Reflections on Biodynamics

Biodynamics. It seems this word evokes an interesting emotional response when said and talked about among growers, and those new to growing. For me, I meet the word with hesitation and interest. I am hesitant because so much about the philosophy is unknown to me. The mystery surrounding this practice could be intentional as far as I can surmise. I am interested because I’ve seem the amount of food grown on biodynamic fields.

The philosophy, and it is important to consider this a philosophy just like “organic” (when either of these ideas morphs from philosophy to a marketing gimmick, as in organics, the purity of the practice is corrupted) was first described to me as “beyond organics”. And in a sort of weird joke biodynamics was described as “organics on steroids”. “Steroids” is just used to elude to biodynamics being equivalent to organics pumped up, or taken to an extreme. Organic on steroids would just be the industrial food system.

So, my interest finally got the best of me and I have been following a biodynamic planting calendar since early February. The calendar is the only biodynamic practice I am following, I have not yet delved into the world of biodynamic preparations--bull horns, etc. But, following this calendar has proven to warrant public reflection (I am not trying keep biodynamics shroud in mystery!). I would like to express some thoughts on the subject for those who may have never heard of the concept, or are like me with feelings of hesitation and interest but have been scared to try practicing biodynamics.

The calendar is based astrological phases--not very strange since all calendars are basically based on this. But, the calendar is also based on knowing when certain planets will be in a particular alignment with the Earth, moon, sun, and other planets. For example, a biodynamic experiment demonstrated that a particular planet influenced the flower color of certain plants. When these seeds were planted during the period Mars was influencing the earth, the flowers were red. When planted with venus, yellow; with Pluto, blue. This sounds really crazy, and sort of exciting, but as far as I know every farmer, and maybe everyone, in ancient societies knew this type of information. We are all still told in grade school how ancient cultures, the Myans, Egyptians, etc planted by constellations and when they were visible in a particular part of the night sky. It is also well known of how explorers used the stars for navigating. What I am trying to say is that these are not new ideas, and are in fact really old. We have simply forgotten them. In true Puritan/American fashion we decided we would do without ancient knowledge--we would find our own way.

What I feel has been the most positive aspect of using this calendar is its power to organize. The calendar breaks up plant types into four categories--leaf, root, fruit, and flower. Everyday corresponds to one of these categories. So, when I go into the greenhouse to start seeds in early February I can go in knowing exactly what I am going to plant that day. This has brought clarity and focus to my thoughts while planting. If I know it is a leaf day, my mind is consumed with thoughts of lettuce, spinach, kale, collards and other leafy plants. I can focus on those specific plants. I am not distracted by thoughts of tomatoes, or beets, or anything. If nothing else, I think the intentionality that this calendar brings to my interactions with seeds is the most influential result. I am ok with saying that the seeds can detect my energy, and will either feed on or reject that energy. By being as intentional as I can with the seeds, the greater chance I have that they will respond positively to me. And, as a grower, I have a vested interest in how the plants respond to me. The idea of intentionality has opened me up to a prayer I say when sowing seeds. It is an Indian prayer that Indian farmers say during planting. They say, “May this seed be exhaustless.”

I have also found myself feeling personally connected to other farmers following this calendar, and the moon. I’m not sure if this has any real affect on my plants and such, but I can imagine feeling more connected to people and natural elements is positive. When I plant tomatoes and then notice an almost full moon the next night, I feel the moon and I are working together to grow those tomatoes. The same is true with feeling connected to other farmers. I feel supported by them when I know we are all planting the same type of plant on the same days.

There are more scientific explanations of the benefits of biodynamics. It is said that when the moon is closer to the earth or full, it causes the seed to swell from the water in the seed. This makes since considering the moons affect on ocean tides.

I actually haven’t found any negative aspects to working with the calendar. However, I would not recommend relying totally on the biodynamic methods. You still have to be knowledgeable of gardening and farming. You still have to keep an eye on the weather. You still have to build your soil. You still have to cover crop. You still have to listen to your plants needs. And you still have to watch for pests.

The Insatiable Idea of Spring, or Spring, Here we Come!

The central question I want to ask is: Why is the idea of Spring so powerful?

It’s been above 50 degrees almost everyday for the past two weeks. My winter thoughts have gone from seed catalogs and garden layouts to greenhouses and planting dates. In January these thoughts would normally be ridiculous and/or impossible if were not for the past two weeks (global warming?...just kidding). However, the thoughts would normally be entering my head sometime in February, which is still ridiculous. I assume the thought of Spring at such a ridiculous time has something to do with power of the idea of Spring.

When thinking of this power of Spring it is easy to jump to Sunday-school-esc answers. “Spring is about birth”, for example. Of course, new birth is a core concept to Spring. I don’t want to negate the importance of connecting birth and spring. The idea certainly goes deep. Spring coalesces with the re-birth of Jesus. This, of course, after the time of Lent.

And Lent, of course, is the period at the end of February and all of March, and is a time of fasting, or giving-up. Typically, something like chocolate for folks today. But, this timing in February and March is actually an interesting one when practically considering the availability of food in subsistence agriculture.

To share something personal right now, I have no food. It has been a few weeks since I ate anything I grew myself--without the supper market I would have starved to death by now. Even if I had planned for this winter by canning, storing, or preserving food I had grow, by now I would start to see a dent in the stock and I’d be getting a little worried. Barbara Kingsolver in her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle about her year eating only what she grew says the real problem with subsistence production is not the winter, as most suspect, but is actually early spring. By early spring most food that had been put up in summer and fall is almost gone, and things are only just beginning to be planted outside--which means it’s going to be another two months before any harvest. Enter Lent; the time of fasting. Lent becomes obviously practical within a subsistence agriculture framework, like the one that existed up till the industrial revolution, and one someone like Jesus and the folks of the early church would have been very familiar with.

Interestingly, as we have become more and more disconnected from food and food production, Lent is now touted as a time to do something you normally don’t--not to fast, or give-up in other words. We have turned the season of fasting into a season that one could potential consume more of something. Work out more, or eat more healthy fruits and vegetables, for example. Lenten promises have sort of become like new year’s resolutions. In becoming disconnected from food and food production we have also become disconnected from the very religious traditions we cling to as part of our identities.

I want to go deeper, or peel back a few layers to this story. In trying to go a little deeper with the concept of Spring I came to the word potential. I need not explain the idea of potential within the resurrection of Christ celebrated in Spring.

So, potential in what? And for what? Honestly, I am not sure exactly. For me, it’s one of those tip of the tongue, can’t quite put my finger on it, can only know it when I see it kind of things. (potentially a metaphor for my personal identity?)

But, to speak simply, in Spring I see the potential of a beautiful crop. I see a lush garden bursting with fruit and leaf and wildlife. I see dinner--kale pizza is almost here! I see people and groups moving throughout the garden, admiring some particular plant, picking a leaf or tomato to eat. This foresight ultimately sees the potential of a healthy soil, healthy bodies, and the commitment to tend a garden.

I should also not forget the importance remembering has in this idea of potential; a healthy mind if you will. For the potential is there in those beds for us gardeners to correct last years mistakes, if we remember them. The cruelty of gardening is that gardeners only get one chance each year to do their job right, and if it goes wrong we have to wait till the following Spring to try again. Spring becomes the time act on our promises to the garden: I’ve promised to take better care of the basil this year, for example.

For what? This is where I am not so sure. The general optimism for the future maybe? Though, I just gone explaining the reflectiveness Spring entices. For something to happen? Like some spiritual awaking in myself? To find a true identity? Or the process of getting to know folks in the neighborhood via the garden? Something really shallow and selfish like job security? I am not sure what for. Maybe there isn’t much there to begin with.

Either way, today, marks the official beginning of my season. I planted collard greens, kale, leeks and onions in the greenhouse. Tomorrow is mustard greens, and more collard greens. I used a mixture of one part garden compost that I made, one part potting mix, and one part sand for the leeks. Then mad soil blocks with potting mix for everything else. These starts will all be transplanted in the garden in a about 6 to 8 weeks and will be harvested sometime in the middle of May. Then they will be dinner.

[I’ll also mention that there is a swimming pool at the farm. Just sayin’, that’s a pretty insatiable idea of Spring right now too!]

-justin, garden manager

God made dirt and dirt don't hurt

...but it sure does stink.


This month I've had my first couple experiences turning compost. I'm the new intern-ish person at the garden and I'll be honest, a smelly compost pile is not exactly what I had in mind when I signed up to learn how to grow things. When Justin, Kern and I turned the piles a few weeks ago, they were full of rotting pumpkins, onions and coffee grounds. Since compost can heat up to 180 degrees, the heat produced delicate odors of hot coffee, sauteed onions, and human feces. It should probably be patented into an air freshener scent.

Despite the odiferousness of these piles, they are the perfect place for my garden education to begin. My knowledge is literally growing from the ground up. Soil is the most important component to a successful garden and I'm learning how it is made. We help the process along by putting in the right stuff - veggie and fruit scraps, eggshells, leaves, sticks - and turning the piles to shift things around and help aerate, but most of the work is done by the critters that live in these piles - worms, roly polys, beetles, ants and little microscopic thingies.

This seems to be what gardening is all about - helping along the natural process of growth and development. Our role is not to create, but to cultivate.

Death, December, and the Nature of Urban Gardening

Gardening is teaching me the unavoidable truth of death. Society seems to tell us living longer is better, or that being younger is more desirable; essentially that death is to be feared and avoided. But the garden tells us otherwise. And I will go further and say the layer of “urban” to garden reinforces the theme of unavoidable death. I apologize for getting gloomy here, but it’s December and it gets dark too early.

I will start with the more intuitive understanding of death in the garden.

We have to understand that death is part the natural cycle of the garden: simply one small transformation with the context of a large transformation, namely birth, sprout, growth, death, and re-birth, or the life cycle. Plants must die in order to set seed and live again, and truly so that we can live. This is the nature of December and this time of year.

I could go on to talk of the death and life of the soil. In death soil becomes alive. For composting I put dead and decaying plant and vegetable matter mixed with dead leaves or chopped up trees. At the moment of the mixing life begins. Tiny bacteria and fungi grow and live. Then larger insects and grubs, like worms, are attracted. The soil almost vibrates with life; all from death.

I want to add something a little less conventional when talking about the garden, and something that is a little more real for me right now.

Last week (Thursday December 10, 2009) Carl, a homeless guy who came into the coop regularly and was quit the character, was found frozen to death just two or three blocks away. I don’t really have any insights into this matter, just that death seems to surround us, and most of the time we can ignore it or try to avoid it until death is too close to be ignored. I must have been doing a good job of ignoring death because Carl’s death shocked me. It has really confused me. His death seems senseless. I mean, how can a man freeze to death? Why and how do we let that happen? Could i have done anything?

But I have to comfortable with death, though sometimes senseless like with Carl, in such a way that I don’t hide from it. The nature of this urban garden, and I’m sure others, is that Carl will not be the only homeless guy I know that dies while I am here.

Inside in December

It's cold!

This time a year I am finding myself inside more than out. Being inside, I have begun thinking more about gardening inside. I found this video on inside plants (winter is the time for research, reading, dreaming, and seed catalogs).




I don't have any of those plants. But, I have been growing a spider plant (chlorophytum comosum) and two peace lilies (Spathiphyllum). Spider plants absorb carbon monoxide and formaldehyde, and filters mold spore allergens and other harmful toxins. They don't look beautiful, but good enough, and they are functional. They are easy to propagate because they actually grow new plants at the end of their leaves. All you do is cut the new plant off and put it in a new pot of dirt.

Peace lilies are known for their work in filtering mold spores too. Try placing them in the bathroom because they may reduce mold build up in showers and shower curtains, and can filter air of chemicals often used in the bathroom (hair spray, etc).

NASA studied and named many house plants and their benefits.

Pests/Diseases: Cabbage Loppers

Currently there is a bed of the garden planted in turnip greens, radishes, soybeans, and finally collard green. The bed was planted for the fall, and the soybeans are left over from a late summer planting.

The collard greens and the radishes closest to the soybeans are being attacked by a group of cabbage loppers. Cabbage loppers are small green caterpillars that, according to Rodale’s Vegetable Garden Problem Solver, “Feed on cabbage family crops (collard greens), lettuce, spinach-family crops, peas, tomatoes, and other crops.” A quick google search found that “other crops” include soybeans. Seems I’ve created a good habitat for these caterpillars.

The damage is mostly to the collard greens. The caterpillars have eaten young leaves to their ribs.

Peas lie in the next bed over and I have seen no damage. There is also collard greens planted in another part of the garden—a part removed from proximity to soybeans—that has no damage.

Rodale’s Vegetable Garden Problem Solver suggests attracting beneficial insects to the garden (natural predators of the cabbage lopper) to control the pest problem. The clearest predator of cabbage loppers listed in the Problem Solver book is the Spined Soldier Bug. It also suggests row covers, which I see would have been beneficial in my case, handpicking them, which I’ve been doing for the past three days, and a spray of garlic or hot pepper.

What I am also going to try is 1) leaving the soybeans alone as long as I can. If the caterpillars are attracted to soybeans, I’d rather they eat them than the collards. 2) Dressing the collards and radishes with compost and mulching with leaves, which should make it a little more difficult for the caterpillars to move from plant to plant.

something...

here is something...

"I live," Eustace said, "in nature, where everything is connected, circular. The seasons are circular. The planet is circular, and so is its passage around the sun. The course of water over the earth is circular, coming down from the sky and circulating through the world to spread life and then evaporating up again. I live in a circular teepee and I build my fire in a circle, and when my loved ones visit me, we sit in a circle and talk. The life cycles of plants and animals are circular. I live outside where I can see this. The ancient people understood that our world is a circle, but we modern people have lost sight of that. I don't live inside buildings, because buildings are dead places where nothing grows, where water doesn't flow, and where life stops. I don't want to live in a dead place. People say that I don't live in the real world, but it's modern Americans who live in a fake world, because they've stepped outside the natural circle of life.

"I saw the circle of life most clearly when I was riding my horse across America and I came across the body of a coyote that had recently died. The animal was mummified from the desert heat, but all around it, in a lush circle, was a small band of fresh green grass. The earth was borrowing the nutrients from the animal and regenerating itself. This wasn't about death, I realized; this was about eternal life. I took the teeth from that coyote and made myself this necklace right here, which always circles my neck, so I'd never forget that lesson.

"Do people live in circles today? No. They live in boxes. They wake up every morning in the box of their bedroom because a box next to them started making beeping noises to tell them it was time to get up. They eat their breakfast out of a box and then they throw that box away into another box. Then they leave the box where they live and get into a box with wheels and drive to work, which is just another big box broken up into lots of little cubicle boxes where a bunch of people spend their days sitting and staring at the computer boxes in front of them. When the day is over, everyone gets into the box with wheels again and goes home to their house boxes and spends the evening staring at the television boxes for entertainment. They get their music from a box, they get their food from a box, they keep their clothing in a box, they live their lives in a box! Does that sound like anybody you know?"

By now the kids were laughing and applauding.

"Break out of the box!" Eustace said. "You don't have to live like this because people tell you it's the only way. You're not handcuffed to your culture! This is not the way humanity lived for thousands and thousands of years, and it is not the only way you can live today!"

from The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert found in chapter 1

First attempt at answering "What is a garden?"--9 month mark

After 9 months and the closing of a season approaching I feel like I am finally starting to learn what I’ve most wanted to learn—the answers to the questions “What is a garden?” “What is this McCoy Garden?” “Why does it exist?” The answers are finally budding.

Maybe I’m writing in this budding stage of understanding because budding flowers and fruits excite me most. Spring has the “fever” association for a reason. Then again, maybe I just tend to speak to soon.

Of course there is the strictly utilitarian reason for the existence of a garden. The garden I tend produces sustainably grown food for the purpose of providing access of such food (traditionally only available to the elite) to economically depressed areas (in my case 37206—a specific location). 

Ostensibly, the garden addresses a core fallacy with emergency food relief in the twenty-first century. Statistics show us hunger looks different now. Why do “Western diseases” affect the poor more than someone like me? Therefore, the produce grown in the McCoy garden addresses a nutrient deficiency, not simply a calorie deficiency.

But, there is something deeper to the space. Abstractly, it’s an idea.

Ever since February, folks coming to the co-op have peaked over the fence to yell at me—me in the garden, they above on the street. The “conversation” starts with, “Where are the tomatoes?”, then, “Are those the greens?”, then, “What’s that there?”. I of course answer.  But, then the really amazing part happens.

There’s always a story of remembering. “I remember my mother had a garden and we ate fresh tomatoes all summer.” Or, “I grew up on a farm, ya know?” For them to peak over that fence, see a garden that is vaguely familiar in looks, and remember a time of fresh tomatoes is, like the commercial, priceless.

Remembering is more than abstract though. Remembering a garden, a farm, the taste of that fresh produce, that tomato, is, in a very real way, the beginnings of an American food culture. Crossing my fingers, a food culture based on local, seasonal, culturally appropriate food and preparation methods.

And more, the element of youth has to be considered. Hosting youth groups from the neighborhood is equally important to this idea of remembering and starting an American food culture. 

I don’t think I hold an unhealthy idealist mentality of getting kids to tend the garden by them selves, taking full ownership. If for nothing else, kids are busy these days. But, if a youth group comes to the garden for a short-term service day (possibly forced upon them by school) they will hold that memory. Then, maybe its years down the line, but then maybe they see a garden in whatever city they are in, or notice the garden that’s always been down the street, and in that moment remember the garden that they worked and sweat in that one-day in the past.  Maybe they’ll peak through that gardens fence and tell a story of remembering that work. And depending on where they are in life, maybe they’ll help pull weeds.

Working in this garden is also something personal to me.

I grew up Catholic—Catholic grade school, and Catholic high school with a shirt and tie everyday. But, also grew up not knowing what that really meant to me. In some ways I rejected the tradition. I mean why has it been so dominated by men? Why is it still oppressive to women?  Does the Vatican really not thing homosexuals are equals?  Maybe, “rejecting”, by which I mean not actively participating in, is just a result of our broader culture of not going to church (or mass).

However, this growing season the garden forces me to unpack the influence of my history in the Catholic school system, in a dominantly Catholic city (Louisville, KY), and then attending a Christian identified university (Belmont University).

In some ways this unpacking has been like taking a soil test. I’ve dug up the part that will be tested—the role of faith in my life. I’ve examined what’s there, seeing layers. Then formally test the “soil” by way of intellectual reflection and study of the Catholic tradition, and the Christian tradition (the Bible and spiritual thinkers). By the end, at the end of these nine months I’m looking at the results and saying, “Oh, that’s in there? Hmm...”.

All in all the most astonishing result is this: the garden is a prayer.  To me, a prayer of thanks, and a prayer that I may be made better and point to something larger. I work this plot to give thanks for what is provided here on earth. I give thanks that in the garden heaven is spilling over its gates, and that I may catch a glimpse. I pray that in this garden I work to be a better man. I pray to be humbled. I pray to learn what my daily bread is. I work and I pray. 

tomatoes

Tomatoes are sort of the iconic backyard garden produce. Everybody wants tomatoes. Even early this year, January or so, folks would peak their heads over the fence to ask where the tomatoes were going and when they’d be coming in.

So, a few words…mainly on care and staking.

I have pruned the tomatoes in this garden hard. I pruned the plant so that there are only two main stems; think of a Y with the base-stem close to the ground. And then I have pruned back every “sucker” I see, so that the pattern of each stem goes “set” (where the tomatoes are), leaf, leaf, set (ish, if the plant goes leaf, leaf, leaf, set, that’s totally fine).

Honestly, I didn’t know much about tomatoes before this year. I had grown them before, they did ok; I knew about heirlooms, and that was about all the brain space I allowed this red fruit. But, this year, upon my visit to David and Kristy’s farm community, I was taught how to really take care of tomatoes. David walked me through this hard prune method, which I promptly took back to my garden.

The philosophy behind pruning hard this way is intuitive. All plants, especially fruit barring plants like tomatoes, need lots of sunlight to produce fruits with good sugar content—the stuff that make ‘em good. So, it’s best if sunlight can penetrate the leaf canopy of the plant. Pruning allows for this.

Air is the other thing plants need. Good airflow around a plant, with good sunlight, is probably the best disease preventing “medicine” a plant could have. Pruning allows for this as well.

What may seem counter intuitive, pruning a stem that would produce fruit, is actually intuitive when considering the health of the plant and taste of the fruit. I’ve only gotten comments on how sweet the tomatoes are so far, and not a single plant looks under stress.

The other big question of growing tomatoes is how to steak them; support them that is.

There are any number of ways to do this, but essentially there are four.

One, I’m sure we are all familiar with: the individual steak. Second, the cage. Both are used to support one individual plant.

A third, less familiar method is what I’ll call “the weave” method. It has some fancy name that I forgot. Anyway, the method came to the co-op by way of Tanna Comer, a certified organic grower on Eaton’s Creek road. All it entails is weaving twine in and out down a row of tomatoes. Placed intermittently throughout the row is some sort of stake, in my case I used T-posts, to tighten the twine to.

The fourth method I have seen and adapted to the garden in what I’ll the “greenhouse” method. What I have done is used bamboo (found on the side of the road in a throw away pile) to construct something like an A-frame. Two pieces are stood up, are crossed at a comfortable height, tied (I anchored each end with rebar), and then a long piece is rested in the crossing. The twine is tied from the piece resting across. I placed an A about every 15 feet.

I first saw something similar in greenhouses (that’s why I’m calling it the “greenhouse” method; a piece of twine would be tied to a cross-bar from the roof of the greenhouse and tied to the base of the plant. The tomatoes just climb up.

Upon trying a few methods I can safely say the “greenhouse” method is by far the best (for me that is). Space is a commodity in an urban setting. Urban growers have to maximize the use of that limited space. One interesting way (interesting because there are so many ways to experiment) is to grow vertical. The “greenhouse” method works perfectly for this. By using this method there are lots of possibilities for packing more plants into smaller spaces, and therefore getting a step closer to maximizing the productivity of the space.

Nature and Cycles

There is so much to be said about living with the seasons and adhering to a cycle that is natural. For me that has meant trying to eat with the seasons; and I’ve expanded on that notion being a full-time gardener. But, by diving a little deeper—reading, talking—the idea has come to mean living, or at the very least being aware of, a natural cycle (I’d love for it to make sense to wake with the sun and go to bed with it, or get into planting by the moons cycle).

(To be less ambiguous, think the middle-school lessons of the food-chain: the plant “eats” the sun, the bug eats the plant, the bigger bug eats that bug, etc, etc. And think of simply of the seasons)

Like many other lessons in the garden, this is something I’ve really only read about. But today, the lesson was actualized in two ways. One experience is witnessing the most amazing language nature speaks, and the other merely coincidently planned for the very same day.

So here’s how it went down:

The compost system has been revamped in the past three weeks. A revitalization project, Good Food for Good People, has been gleaning from the Nashville Farmer’s Market and then, one day a week dropping off the edible produce upstairs to the food bank and the non-edible produce “down stairs” in the garden to be composted. This translates to a huge increase in the nitrogen side of the compost equation. Which, then translates to: (and I hope I can say this—I don’t think too many Nashville government officials are reading this blog) the compost stinks. Thus, for the past three weeks a number of rats have been scurrying behind my compost bins. My response to this has been, “Well, at least it’s keeping them outside and not inside.”

Then today happened. I arrived early in the morning just before 7 a.m. for yoga. I pulled to the side of the garden, which is unusual, to park in the churches parking lot. I got out of my car and was walking to open the gate. As I was walking, paying attention to the three trash cans I have placed outside the fence for compost drop offs, a huge hawk, perched just above those cans on the fence, got spooked by my approach and flew to the dumpster, which sits right in the middle of my compost system. This bird was looking for those rats, and it was on a mission. In under three minutes it swooped down and struck a rat, a big one. It then proceeded to fly away to a nearby roof, still in view, to have its prize.

I watched as I was holding a Spanish black-radish I received from the “sisters garden” of David and Kristy’s community that had gone to seed, which I intended to harvest.

Seed saving is, of course, part of another natural cycle—the cycle of seed, sprout, growth, death, decay, and then repeat. To save seed I have intervened in this cycle between the growth and death part. For, naturally, at the end of a plants growth cycle it dumps its energy into propagating itself—seeds.

Ideally, you’d want to intervene right before the seed is about to drop. This stage should be noticeable because the plant will be relatively dry, and the seedpods should feel like delicate paper. (You may even notice some seedpods have already dropped their seeds.)

In addition to harvesting these radish seeds, today I collected some of the arugula plants that were about to drop their seeds. I’ll let these dry a little longer—about a week or two—and the harvest the seeds. Then after collecting the seed I’ll toss the plant in the compost pile to complete the “decay” part.