How-To: Balancing Biodynamic Soils

Taking Soil Renewal to the Next Level

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“Life is a universal omnipresent principle, and nothing is without life. In some forms life acts slowly—for instance, in stones; in others (organized beings) it acts quickly. Each element has its own peculiar living existences, belonging to it exclusively.”¹

In my experience, more than a few biodynamic practitioners almost completely ignore the mineral realm. Perhaps this is because they want to take care to “remain within the realms of life”² as Steiner urges us. But if we are not conscious about balancing the mineral levels of the soil, we are often missing key elements that need to be present for life to thrive properly. What Steiner means is that we must keep our attention on the unfolding potential dynamics latent within everything. There is potential in compost and all organic matter, but there is also living potential in mineral amendments we might add to our soil.

Steiner says, “Nowadays we are wont to attach the greatest importance to the physical and chemical constituents. To-day, however, we will not take our start from these; we will take our start from something which lies behind the physical and chemical constituents…”³ While the macrocosmic view looks at the dynamics at work behind the veil of appearances. A hermetic maxim Steiner would refer to is: Spirit is never without matter. Matter is never without Spirit.

Even in the elements of the periodic table, we have the workings of the spiritual world. Each element has its own character, affinities, and behaviors. And if some of those qualities are missing in the soil, all life growing out of the soil suffers. We should keep in mind that we are not fertilizing with vast amounts of minerals. An acre of a few inches of topsoil weighs over 2,000,000 pounds — not counting the massive amount of soil below! Applying a few hundred pounds of minerals and a ton of dolomite does almost nothing to change the soil's parent material but rather informs the soil with new dynamics. As Steiner suggested, all nourishment is really homeopathic: we only absorb a minuscule fraction of what we eat. Likewise, when we apply lime to a field, plants only assimilate a tiny portion of what we spread. When we restore mineral balance to the soil, we are replenishing the dynamics of life.

If you were to suggest that the important part of a piano is its music, of course, you’d be completely correct. But if you were to remove the metal, merely because it’s a “dead” element, or the ivory keys because they appear immobile, or the wood, because it’s not a living tree anymore, you would soon have no piano or music at all. Biodynamics is the music we play on the instrument of the soil. A soil test is no more the “real” soil than sheet music is the “real” music. The reality of Hamlet is in its performance on stage. The reality of the archetypal plant is in its instantiation as this particular plant right here. The garden is all one beautiful performance.

Steiner warns us: “The truth is that Mother Nature will abandon us without mercy, if we do not pay proper regard to potash, limestone or phosphoric acid.”⁴ And yet, how often do we pay proper attention to potassium, calcium, and elemental phosphorus in the soil?

Steiner says:

“The root is rich in salts, the flower in light. People knew much more of this in the past. This is why they called the principle to be found in the flower ‘phosphorus’. Today, when everything has become material, phosphorus is merely a solid. Phosphorus means bearer of light; phosphorus originally was the principle that bears the light in the flower. The mineral came to be called phosphorus because if you set fire to it you can see the light come out. But the flower is the true bearer of light.”⁵

Here, we have two distinct uses of the term phosphorus. One is the periodic element with which we are familiar, but the other is an analogous process within the realm of plants. These are not entirely separate, but they perform a similar function, one in the physical world and one in the etheric. But inasmuch as both have this latent potential activity, both the dynamics of the flower and the mineral are alive.

When Steiner speaks of “phosphorus,” he is often speaking not of the periodic element but of the phosphorus pole. In Paracelsian alchemy, this is normally referred to as alchemical Sulfur, but Steiner usually prefers the term “phosphorus” to describe the same activity. For example:

“Here then you have, in external nature, two states which are polar to one another; that which acts in a saline manner and that which acts in a phosphoric manner. And between them, there is a third group: that which acts Mercurially.”⁶

Alchemical Salt, Mercury, and Sulfur

Generally speaking, alchemical sulfur is the aromatic oils that naturally go up, out, and away. Salt is what settles down and precipitates out of solution (e.g., salt crystals). What is called “mercury” in alchemy isn’t the metal, nor is it the planet in the sky, but rather a mercurial quality meditating between the salt and sulfur polarities. In Steinerspeak, the mercurial middle belongs to the rhythmic system, the sulfur (or phosphorus) pole to the metabolic-limb system, and the salt pole to the nervous system. I myself couldn’t understand the link between the metabolic system and limbs until I realized that the jaw is a limb whose primary biological task is metabolism.

Things belonging to the “Salt” pole are water-soluble. Virtually all of our fertilizers today would be classified as water-soluble. As a result, we are often overcharging the “Salt” polarity, which causes the plant to produce agitated, watery growth. Leaves get bigger, and the fruit gets larger, but if it is one-sided fertilizing, they mostly put on empty water weight. If I eat too much salt, I retain more water than normal in order to dilute the excess. Plants do the same.

This is why gentle applications of slow-release minerals like soft rock phosphate are beneficial: they do not “force feed” plants but rather gradually release into the complex life of the soil. As Steiner suggests, these minerals do not spontaneously balance themselves. We must remember to balance these invisible forces carried by the mineral world. If the mineral world were not important for our gardening, why would we spray crushed-up quartz on our plants?

For those familiar with Dr. Weston A. Price, the world-traveling dentist whose magnum opus centers around validating balanced indigenous diets over industrialized processed foods, Dr. William Albrecht wrote an appendix for Price’s Nutrition and Physical Degeneration in which he suggests that as Dr. Price is to human health, Albrecht himself is to soil health. It is worth noting that Dr. Price did not advance eating a meat-heavy diet, nor did Rudolf Steiner. Instead, in an appendix to Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Price writes that the grown adult needs no more protein than a piece of meat the size of a hen’s egg per day. This is much closer to Steiner’s own indications in the Agriculture Course:

“It was taken as scientifically proved that a man weighing from 70 to 75 kilograms required about 120 grammes of protein a day. This was regarded as scientifically established. Today no man of science would give credence to such a proposition. Everyone knows nowadays that 120 grammes of protein are not only not necessary but would actually be harmful, and that man is at his healthiest when he is taking about 50 grammes a day. In this case, science has corrected itself. It is known today that if too much albumen or protein is consumed, it produces poisonous by-products in the intestines.”⁷

For plants, a similar kind of excess would be experienced in the overapplication of nitrogenous (soluble) fertilizers.

0. Establishing Flow

Before we start, we should observe. Permaculture guru Bill Mollison recommended planting nothing the first year but just watching the cycles of nature and how the land behaves in each season. With careful notes, you’ll see the land already has its own unique rhythm. If you are aware of this, you can direct its flow more artistically. In embryology, we learn that the developing human has an independent pulse before a heart. Likewise, the wild environment in which you find yourself already has a distinct pulse around which the heart of the farm can form itself.

As Alan Chadwick suggested, “Filthy, mucky tools: filthy, mucky work. Clean, beautiful tools: clean, beautiful work.” Elsewhere, he says, “We need to create the beauty and the quality first. The quantity will follow.” So, how do we approach this? Clean tools and organization are important. But where do we start? If we are serious about the farm as an organism, flow is essential to a healthy organism. If your blood does not flow easily, your body cannot operate healthily. If tools are not easily found, there is a lack of flow on the farm.

• Grow Biointensive by John Jeavons is a way to grow a complete annual diet in less than 2000 sq ft with the most efficient technology available: the human body. While not expressly biodynamic, there is nothing incompatible in this approach with biodynamics. I visited Jeavons’ operation in January 2024 (a post for another day). It is a remarkable success story. Countless people worldwide use the Grow Biointensive approach to eradicate hunger with minimal inputs and sourcing fertility from within the garden itself.

  

• The Lean Farm by Ben Hartmann is a book that takes broad principles, orients the farm according to your own particular values — which can easily include biodynamic aspirations — and then shows how to make it a discipline to optimize the flow of activities on the farm. Hartmann has several books in this series and is progressively reducing the size of his farm, producing more from less space and with less time cost. “If you shave 4 hours per week, you can take one year off every ten years.”

• Earth, Plant, and Compost by William Brinton is a text that offers and overview of composting principles to gain truly transformed colloidal humus. If you want the garden to flow, this is the heart of collecting the energy you will add to the soil, which will flow forth as vibrant plant growth. One of the most ecological things you can do for the farm is produce your own compost. There are many good books on this subject.

  

Below here is my personal approach to soil balancing we use at Perennial Roots Farm.

1. Physical,
2. Mineral,
3. Biological, and
4. Energetic: