Offerings for the Spring Table

Applied Biodynamics No. 11, Spring 1995

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by Betsy Cashen, R.D. (registered dietician) reading by Stewart Lundy

“Spring stresses sudden and surprising emergence
Especially after a period of concealed existence.” - Noah Webster

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Spring comes in on a palpable wave of warmth and refreshing scent, marking the time for pushing out of bud and leaf that follows on the heels of winter. If you take the practice of Spring cleaning to heart, and are looking to ally yourself with the regenerative forces at work in Nature, there is a pair of edible plants that lend themselves as Spring tonics par excellence! Two biodynamic preparations that will be familiar to biodynamic practitioners are the biodynamic compost preparations stinging nettle (Urtica dioica), BD 504, and dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), BD 506. Along with the value of these plants as compost preparations is their value as freshly harvested foods to eat at this time of year.

newborn calf soon to be learning about nettles!

Photo by

Natalie McGill

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In his Agriculture Course, Lecture Five, Rudolf Steiner speaks of stinging nettle as the “greatest benefactor of plant growth in general”; a “jack-of-all-trades”; a carrier of sulfur, calcium, and potassium, with radiations of iron that it carries into the whole course of Nature similar to the iron radiating through our whole blood system. “In the world outside it is wonderfully similar to what the heart is in the human organism.” Its effect in the compost pile and for the earth “is like a permeation of reason and intelligence.” This is the picture given for nettle’s relationship to the soil of the farm and garden.