Creating Your Own Biodynamic Garden
November 3rd, 2009 Posted in Green Living & News
They’re different ways to approach the upkeep of your garden. One modern way to garden is by combining biological and dynamic strategies, called biodynamic gardening.
Biodynamic gardening is a form of organic farming where you treat individual farms as organisms and when you are aware of the spiritual balance between the soil, plants, and animals.
This article will discuss:
Brief Background
In order to grasp biodynamic gardening, you must understand that this entire method of farming is based around spirituality. Within the spiritual mind-set, biodynamic gardening requires an understanding and appreciation of nature.
Stressing the individual side of nature, this method suggests placing emphasis on individual plants and farms, helping to improve a single plant’s health will help the whole garden or farm overall. Biodynamic gardening was developed in 1924 by Rudolf Steiner as a result of wide-spread use of chemical fertilizers.
Dangerous chemical began to degrade the quality of soil, the vitality of crops, and the health of livestock across the world. This caused an outcry for alternate cultivation methods from farmers and gardeners. Today it is used by 50 different countries worldwide because of how helpful it is in producing healthy and organic crops.
Making Your Own Biodynamic Garden
Making your own biodynamic garden is very easy, but it takes a long time to fully come together. Since the focus of biodynamic gardening is on the individual farm or plant, you must adapt your gardening to meet the needs of that specific instance. One way to help make your garden biodynamic is by the use of cow manure.
Stuff fresh cow manure into cow horns and bury them throughout your garden for six months between the spring and fall equinox. While in the soil, the manure becomes a part of the energy of the earth. Over time it decomposes into a nutrient rich and non-smelly elixir. After this occurs, it is ready to be applied to your garden. Grab a small amount, only big enough to fit into both of your hands, and place it into boiling water, above a fire as opposed to a microwave or oven.
Biodynamic followers believe that heat from a fire to be the only natural means of heating gardening materials, as opposed to bombarding the material with unnatural electricity or microwaves. Once heated for about 10 minutes, begin aggressively stirring the mix. Create a vortex with in the mixture by stirring clockwise and counterclockwise, to help air enter and exit the elixir. After being stirred, spread it in small amounts throughout your garden’s soil.
This elixir of nutrient rich cow manure and water will help to improve all aspects of your plants and garden. This is just one of the many ways to make your garden in tune with nature and healthy, thus making in biodynamic. A few other methods include planting by the moon, creating other compost mixtures, planting by calendar, integration of crops and livestock, tillage and cultivation, radionics, and homeopathy.
Pest Control of Your Garden
If bugs and animals come into your garden and mess up everything you’ve worked on, then your efforts will have gone in vain. Some livestock are beneficial to your garden’s natural growth, while wild animals like squirrels and rabbits are certainly not.
Thus you most protect your garden the best you can by placing a fence around the perimeter. This won’t keep all wild animals out, but it will help greatly diminish the amount of the animals that do get in. To help deal with the bugs likely to interfere with your garden, use EcoSMART’s organic insecticides for that extra protection.
If you’re making a garden that is mostly organic, than the next logical step is to use organic pesticides for your gardens’ continued protection. Because EcoSMART products are chemical-free, they are safe for your vegetation, your livestock, and most importantly your family.
