Michael Hall Garden

Dorothea Leber

I think gardening has been a passion all my life. I grew up on Bio Dynamic vegetables, because I turned out to be allergic to conventional carrots as a young child, and the only organics available at that time was Bio Dynamics, which my parents bought directly from a farm where we children sometimes stayed for a few days. One thing I never forget is a lecture given by someone from the Dottenfelder Hof, I listened to as a music student in Heidelberg. I loved the wider picture of Biodynamics , the concept of the farm as an organism, where everything worked together, and had its place and proper balance and I loved its healing possibilities for the land. I started learning full time with Anne Marie Vinkhuizen at Emerson College after I had completed my course at Music college.

After 9 months of training, Michael Hall Garden needed a gardener and I got the job. I learned by being thrown into the deep end and through lots of reading.  After 4 years at Michael Hall I wanted to widen my experience  and also work with animals and went to work with Trauger Groh at Temple Wilton Community Farm in New Hampshire for a Season. Returning  to England I took  on the vegetable growing at Plaw Hatch farm for nearly 3 years, when I decided to attend a Master Gardener’s course in Germany. During that time I worked with Peter Berg in Binzen, a large established Bio Dynamic business, mainly selling through a box scheme. I found in Peter a real master Gardener to learn from. After I completed my own training as “Gärtnermeisterin” I returned to “my” garden at Michael Hall School  in 1998. Another call to widen my horizon took me to New Zealand and Australia working  in different BioDynamic places and with Peter Bacchus who runs an advisory business “Soul to Soil”

I also completed trainings in geomancy and environmental healing and in Cranio Sacral Therapy, both of which I practise when time and energy allows it.