BIODYNAMICS WORKS

garlic doing well - planted back in december

chillies and tomatoes sprouting away - it's cool having the propagator in the cottage so we can watch plant power in action

If you grow plants and haven't already tried following biodynamic principles I highly recommend you give it a go. The ideas work very well for us and for every other gardener I know who follows them. It's to do with planting, sowing, harvesting, pruning etc in tune with various natural cycles such as the phases of the Moon. I don't think it's hard to understand that the Moon has an effect on plants, after all it has an obvious effect on the sea so it surely must act on all water on the planet. I know many people find some of Steiner's ideas hard to get their heads around, but I'd just say, as our teachers said when I was studying musical instrument technology, "If it works, use it." You're never going to progress unless you keep exploring and trying new stuff. Come down from the trees... or maybe, get back into the trees...
We planted the garlic in the photo on a good garlic-planting day and, sure enough, up it came beautifully. I was interested to notice, by the way, that Stewart and Helen's saved-from-last-season garlic came up much more strongly than some bought in this year, even though it was top quality. Similarly, the chillies and tomatoes we planted have come up well though it's also interesting to notice that the chillies were planted on the ideal day and have come up better than the tomatoes which we planted the day after. So give it a go, Ruth works with Maria Thun's Biodynamic Calendar, easy to get hold of and just a few £'s. At the end of the day it's simply about working gently and cleverly with Mother Nature rather than trying to bend her to your will with brute force and dumb chemicals - so what's stopping you?