Leveling Up Your Biodynamic Gardening

biodynamic preparations throughout the year

Biodynamic practices work in concert with a wide array of regenerative and organic gardening and farming methods. In biodynamics, we do not dictate any particular approach to tending a garden. So long as it works for you and is a way of regenerating the soil more than it is depleted, it is likely a method that is compatible with biodynamics. Some of you may not know where to begin, though, so you might consider the work of John Jeavons and the Grow Bio-Intensive approach, which boasts of supplying a complete diet year-round from as little as 1000 sq ft.

During the season, I use a lot of biodynamic preparations in the garden. The preparations I make on the farm — whether horn manure or barrel compound — invariably have sand mixed into them from our soil. I like to imagine this ends up producing silicic acid in tiny doses as I use my preparations across the field.

I spray out barrel compound as often as once a week on the garden. For a one-acre market garden, this would be 52 units of ba…