Planting Good Seeds

JC put in the new garden bed today while I felt like I mostly worried over the many things we have going on at the moment. Goodness! What have we gotten ourselves into! Despite the business and rush of it all, it is still a good feeling to actually see the progress coming along so quickly. Its as if every new bud or ripening fruit is a novelty. As spring crosses over into summer, we are amazed at the lushness of it all. The garden is becoming quite lively around here!

Among the everyday work here at the homestead, I picked a rather large beet that I hadn't noticed before. Reports from my Mom and Aunt Judith tell me that it was one tasty veggie! Our new Buddha Hand Citrus tree is another curiosity here that's drawing quite a bit of interest. Luckily, it came with a recipe for Candied Buddha Fingers that I'm just dying to try. 

I should also mention, we've discovered a much nicer way of planting beans here at the Urban Farm. Escaping from the heat of the day with seed packets in hand, planting our pole beans at night left us giggling like mad children on a secret adventure! Planting by the light of the moon is not a new invention though. Biodynamic agriculture principals use the lunar phases to plant by:

At the core of Steiner’s biodynamic philosophy is the controversial idea that lunar phases affect plant growth. Biodynamic gardeners contend that the same lunar forces that cause oceanic tidal changes effect plant root and foliage development.

What is Biodynamic Farming all about?

In the early 1920's a group of practicing farmers, concerned with the decline of the soil, sought the advice of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, founder of anthroposophy, who had spent all his life researching and investigating the forces that regulate life and growth. From a series of lectures and conversations held at Koberwitz, Germany, in June 1924, there emerged the fundamental principles of biodynamic farming and gardening, a unified approach to agriculture that relates the ecology of the earth-organism to that of the entire cosmos. This approach has been under development in many parts of the world ever since. Dr. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, who worked with Dr. Steiner during the formative period, brought biodynamic concepts to the United States in the 1930s. It was during this period that the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association was founded in 1938.