Main site looks to have some good info as well.
Some swear by it and say it gets results. Some say it is no better than organic growing and wastes a lot of time on unneccessary procedural mumbo jumbo. Some say it gets results by providing active helpful microorganisms in the soil but there are other ways of doing it and simpler methods.
I havn't been able to find any objective scientific evaluation of it. Personally I am not a great fan of mysticism.
David
Steiner prescribed eight different preparations for fertilizers which were allowed for use in biodynamic agriculture, and gave great details of how these were to be prepared. Inorganic or mineral fertilizers are not allowed, with the exception of quartz in substance 501 (see below). The substances are numbered 500 through 507, where the first two are used for preparing fields whereas the latter six are used for making compost.
Field preparations, for stimulating humus formation:
Both 500 and 501 are used on fields by stirring the contents of a horn in 40-60 litres of water for an hour and whirling it in different directions every second minute. About 4 horns are used for each hectare of soil.
Compost preparations, used for preparing compost, employ herbs which are frequently used in medicinal remedies:
One to three grams (a teaspoon) of each preparation is added to a dung heap by digging 50 cm deep holes with a distance of 2 meters from each other, except for the 507 preparation, which is stirred into 5 litres of water and sprayed over the entire compost surface. All preparations are thus used in homeopathic quantities, and the only intent is to strengthen the life forces of the farm.
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The above doesn't strike me as very intuitive. Personally, I would need a lot of empirical data to make me a believer in the approach above. I'm not ruling it out but, my ethanol fueled little gray cells haven't seen this sort of thing before and their first reaction is "booga-booga":-) Of course these same little gray cells don't buy into the concept that all the soil needs is N-P-K either.
- Bill(y) Coloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)
Well, you finally decided to roll out and and wander in?
The whole process sounds time consuming, time better used for contemplation and barleywine consumption, watching the garden grow.
I like to *decrease* my work load and you and The Hairyarmed Guy are right.
My main maxim, when it comes to work.......KISS.
"bout time for a snooze, had to get up too early today.
later Charlie
After your post and some further reading, I agree.
Simpler and less work...that's the ticket.
Thanks, mate.
Charlie
The definitive approach is, "Don't multiply propositions unnecessarily". Translation: Keep it as simple as you can. - Occams Razor
See ya. I'm having an identity crisis.
- (Bill)y Coloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)
Exactly1
We're in crisis mode here as well.
I am on short leash, very short.
Should have listened to ya'....didn't stay hunkered down.
She told me if she caught me online, my evening ration of grog would be withheld. She is a harsh master, my Captain is! So very cruel at times.
Technically, I am not breaking the law now.......she said *if* she found me in front of the screen. She is back in her office catching up on the endless paperwork. It really was a fortunate thing that my office space, on account of my severe lack of order, was ordered to the garage. Works prrety darn well.
Anyway, I take her at her word and am going to run like a scalded cat now.
Maybe in the AM
2nd Mate Charlie
Oh really.
Then WTF is your problem with Azomite?
You *did* read the analysis, didn't ya?
You did read application rates didn't ya?
You did read the dimeadozen testimenties, did'nt ya?
So....
1st Mate Charlie, who gained a thirty minute grace period, only cost him a massage and promise to wake the Sleeping Beauty in 30 mins. Gotta put the lead back on then.
I don't know Charlie. Sometimes you just got to trust that little BS detector in the back of you brain. When you hear it whisper BS, you should step back and, take another long, slow look. Fecal matter, maybe your right. Go ahead Charlie, you want to go out on point? You got it. Knock yourself out. In any event Charlie, as far as I'm concerned, if my buddies, the worms, are happy, I'm happy. That's what I meant about N-P-K. Is your clay-on-steroids gonna make my little buddies happy? Looking for a short cut? Hope you find it. I got other rat holes to throw my money down.
Testimonies Charlie? Where would Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson be without them? Lord, I love a good testimony as much as the next person.
I hope you didn't let your Beauty over sleep. She's a good woman and, lord, we all know she has her hands full;-)
Now go to sleep and chase some rabbits.
- Billy Coloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)
The first time I ever heard of Occams Razor was from a girlfriend who is a homicide detective. She said it's usually the spouse that did it. In some cases that I've seen, any jury in the world would rule it a justifiable homicide if the spouse did it. But I digress.
OB Gardening: the longer I garden, the more I realize that if you take care of your soil, your plants will thrive. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to take care of the soil. Feed it. Don't poison it. Compost stuff, then dump the compost on your soil. If you can dig up a shovelful of soil and find lots of nice, fat earthworms, your soil is probably pretty healthy. Don't haul leaves & weeds to the dump; compost them or use them for mulch.
I actually watched a gal dump a garbage can full of nice, fat, green weeds into the dumpster the other day. Right after she carefully dumped her aluminum cans in the can thing, her glass in the glass thing and her newspapers in the newspaper bin.
Jan
Whew.....OK....better now. Thanks. I often need a little direction and yank on the leash.
And indeed she is a good woman. It is for my own good that she has me in harness this weekend. That's what she says, but I'm not so sure, but then again, whadda ya' do, and what do I know.
Maybe a few productive days and I shall be allowed to return from exile..
I'm thinking of throwing up a few pics of the garden sometime. Interested?
Later Billy Charlie
"Biodynamic agriculture is an advanced organic farming system that is gaining increased attention for its emphasis on food quality and soil health."
Key word here is 'agriculture' which is a business based on productivity. Most of us are not producing anything of value for commercial markets in our 'gardens'. In conventional agriculture they poison weeds and leave them where they are. It's not efficient to remove things because they don't look pretty. The Monsanto club is not based on making rows and furrows look pretty.
Bringing ag chems home to our gardens makes no sense. The work of biodynamic ag is also not intended especially for folks who maybe grow a few tomatoes and potatoes.
Save your time for reading a good book and just take care of your soil. Low-till, no-till. Till to sow, not to grow. Mulch preventive, twist defensive.
----- At peace with weeds...
While we are digressing, I wanted to make the point that , statistically speaking, your spouse is the person most likely to kill you and, probably has the most justification.
Now, you go back to sleep Charlie. No reason to expose that unprotected nose anymore than you have to;-)
Some localities are set up to recycle yard waste but then you have to trust your neighbors not to poison the soil (Sevin for example). I hate suggesting that it be laid on teachers, so much all ready is, but teaching gardening and nutrition to students would make for a healthier world. Considering the connections between biology, chemistry and, arithmetic, it could be taught at no negative impact to the basic curriculum.
If you haven't seen todays Ellen Goodman column, let me pas along the highlights.
I am a convert to the idea that we can think global, eat local. Hoe in hand, we just might make a small repair in our world.
Over the past few years, a combination of environmentalists, foodies, and small farmers is finally convincing civilians -- all of us who eat for a living -- that the way we eat affects the world we live in.
I have seared into my memory the fact that every item on my plate has traveled an average of 1,500 miles to get there. Some 85 cents of our food dollars go to processors, manufacturers, and transporters who make up the food industry, a phrase that used to be an oxymoron.
This year's proselytizing comes in a highly digestible form.
In her book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," Barbara Kingsolver tells the engaging story of the year her family ate locally, mostly food they raised themselves.
"Transporting a single calorie of a perishable fresh fruit from California to New York takes about 87 calories' worth of fuel. That's as efficient as driving from Philadelphia to Annapolis, and back, in order to walk three miles on a treadmill in a Maryland gym," she writes. "Pardon me while I ask someone else to draft my energy budget."
We have also become increasingly aware of the holes in the food safety net. The same global economy that gives us raspberries from Chile in January also gives us melamine from China in our pet food. Meanwhile, our food policy supports all the processed food that fills the center aisles of the supermarket.
Michael Pollan, author and a one-man consciousness-raising group, says of the massive federal farm bill that is now up for renewal, "the system is rigged to make the most unhealthful calories in the marketplace the only ones the poor can afford."
Until now, he writes, our policy "essentially treats our children as a human Disposall for all the unhealthful calories that the farm bill has encouraged American farmers to overproduce." . . .
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Ms Goodman didn't mention that some of the melamine tainted gluten that went into the pet food also went in to human food (chickens, hogs, farmed fish).
I feeling a patriotic impulse to go garden now.
Before I shove off, Jan what did you think of Joel Salatin and Polyface Farms (ranch actually, I guess).
BTW My wife is a native San Franciscan as well. She can still remember riding the bus and street cars all around the city with her 10 year old friends. Makes you shudder to think of it now.
- Billy Coloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)
I don't know about advanced but it sure is weird.
Uh, agribusiness is like the 8th definition in my dictionary. Cultivation with its' lack of connotations about size and economics, seems to be the main thrust of the definition
I agree on the chems but, you know that when you start using qualifiers like "especially" it makes the sentence meaningless. Either it is intended or it isn't. What I've discovered is that "organic" as defined by it's originators, as opposed to government codes, had nothing to do with scale. Scale can be limiting as in organic dairy herds (how to get
7,000 cows out of the milking barn and into pasture and back again before the next milking, given that each cow needs a minimum of one acre to graze on) but not "natural organic farming" that doesn't use a monoculture approach but crop rotation and animal manures.I don't know your intentions but, this sounds borderline patronizing. That would be good, if I respected you but, I don't know who you are or, what you have done.
As it is, your jingoism irritates me. Why not try,"Think globally. Eat locally"? Then, even if you don't understand it, it still works.
We agree.
Otherwise, chunbi.
- Billy Coloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)
Ya'll are too damn noisy.....I'm wide awake and rarin' to go.
The Lovely was *so* pleased with my perfomance this weekend that she has granted me a bit o' freedom.
Hmmm..... I was kinda gettin' into that spikey collar, leash, and whip thing, though.
Ain't Misbehavin' Charlie
Uh, Charlie, you haven't drunk your bowl of stout yet. It's getting late. If you get up early, you can bite someone before they ever knows what hit 'em. Maybe it will be a G8 person. Save some of the SOB for me Charlie. I want to bite a G8'er too. SOBs. Grrr
- Billy Coloribus gustibus non disputatum (Grrrr)
I'spose you read this then.
Oh mi'god Billy......I'm smellin ............BACON!!!
My lovely Mistress is frying BACON!!! No poopoo.....I do not lie......bad habit that.
I am gonna have summat to bite *tonite* and it won't leave a bad taste in my mouth. Damn the Cholesterol!!!!!!!!! It's BACON!!!!!! Oh wow, what will it be.....bacon and egg sammy or bacon and 'mater (nah, no good tomatoes)......or bacon and egg and cheese sammy!!!!!! Or, or ......surely not....health bomb of all time.....bacon and fried bread sammy.......or toad-in-a-hole, fried in bacon grease with mound of bacon on the side........BACONNNNNNN!!!!!!!
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWW
Pavlov's Charlie
Just as long as we are straight that this is about more than global warming which, if they are right, could easily be the end of our species. The G8 also sets the corporate rules for trade, which is a race to the bottom of the barrel. Already, the US has the fewest benefits for its' workers of any industrialized country i.e. fewer vacation days, less health care and, fewer retirement benefits. Where we have environmental benefits, those jobs are being out sourced to countries where standards are less. To European producers, this means that they want to cut benefits to their workers to be more competitive with American workers. So instead of Americans getting benefits that Europeans have, Europeans will get the same sharp end of the stick (lack of benefits) that we have. The "socialist countries" are already in the process of dismantling their safety nets. Once G8 proposals are accepted by Congress, they become the law of the land, superseding previous American law. Soon we can all be proud to be the new Spartans.
Grrrr Bring the Bar-B-Q sauce Charlie. FB Billy Coloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)
Straight for sure.
New Spartans. How true.
In another thread is was stated that 1969 was here again. It never left, just went under the radar. Those of us who had ears could hear, and those with eyes saw.
!968 was the year that I received my wake up call and saw whre this was going to lead.
Some of the boys wrote a song about it, and that song is as true today as after that dark dark day.
"tin soldiers and nixon coming, we're finally on our own".
There is an old norse word, and the concept was wriiten into old English law.....the concept of grith.
I discovered that word long ago and have striven to make the home and the garden what that concept implies.
Always be ready to pull the sides in around you Billy. And keep one eye open when napping.
Yer Olde Buddy Charlie
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