Your Biodynamic Garden in Spring

You have probably been anticipating spring’s arrival after all the wet and cold weather throughout the winter months, and now finally with the spring Equinox on the doorstep it is coming. And this year the equinox is quite early according to https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/uk/london with the day and night being equal length on the 17^th  March.

Yet, if we look at temperatures on long term forecasts you might get slightly impatient as right through to end March, we are facing danger of night frosts and day temperatures are just climbing a bit over 10 º centigrade with the exception of the South of England. The further inland, north and higher in altitude you are, delay your sowings at least by a week or two compared to indications given here.

This means that soils are going to be slow to warm, particularly if you are on a heavy clay soil or silty clay, delay your sowings and transplanting as your seeds or seedlings might just rot in the ground with the wet and cold weather expected.

Ways to speed up warming of heavy soils is by aerating them through forking or digging and applying ample woodash or quicklime (handful/m2) before sowing and before planting potatoes. Remember to use the soil-life activating Horn Manure spray before getting going with sowing or planting.

Though, what a joy it will be to finally be able to prepare the garden for growing our vegetables for this coming year, to get some energising exercise and have a let up from being indoors.

Wouldn’t it be a great achievement to grow all your vegetable needs for your family or yourself and your loved ones if you have access to enough space (pots and containers can help)?

Considering a balanced diet of vegetables of root, stem, leaf, flowering and fruiting vegetables of around 650 lbs per year for a family of 4-5, all you need to produce this would be around 100m2 of growing area, depending on soil and weather conditions, fertility levels and growing skills.

Garden planning:

When planning your garden beds and what they will be occupied with, be aware that some vegetables have a very short growing time to harvesting like beans, cucumber, courgette, peas, radish, turnip, kale, kohlrabi of only 2.5 – 3 months; others like broad beans, spring cabbage, cauliflower, kale, lettuce, onion, garlic, kale, beet, beet leaf and Swiss chard need 3 – 4 months and main crop cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, carrot, parsnip, Brussels sprouts, celery, celeriac, leek, tomato, aubergine, pepper, maize, pumpkin, squash take up to 5 – 6 months.

Also consider that various crops are continuously growing and cropping like tomatoes, courgette, cucumber, kale, Swiss chard and will occupy the beds for 4-8 months in some cases or even longer if they are overwintering like leeks.

Fast growing crops can be used to create successions and to interplant and practice companion planting in between the main crops, which we consider for the crop rotation plan and the manuring requirements.

Bed layout:

Distinguish 4 different growing areas for a 4 year crop rotation: Heavy feeders, medium heavy feeders, givers (legumes and green manures), light feeders.

Compost requirements:

In a new garden or in a light soil apply in the first 3 years the amounts of composted manures suggested below.

Once the garden is in good heart and has built up sufficient fertility you can get away by applying once every four years the composted manure to the heavy feeders.

If you don’t have access to animal manures use 1½ times/m2 the amount of pure plant composts and keep an eye on your plants with higher feeding requirements, make liquid ferments form stinging nettles, comfrey or other green material to give as a liquid feed every 4 weeks or so.

Heavy feeders: 5 kg- l0 kg/m2 of rabbit compost for Brassicas, or goat, sheep and horse half rotted stage II.  except for cucurbitaceae, use stage III or IV compost. Apply 4 handful lime/m2

Medium heavy feeders: 2-4 kg/m2 of stage III (half to well-rotted) compost

Givers: 1.5-2.0 kg/m2 of stage III (well-rotted) compost + 4 handful woodash or lime/m2

Light feeders: 2.0 kg/1m2 of stage IV compost (well rotted from cow manure)*. Don’t apply any lime

 When sowing vegetables, you need to consider that they have different requirements concerning soil conditions of texture, structure, water and humus content and pH and environmental factors like latitude with more or less light availability and temperature.

When it comes to hardiness concerning air temperatures we distinguish: Hardy annuals, half hardy annuals and tender annuals. More about that later.

Examples of soil temperatures for best germination:

6 -30 º centigrade: Broadbean, broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, kale, lettuce, pea, radish, spring spinach

10-30 º centigrade: Beet, Swiss chard, onion, parsley, parsnip,

15-35 º centigrade: Bean, celery, celeriac, kohlrabi, leek, maize, courgette, cucumber, tomato, turnip

20-35 º centigrade: Aubergine, muskmelon, okra, pepper, pumpkin, squash, watermelon

Considering your soil type and the time of year you want to sow, it pays off to sow most of your vegetables, and particularly your half hardy and tender annuals in protected or even heated spaces. Be aware that the faster your seeds germinate and seedlings grow up the higher the yield and the better the health of the plants.

Hardy annuals can spend their entire life outdoors – from seed-sowing, right through to harvesting. The seed can be sown outdoors in late winter or early spring. A hardy plant can survive a frost, or cold snap.

Half-hardy and tender annual seeds will not germinate in cooler conditions, so they have to be sown in a heated place – Greenhouse, propagator, frame or indoors. They need hardening off before planting outside as young plants.

Half-hardy annuals can survive only limited or very light frost—meaning just an hour or two of frost or near-freezing temperatures. Most popular bedding plants are half-hardy annuals – Cosmos, French marigolds, busy lizzies, salvias, sunflowers, zinnias,  etc.

Tender annuals only grow well above 10 º centigrade and therefore don’t do well outdoors unless you can cover them on cold nights and sow them well ahead of spring indoors.

Examples of:

Hardy annuals: Broadbean, broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, kale, parsnips, peas, radishes, spinach, perpetual spinach (leaf beet), turnips, spring garlic, radicchio, lambs lettuce,

Half-hardy annuals: Beet, Swiss chard, onion, celery, celeriac, leek, kohlrabi, turnip, Florence fennel, Chinese mustards and cabbage, pak choy, miner’s salad,

Tender annuals: Dwarf and runner beans, courgette, cucumber, eggplant, maize, muskmelon, okra, pepper, pumpkin, squash, tomato, turnip, watermelon

Suggestions for sowing, planting and harvesting:

APRIL

Sowing:

HEATED GREENHOUSE: early tomatoes for outdoor planting, maize, 2. succession of courgette for fungus resistance, squash, pumpkin, runner beans, ridge cucumbers for outside

UNHEATED GREENHOUSE, UNDER FLEECE OR COLDFRAME: Dwarf French beans, celery, celeriac, leek, lettuce, mustards, fennel, parsley, onions, sweet corn, leaf beet

OUTSIDE: Beetroot, leaf beet, chives, main crop carrots, parsnips, Chinese mustards, endive, Florence fennel, onions, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cardoons, winter & Savoy cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi, peas, radishes, spinach, turnips, spring garlic, salsify and scorzonera, thyme, dill

Transplanting:

HEATED GREENHOUSE: sweet peppers, aubergine,

UNHEATED GREENHOUSE, UNDER FLEECE OR COLDFRAME: Dwarf beans, tomatoes, sweet peppers, aubergine, cucumber, basil, New Zealand spinach

OUTSIDE: 2. early and main crop potatoes, beetroot, leaf beet, celery, celeriac, leek, courgette, main crop potatoes, onions, leeks, lettuce, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, kale, kohlrabi, land cress, parsley, lettuce, fennel, parsley, kale, Swiss Chard

Harvesting:

GREENHOUSE: Kale, Swiss chard, leaf beet, lambs lettuce, lettuce, spinach, rocket, radishes, miner’s salad, parsley, Chinese mustard, mizuna

OUTSIDE: sown in October under protective: Radishes, early lettuce;

early turnip, asparagus, overwintering cabbage, kale, perennial kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, parsley, spring onions, spinach, leaf beet

 

MAY

Sowing:

UNHEATED GREENHOUSE, UNDER FLEECE OR COLDFRAME: overwintering cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, squash, pumpkin, lettuces, Florence fennel, onions, endives, radicchio, sugarloaf, Chinese cabbage, pak choy:

All for transplanting outside

OUTSIDE: Maincrop carrots, beetroots, swedes for storage in winter;

Chives, chicory, thyme, onions, brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, kale, parsnips, peas, radishes, spinach, turnips, cauliflower, early beetroot, asparagus, summer corn salad, endive, courgettes, ridge cucumbers, squash, pumpkin, runner beans,

Transplanting:

UNHEATED GREENHOUSE, UNDER FLEECE OR COLDFRAME: sweet peppers, aubergine, cucumber,

OUTSIDE: early outdoor tomatoes, maize, squash, pumpkin, runner beans

Main crop potatoes for winter storage, Florence fennel, onion sets, lettuce, globe artichoke, horse radish, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, kale, kohlrabi, land cress, ridge cucumbers

Harvesting:

HEATED GREENHOUSE: Sweet pepper, tomato, aubergine

UNHEATED GREENHOUSE, UNDER FLEECE OR COLDFRAME: dwarf beans, lettuces, spinach, rocket, radishes,

OUTSIDE: Asparagus, leaf lettuce, early turnip and carrot, kale, perennial kale, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, parsley, Chinese mustard, mizuna, spinach, leaf beet

It might be daunting to think of all the steps of sowing, pricking out and transplanting and we might not have the time to raise all our own seedlings, even though we might only need anywhere from 25-100 seedlings each.

Luckily there are now organic nurseries, who sell and ship seedlings beyond the open pollinated seeds they are trading with.

Just to mention one; it is based in Devon and is called Growers Organics.

If you want to give your garden a biodynamic touch of improving germination rates, vitality, resilience against adverse weather conditions, to enhance yields and the nutritional quality,

I suggest you apply the horn manure preparation (Soil activator or 500) around sowing, pricking out and transplanting times on the soil surface in droplet form in the afternoon.

If you group your sowing, pricking out and planting times indoors and outdoors,

you might get away with 4-6 applications of preparation 500 in a small garden/year.

To improve particularly resistance to climate extremes, pest and disease dangers and pollution and if you want to sensitize the vegetables to thrive better under adverse conditions, the application of the horn silica preparation (501) is highly recommendable.

It is applied by misting the prepared 501 in the early morning onto the leaves, when the part of the vegetables we want to harvest is starting to develop in its rudimentary form.

You can find possibly an average time 3-4 times a year where most vegetables are in their optimal stage when the application of the preparation 501 is most effective.

This approach together with the application of a compost prepared with the biodynamic compost preparations or the Mausdorfer Starter gives you a head start considering the many environmental factors which are against a healthy development of our food crops.

The biodynamic preparations are all available from: https://www.biodynamic.org.uk/shop/

Further courses on the use of the preparation use and composting can be found here too.

Consult: https://www.biodynamic.org.uk/event/gyoh-online-bd-gardening-course/

Wishing you good luck, perseverance and ample learning opportunities to improve your journey in your garden with your soil, the cultivated and natural plants, the domesticated and wild fauna and last and not least the joy of savouring the fruits of your garden.

Hans – Gunther Kern  (Biodynamic grower, gardener, teacher, faciliatator and consultan)