Care for the Earth by caring for your earth
I recently attended the annual Biodynamic Agriculture Australia Conference, which was held in the Adelaide Hills and attended by 140 enthusiastic biodynamic practitioners. And what a great conference it was! A highlight of the conference was Manfred Klett’s lecture series, Manuring From the Kingdom of Nature, in which he explained the need to provide nutrition to plants through well prepared compost. Manfred is a biodynamic farmer, former director of the Department of Agriculture School of Spiritual Science (Dornach, Switzerland) and author of Principles of Biodynamic Spray and Compost Preparations.
Manfred advised us to:
John Priestly
We are very pleased to bring you a podcast of Eileen Kaufman’s interview with John Priestly, an expert biodynamic citrus grower and consultant from the Hunter Valley in New South Wales. Recently, John was a guest speaker at the Parsifal College Applied Biodynamic Course, of which Eileen is one of the main tutors. To listen to the interview, click the play button.
John packs seven topics into this 13 minute interview, including:
- his philosophical background
- ecology of the soil - keeping it healthy
- foliar sprays and tonics
- recommendations to treat spray-contaminated soil
- alternative nitrogen sources (instead of animal manure) for home composting
- ecologically safe snail control methods
- deterring fruit eating birds.
John brings a wealth of information through a lifetime of experience in sustainable farming and land management. His past clients have even included an airport and a racecourse. John takes an ecological approach to solving pest problems, explaining “All pest and disease problems originate from the soil”. For example, weeds are dynamic accumulators - they accumulate particular minerals that are present in very low concentrations in the soil. Over time, weeds balance out nutrient deficiencies. By applying the deficient nutrient to the soil the weed gradually disappears. For instance, yellow dock accumulates iron, so iron chelate is used to treat the soil to reduce this problem weed.
John also explained his method for tree planting. He doesn’t put compost in the hole and this forces the tree to send out roots in search of nutrients. After a year, once the tree has established itself, compost is applied.
Eileen will be attending the National Biodynamic Agriculture Australia Conference this weekend so you can look forward to hearing more interviews from biodynamic experts. She has also promised to send a post from the conference (too much biodynamic wine and it could be a very interesting post! Just joking, Eileen is way too professional for that…).
Backyard Biodynamics is a place where you can learn, share and be engaged by biodynamic gardening in your own backyard. 