolting, Blight, Carrot Fly
• Recommended for Exhibition – Ideal if you want to take your crop to the Carndonagh show
• Can be grown indoors or outdoors only – this usually applies to cucumbers, tomatoes and tender vegetables where specific varieties have been developed to survive in certain temperatures.

There are other more confusing terms to look out for on the packets. Here are a few.
F1 varieties, or hybrids. These are created by crossing two parent varieties to create a new one with claimed superior traits to either of the parents. Because of the way these are created, the seed is more expensive as it has to be re-created from the parent plants each year and only the company that produces them knows what those parents are. There is no point saving seed from F1 varieties as it will not be the same as the original.
Genetically Modified (GM) seeds. These are created by manipulating the genes of the plants in laboratories and there is very justified concern that these traits could contaminate other crops making them sterile. Thankfully at the moment GM seeds aren’t licensed for sale to amateur gardeners in the EU.
Open Pollinated varieties. These are ones which can produce seed which you can reuse year after year. This is how new varieties developed through most of history as plants cross-pollinate and this results in a healthy bio-diversity of seed types: particularly important as the different traits can often have better resistance to various crop diseases. These are also sometimes called heirloom varieties although this term does get used more broadly.

Organic seed. These are grown by certified organic means without pesticides, fertilizers or herbicides and must also be packaged without being treated with fungicides.

Making choosing simple
Thankfully Klaus has done all of the hard work for us and has come up with the perfect choices for our vegetable gardens. Check them out on Quickcrop.ie