BD Digest #18
With your friends Lloyd Nelson and Stewart Lundy
THIRTY-THIRD WEEK OF THE YEAR by Max Leyf
So fühl ich erst die Welt,
Die außer meiner Seele Miterleben
An sich nur frostig leeres Leben
Und ohne Macht sich offenbarend,
In Seelen sich von neuem schaffend,
In sich den Tod nur finden könnte.
∇∆
FOR the first, that world I now behold
which, without my soul’s participation
were but a bleak and barren land
cold, and stale, and unensouled,
without a soul to understand
to whom it could disclose itself in revelation
could only fade and slip through grasping hand
This year, Advent Sunday happens on November 30th, coinciding with another spectacular astronomical planetary trine. Venus will trine Neptune in the early hours of the first day of Advent, and this one is specifically delineated as Specially Good in the Maria Thun Biodynamic Almanac. This time can be used to stir and spray some Biodynamic preparations. An application of horn manure or even horn silica can be applied to activate this planetary trine activity in the soil.
Rudolf Steiner placed special significance on the Advent season as spiritual preparation for the Earth over the next four weeks that moves from the light of stones, to the light of plants, the light of animals, to the light of humanity with our capacity to give and understand. In summer, we have a season of exhalation and lush growth out of the Earth. In winter, we have a time of inhalation and introspection.
The 2025 biodynamic preparation making season is coming to an end. For the last 9 weeks, we have been dedicated to making Biodynamic preparations across the country, and we are happy to report that we can make more biodynamic preparations than ever before and we have. A few more preparations need to go into the ground, including another round of Barrel Compound and more Nettle and Chamomile to prevent a future shortage. biodynamic horn silica preparation is finally ready to be unearthed. Steiner tells us to make the horn silica, “let it stay underground all summer, and then take it out in late autumn.”1 This is a friendly reminder that the Silica preparation needs to spend the summer and part of the autumn underground if you would like to make the preparation as Steiner recommends. Many Biodynamic practitioners unearth the silica preparation in late September or early October.
When you visit a biodynamic farm, you are usually in for a rare treat. A chance to see something new, innovative, creative, and curious. From whatever it is they’re growing to whatever animals and wildlife and trees there are, there is potential magic there. This recent trip to California was no such exception.
Some of the world’s most innovative and creative people are the biodynamic farmers. First, they dare to try something new, perhaps something strange. Test, try, create, renew, evolve. These are essential factors in our evolution.
Finding the needle in the haystack
Returning from making Biodynamic preparations in California has given time to reflect on the courageous individuals who are modern day pioneers in the Biodynamic movement. It can be challenging to do what needs to be done because there is a natural fear of risk. Changing even the tiniest thing can be seen as completely abandoning the mission by doctrinaire types, and they are sure the first to say so. While we welcome their caution – people shouldn’t just be making things up willy-nilly – the role of development and life always includes change. As Aldous Huxley says, “The only perfectly consistent person is dead.” Or as Steiner puts it, all living beings “carry in themselves the germ of their own destruction.” R. Steiner, Agriculture Course, Lecture IV (GA327, 14 June 1924, Koberwitz) Anything without contradictions is dead fundamentalism, because life is always open to the new. A plant “contradicts” itself by moving from grasping root to unfolding flower, and the emergence of the new seed is experienced as a “failure” for the leaves – but what a triumph for the entire plant!
In the central valley of California, one the world’s most productive agricultural areas, only two Demeter-certified Biodynamic farms exist – so far. We have to credit such pioneers for holding out in spaces that are not necessarily friendly to such a new impulse. We have to remember that, within the scheme of things, biodynamics is new inasmuch as it is a post-industrial attempt to regain a connection with the Earth that many of us lost. In another sense, this is an approach as old as time – ancient and primordial: the only way indigenous cultures could work with Nature harmoniously was because they were already actively working with life-forces that they never forgot. What makes biodynamics special isn’t that it’s working with life-forces, but that this is an innovative post-industrial return born within a prodigal society.
A unique cover
Just outside of Fresno, in the Central Valley of California, lies a unique Demeter-certified Biodynamic orchard. This is Marian Farm and Distillery, owned and operated by Gena Nonini.
At the Marian farm, you will find large plots of grapes, almonds and pecans, and several acres of citrus growing in a biodynamically certified environment. It is different than the acres surrounding the orchards. Here you will find green cover crops growing while the neighbors’ fields not a green plant in sight, other than the crop they are growing.
Last week we entered to the Biodynamic citrus grove, just down the road from the Nonini distillery and processing plant. We were in route to collect BD lemons, fresh off the tree, a rather unique experience for one who lives where we can see snow more than half the year on the mountains overlooking our agrarian valleys.
We pulled up to the citrus grove, and a clear biodynamic border can be seen between this plot and the neighbors. On one of the road sides, rosemary and other culinary herbs is growing as a hedgerow and border border in to enhance the citrus grove by providing habitat to beneficial insects and creating aromas that would remind you of the Mediterranean. Rosemary is known as a protective herb, and is capable of warding off evil spirits in folklore. Its alchemical value is associated with the word ros, meaning dew, which is considered by alchemists to be the chief source of fertility. The Paracelsian alchemist (and father of agricultural chemistry) Wallerius (wall AIR ee us) claimed that the purpose of manuring was “fattening” the earth; he even went to such lengths as distilling different types of manure to measure the portion of combustible oil in each – imagine what a smelly process that must have been! Rosemary, ros marinus, “dew of the sea” has an intimate resonant connection with the Beloved Mary, mother of Christ, herself called the “star of the sea.”
Rosemary has been used for centuries for its protective powers, and Gena has planted a large border hedgerow of rosemary and other medicinal herbs, protecting the gorgeous citrus and enhancing the atmosphere’s aromas – perfect for a Marian farm. Amongst the acres of naval oranges, various other citrus can be seen, including a border row of beautiful lemon trees full of big, juicy, fresh, aromatic fruits.
Besides harvesting a few flats of gorgeous biodynamic lemons we were also at this spot for another reason: to collect some of the cover crop to make the biodynamic preparation BD 504.
Let me back up. The primary reason we were in California was to make the Biodynamic preparations on several sites, before the approach of winter. Stinging nettle was on our mind, as we had just made that preparation on another nearby biodynamic farm.
Right outside the biodynamic Nonini distillery, there is a small vegetable plot where they grow tomatoes, edible cactus and some lovely fragrant roses. In the middle of the plot, we make and bury the various Biodynamic preparations.
It was time last week to unearth last year’s Nettle prep we had carefully made on a previous trip.
We gathered around the preparation burial spot, which, fortunately for us was clearly marked, and started digging. About twelve inches deep, we dug until we hit our buried treasure, or at least the guardian cage. Why do I say guardian? Well, you had better do something to protect the preparation if you want to dig it up later and use it, otherwise it can easily have disappeared and become totally incorporated in the soil!
Steiner reminds us to “mark the spot carefully” when making your preps, something the very first biodynamic practitioners failed to do over a century ago. They nearly lost the first preparations buried, and Steiner was ready to leave in frustration before they finally located them. It has been a widespread biodynamic tradition to continue the longheld practice of losing our preparations – a habit we are trying slowly to change, with much resistance! ;)
Steiner’s own recipe for making nettle prep is fairly simple and straightforward:
“Now, to improve your manure still more, take whatever stinging nettles you can gather and once again let them wilt slightly. Then compress them a bit and put them straight into the ground without any bladder or intestines, though you can use a thin layer of loose peat or something similar to separate them from the surrounding soil. Bury them right in the ground, but mark the place carefully so you do not just dig out plain soil when you come back for them. Let the nettles spend the winter and also the following summer in the ground; they need to be buried for a whole year. Then you will have a substantiality that is extremely effective.
When you add this to your manure - just like the other preparations — the effect will be to make the manure inwardly sensitive and receptive, so that it acts as if were intelligent and does not allow decomposition to take place in the wrong way or let nitrogen escape or anything like that. This addition not only makes the manure intelligent, it also makes the soil more intelligent, so that it individualizes itself and conforms to the particular plants that you grow.”2
The excitement of unearthing a preparation that has been buried for a year or more may only be known by a seasoned preparation maker, but it is similar to a child unwrapping a Christmas present and not knowing what they are going to get! Did it turn out right? How does it smell? Did critters get to it before I did? So many questions, not to mention the powerful revelations the preps may contain, and now you are being exposed to them.
We had done everything we thought was right in making the nettle prep: we used a good container, a wire screen surrounding it, and packed it with beautiful nettles. When we finally dug down, and unearthed the preparation that was contained in a wire cage we were perhaps more than a little disappointed. What was left? Not much is the short answer! Nettles can disappear quickly once made into a preparation. Alan Chadwick once reported getting completely transformed compost from a giant pile of nettles in only three days! This stuff wants to return to the cosmos as quickly as possible, so it’s hard to keep it in one place. Only a few teaspoons of nettle preparation were all that were left after we unearthed the prep. Whether it is worms, decomposition or some other, natural process, the preps can simply disappear with little left over to show for the work that went into them. Perhaps the Earth itself needed them right there, like putting preparations into a compost pile, and swallowed them up. Stewart likes to imagine that even if preparations were only made and left buried across the landscape – as far apart as possible, as Steiner suggests – we would be infusing the entire region with their full benefits even if we never found their burial sites.
As my friend Mattias Baker shared with me, if he left the nettle in the ground for a whole year in certain climates, he simply wouldn’t have anything left when it came time to dig it up!
I have certainly found this to be true in some situations as when I used to manage a biodynamic farm on the west coast of the island of Oahu. We would bury preparations in the ground and they would evaporate without a trace. We made Barrel Compost, and in a matter of a few weeks the preparation was gone!
Of course, that experience was on one of the five most fertile soils in the entire planet so the digestive forces were extremely active, and it quickly became apparent that biodynamics would have to be done somewhat differently to be adapted to the tropics.
Intelligent Citrus
Steiner tells us that adding nettle to the soil is like adding an infusion of intelligence
After digging up what little nettle prep we could find, Gena tells us to go to the citrus grove and harvest some stinging nettle for making more preparations. We loaded up for a very short drive to the Biodynamic citrus orchard. Quickly we were greeted by the rosemary hedge, and just beyond we could see the citrus trees in full fruit splendor. I was shocked to see what was growing under the entire grove of trees!
I’ve seen cover crops on farms, and I’ve seen cover crops, but I’ve never seen a cover crop like this. The entire ground was covered in stinging nettle plants. Of the many uses of nettle, here is a new one!
The entire orchard understory was covered in baby stinging nettle, acres and acres of stinging nettle, well managed, not out of control, perfectly in harmony with its surroundings. Often when I think of nettle, I think of an impenetrable patch, with its luxurious growth and protective exterior making it almost impossible to get through.
So you can imagine my astonishment when walking through the citrus, where the ground was perfectly green with healthy nettles.
A word of caution: Baby nettle still stings! Just last week as we harvested lemons, one of our eager California biodynamic helpers was busy picking young stinging nettle for making the BD preparation. She kneeled down carefully, with enthusiasm to sniff the fine scent pervading from this wonderful young nettles. With great ardor she lept back up exclaiming, “That was a bad idea!”
I almost fell over laughing, but I caught myself just in time.
Witnessing the gentle caress of nettle to the nose, I was reminded of my own inexperience I once had with this plant, and my initial initiation almost thirty years ago.
Studying horticulture in college, we had a greenhouse propagation class. We had over 100,000 plants we started from seed in the greenhouse that season. My teacher, Chip Hope, noted my warmth for Biodynamics, and the deep interest in plants they use. I had just recently been exposed to the world of biodynamics and was enamored.
Amongst the 100,000 plants we started from seed, was a host of medicinal herbs. One greenhouse tray was filled with baby stinging nettle that was grown from seed. I had never been around this plant before, but had recently heard stories of its use from my introduction to the master Biodynamic preparation maker Hugh Courtney.
In our plant propagation class, we were checking out the germination rates and success of propagating various plants from seed. Amongst the many flats of plants on the greenhouse table I noticed there was the baby stinging nettle, that had germinated nicely and was two to three inches tall. It was gorgeous, deep green and very perky. I was so excited when I noticed it I exclaimed to the teacher and my fellow classmates, “Wow, look at the beautiful baby nettle, I’ve never seen it in real life, only have read about it in Biodynamic books!”
That is when our teacher, Mr. Hope, said out loud where all my classmates could hear, “Oh Lloyd, you should smell it! With earnest eager enthusiasm, in front of the whole class that was gathered round, I stuck my nose right into the flat of baby nettle. Well, I very quickly found out what this plant is all about! My nose was beet red, felt as if it was on fire, and my classmates got a good and thorough laugh, and I became just a little wiser that fine day. For weeks after, my classmates curiously asked me how the nettle smelled. Let’s just say it was unforgettable. Sometimes we must learn things the hard way. A bee sting, or some good nettle to the nose quickly reminds us what our most sensitive areas are!
These experiences also remind us of the powerful effects nettles have and the warrior-like protection of Mars this plant gives to the soil.
Here we may feel the formic and oxalic acid that penetrates us, these same qualities that ants and bees carry in their powerful sting. A jolting experience such as these can quickly help us understand the power of the nettle.
Back to the Stinging nettle cover crop that brought up these fond memories. A biodynamic crop of well-managed nettle in a commercial orchard setting was mesmerizing to witness. This was something unique in the agricultural arena of well-managed orchards with zero cover crops, surrounding this gorgeous biodynamic farm.
The idea is that the nettle would grow and go to seed a bit and then get plowed under and let it emerge again. The introduction of nettle like this is like making a giant nettle prep on a large scale.
When plowed or tilled under, stinging nettle gets digested by the soil and is full of all sorts of interesting amino acids, all sorts of elements and nutrients, and the full spectrum of minerals. Stinging nettle is entirely rich and protein. Protein feeds microorganisms and are excellent nitrogen sources.
This particular nettle patch gets tilled under a couple of times a year, and never gets completely out of control because it is well-managed. A citrus grove with a gorgeous crop of baby nettles is a fascinating site to see, and one of rare ingenuity, and perhaps good luck. A fantastic example turning a problem into a solution.
Problem: A cover crop is needed to cover exposed soil, and a second problem is that fertilizer is occasionally required to reinvigorate the land.
Solution: In this instance, nettles work splendidly as a cover crop if you can manage them, and they provide excellent fertilization.
One thing old Rudolf was good at was turning a problem into a solution. This can be witnessed in various writings and lectures. The structure of his lectures would be to address a problem he had been invited to solve. Usually, you can catch a glimpse of what the problem was in his opening address. As far removed as his lectures may seem to wander, they are usually answers to the concerns he articulates at the beginning.
Biodynamic farmers are good at turning problems into solutions. A fine example is that biodynamics turns what is commonly a waste product into a financially, physically, and spiritually viable, and feasible solution. I am often astonished as I pass by extra-large piles of manure from cattle operations, which are treated as waste products.
Vast amounts of time and energy in financial expenditures going into getting rid of this manure, instead of turning this into a viable fertilizer like the Biodynamic people do.
Economics comes into play as biodynamic manure is as good as gold in our Biodynamic outlook.
Somewhat recently in a classroom lecture a Biodynamic teacher, quite a lovely individual indeed, was questioned about stinging nettle and what part of the nettle plant should be used to make this into a bona fide Biodynamic preparation.
The interesting answer came out that you should only use the leaves. This is very important to note. A high-quality gorgeous preparation can be made with pure, stinging nettle leaves. The result would potentially be a beautiful preparation that should come out as a very nice stable humus-like consistency. We have tried this and have had very good results, in producing a nicely finished prep using only nettle leaves to produce it. In Stewart’s experience, if you bury the preparation even with a little bit of a viable root from nettles, it can consume the entire lot you buried! Be careful no roots go into what you bury unless they are completely dead, but best usually not to risk it.
We can produce beautiful, potent, and powerful BD #504 nettle preparation only from the leaves; however, if we do this, we would be leaving out something important. It is similar to a part truth versus a whole truth. It is easy to extract part of the truth from the whole, but it is a challenge to isolate that truth without the bigger picture.
As we said in an earlier digest, take the best and leave the rest. Try, explore, document, create and renew. Evolve, this is our work. While we evolve let’s be firmly grounded in a rooted foundation of Rudolf Steiner own manual he provided us to do this work. The Spiritual-Scientific Foundation for the Renewal of Agriculture, we can find our guidelines there.
Somewhat astonished by the answer of only using leaves to produce this preparation, a quick reread of Steiner word revealed his thoughts on the subject.
In the third discussion session of the Agriculture course that occurred on Saturday, June 14, 1924 in Koberwitz, Rudolf Steiner was asked, “Should we use the flowers of the stinging nettle? His answer: “Yes, but take the leaves too— take the whole plant when it’s in flower, but not the roots.”
So we have in this statement, a definitive answer from Steiner himself as to use the whole plant, including the flower leaves and stem. The only part you shouldn’t use is the roots. According to Gerbert Grohman’s remarkable two-volume book, The Plant, we have various plants that embody a particular aspect that is normally clearly differentiated in other plants. For example, Equisetum arvense is “all stem” – it has no true leaves, no real fruits, uses spores not seeds, and its roots are primitive. Ferns, by contrast, are not many tiny leaves but each branch is one contiguous leaf: they are “all leaf.” When we arrive to nettles, a paradox emerges: their flowing impulse seems externally inibited because the entire plant is a floral impulse with is dramatic radiating spines: stinging nettles, through and through, is “all flower.” For Stewart, Nettles marks a glimpse of our future development: the floral reproductive impulse inhibited, and sublimated so the entire being becomes infused with kundalini light. According to Maye Bruce’s research, two of the biodynamic preparations in compost perform most of the work: yarrow, which we all love, and stinging nettles. If you were to utilize only two of these preparations, you must use these!
This makes a lot of sense as otherwise in biodynamics, we are collecting the flowers of Yarrow, the flowers of Chamomile, the flowers of Dandelion and Valerian. Not only this, but when we remember what John Ruskin says, “A flower is to the vegetable substance what a crystal is to the mineral.”3 Even the silica preparation is a flower preparation in its own plane of existence!
Now it can easily be said don’t use the stem because the stem takes longer to break down than the leaves, but in some cases this is exactly what must be done if you want anything to remain behind. Stewart always makes a point to include the woodier bits of nettles so that there is nourishment for the ongoing decomposition process.
Discernment and creativity will be needed to adapt these things, as we experienced in California the preparation disappearing rapidly before we can even get to it. Perhaps in warm southern parts of California we should be using more stem because the nettle dug up basically disappeared. There was none left. Maybe if there was more stem, we could retrieve more of the final product more easily.
We did recover a good bit of stinging nettle from our friends biodynamic ranch over in Firebaugh, California. There we built a protective cage for the nettle, used plenty of stems, and we were even able to reuse the cage and put it back in the ground full of nettle to be unearthed after Easter of 2026.
We did end up making preparation from the beautiful cover crop of stinging nettle that was growing under the lemon trees at Gena’s. We added the whole plant that was flowering, with the exception of the root. We buried in her little prep garden where she and her coworkers walk by every day. At Stewart’s farm in subtropical Virginia, they collect nettles, chop it thoroughly, let it wilt in the shade for 48 hrs and then and only then, once it’s shrunk 80%, pack it in unglazed terracotta pots and bury this in their sandy loam soil surrounded by generous amounts of peat moss. The terracotta pot has a lid and is protected both from rain and roots as much as possible. This year they collected 300+ pounds of fresh stinging nettle which compressed down to about twenty tightly-packed gallons in terracotta pots. Stewart’s earthworms love nettles, and he’s happy to share it all with them… later!
Adapting biodynamics to new regions, climates, and ecosystems is needed to further the evolution and spread this work. We can make nettle preparation in Colorado and dig it up a year later and a half later and it might be perfect. However, if we dig that same nettle preparation up in California, it may have disappeared after three months in the ground. Because the digestive forces are different, astral-etheric energetic qualities vary from region to region. Rainfall snowfall, drought, sun, exposure the atmosphere, humidity, soil, structure, type sand, or clay, or loam, these all contribute to how the preparations transform.
In truth, we have to look at it as a modern alchemy, if there is too much dryness to balance it add water, too much water forces balance it with dry, too cold balance with warmth, to warm balance with cool, etc. The farmer is always an alchemist of the elements.
If you have a Biodynamic question, please put it in the comments and we will try to work that out the best we can. What has stopped you from making preparations? Or what problems have you encountered making this most vital of preparations? We are here to answer your questions and the more shared public here, the more others benefit from our conversation! Thank you for being here!
Go Biodynamic!
For Life!
Agriculture Pg 74 C/G trans.
Creeger/Gardner trans pg 99
John Ruskin, Works of John Ruskin, Proserpina, (University of California, 1885) pg. 49
Thank you all. This was a wonderful read
Hi Lloyd and Stewart,
Thanks for the great article.
I'm curious about using the annual nettle (Urtica urens) such as is found at Gena's farm in the orchard for prep making as opposed to the perennial (Urtica dioica) which Steiner suggested to use. On our farm, we have plenty of the U. urens too but have only worked with the U. dioica for prep making. Urtica urens is quite herbaceous and rarely gets over 2 feet while the perennial can get 10 feet here and is much more "woody". Perhaps the U. urens is too herbaceous and "disappears" over the course of a full year before the prep is ready? Cheers, Delmar