You can do it

Embarking on a new way of gardening can be a daunting prospect. Will it be doomed to failure? What happens if I rip up my lawn in favour of a vegetable garden and then I don’t have time to look after it? How will I know the right time to apply the biodynamic preparations? The answer is, you can convert to biodynamics at your own pace. There is no rule that says you have to do everything at once. Don’t bite off more than you can chew at the outset.

Start by simply going out into your garden and studying the space you have available. Even if you have lived with your garden for a long time, get to know it as a living organism. How does it change through the seasons? Where is the light and shade?

When I started out with biodynamics, I was already gardening organically. So my first step was to start applying the biodynamic preparation 500 (cow horn manure). I bought enough preparation for three acres. I have a quarter acre block. The amount looked so small. I stirred the 500 according to the accompanying directions and applied it with a little straw broom that I pilfered from my kids’ cubby house. The neighbours looked bemused as I walked around my place, flinging out what looked like water from a bucket. That was it. I’d become a biodynamic gardener. Now I do a lot more than that, but I will always remember how I started. You just have to take that first step. And then another one, and another …