Re: Bio-Dynamic weed control
At 10:08 AM 12/31/01 -0800, you wrote: As a novice, I would appeciate any advice. Where can I purchase Rudolf Steiner's books? Or instructions for making BD preps? You are pretty close to Rudolf Steiner College, 9200 Fair Oaks Blvd., Fair Oaks, CA 95628; Tel: 916-961-8727. Their bookstore has BD books. Steiner's Ag Lectures are difficult to grasp -- I recommend the new translation by Malcolm Gardner. I also suggest you look at the BD Introduction at www.oregonbd.org Preps from Josephine Porter Institute, P.O. Box 133, Woolwine, VA 24185, 540-930-4463 == Dave Robison
Re: Bio-Dynamic weed control
Dear "BD People", Thank you so much. I currently work full time in the "city" of Placerville and do not yet know how to make BD preps. I am not sure I would have time to make them properly. I live in the Sierra foothills in Northen California. Is there anywhere I could purchase some from any of you to get started? This doesn't seem to be an item that would be available for the mass market, as I think they should be made fresh, ideally on one's own land. As a novice, I would appeciate any advice. Where can I purchase Rudolf Steiner's books? Or instructions for making BD preps? Also I have a HUGE deer problem. So if it isn't weeds, mainly star thistle and grass weeds, it is deer, gophers, moles, voles, rabbits, yellowjackets and mosquitoes. Then after spring it is drought until late fall, then lots of rain on the hard clay soil, then snow every winter, with the most usually in February. It's a wonder I garden at all, but I am addicted! Please HELP!!! Thanks SO much! I have amended the soil many times with compost, mulch and manure, and in some areas is is finally making a difference. I have been working on this (part time) now for ten years. I thought that I would have a beautiful garden by now...well the rosemary, cystisus, boxwood, and spring bulbs look great. My vegetable areas have to be caged from the critters in raised boxes. I would prefer just to work directly in the soil, but my efforts were rewarded with deer eating the tops and gophers eating the bottoms. The first year I started a vegggie garden I put out 100 tomato plants that I had raised from seed. Many different kinds...from hybrids to heirlooms...Oh, I was SO excited! Until I saw them laying down on the ground. Now anything doesn't even have a chance of getting big unless it is caged. Most of the people I know, except for my garden buddies, think that I am wasting my time on such a fruitless venture. I get dirty, hurt my back and knees, and go right out and do it again each year. HMMM. Haven't I heard that the definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing the same way and expecting a different result??? (Call me "crazy") I MUST find another way! Evelyn From: "James and Barbara Hedley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Bio-Dynamic weed control Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2001 17:57:55 +1100 Dear Evelyn, You won't need to use roundup if you keep up the work on the thistle. Burn it again next burning season and cut it off with a slasher if accessible and you have a tractor or else a whipper snipper. Pull up a good lot of the thistle with seeds and roots and all. Burn these on the next full moon in a metal container like a metal slow combustion fire or a tin or drum or whatever. Stir this ash into 100 litres of water and stir to a vortex. Then reverse this after it has run for a little and stir to a vortex going the other way. Repeat this as you would for Prep 500 for about half an hour. Then spray it out in a fine mist spray 3 days in a row over your thistle area. This is the process of peppering the thistle weed. It will help this area if you spray it with the full range of BD preparations. You can use Prep 500 and manure concentrate with the other preps in together. If you are in Australia these can be purchased from the BDFGAA. Ring 02 6655 0566. The important thing for thistles is to also use the prep 501 but it cannot be used in isolation. You must spray out the other preps first. You can spray out the 500 and manure concentrate in the evening or any evening, and 501 the next morning or any following morning. There are ideal times for this but that is a bit complicated for this explanation. The prep 501 balances out some of what the thistle is trying to do and lessens the need for it to be there. Its all about getting the soil balanced to be happily growing plants. It is best to use BD preps if you want to use peppering. It establishes the balance you are after more quickly. The person you would speak to on the phone will give you more detail and help with this. Try the website: www.biodynamics.net.au Barbara Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: Click Here
Re: Bio-Dynamic weed control
I get dirty, hurt my back and knees, and go right out and do it again each year. HMMM. Haven't I heard that the definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing the same way and expecting a different result??? (Call me "crazy") I MUST find another way! Another interpretation is " OPTIMISM" without some measure of this many workers on the land would not do anything. Certainly each year we must try to work a little more inteligently. The older we get the more important this becomes. You have chosen yourself a great challenge and I wish you luck. Peter.
Re: Bio-Dynamic weed control
Dear Evelyn, You won't need to use roundup if you keep up the work on the thistle. Burn it again next burning season and cut it off with a slasher if accessible and you have a tractor or else a whipper snipper. Pull up a good lot of the thistle with seeds and roots and all. Burn these on the next full moon in a metal container like a metal slow combustion fire or a tin or drum or whatever. Stir this ash into 100 litres of water and stir to a vortex. Then reverse this after it has run for a little and stir to a vortex going the other way. Repeat this as you would for Prep 500 for about half an hour. Then spray it out in a fine mist spray 3 days in a row over your thistle area. This is the process of peppering the thistle weed. It will help this area if you spray it with the full range of BD preparations. You can use Prep 500 and manure concentrate with the other preps in together. If you are in Australia these can be purchased from the BDFGAA. Ring 02 6655 0566. The important thing for thistles is to also use the prep 501 but it cannot be used in isolation. You must spray out the other preps first. You can spray out the 500 and manure concentrate in the evening or any evening, and 501 the next morning or any following morning. There are ideal times for this but that is a bit complicated for this explanation. The prep 501 balances out some of what the thistle is trying to do and lessens the need for it to be there. Its all about getting the soil balanced to be happily growing plants. It is best to use BD preps if you want to use peppering. It establishes the balance you are after more quickly. The person you would speak to on the phone will give you more detail and help with this. Try the website: www.biodynamics.net.au Barbara - Original Message - From: Evelyn Bishop To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2001 4:16 PM Subject: Re: Bio-Dynamic weed control Hello! I am new to this list and am looking for environmentally friendly ways to deal with star thistle. I have burned and mowed the area last year and it has substantially reduced the amount of thistle and also delayed its growth. It grows quickly as soon as the weather turns hot. Then it is too late to burn or mow. It is way too tough to do weed-eating when it gets large. I am not familiar with BD preps or what to do with weeds in a large area. In my garden areas, I weed by hand. Although I have purchased some Round up, I am hesitant to use it in case I might want to grow anything edible in this south facing slope. It is too large an area to weed by hand, though I pull as many as I can and burn them before the burn season is over. I always prefer not to use chemicals and would like an alternate solution. Does anyone have any solutions that they might share with me? Thanks so much! Evelyn Bishop Subject: Re: Bio-Dynamic weed control Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2001 09:08:19 +1100 Dear Merla, What you propose sounds good. We control noxious weeds here with BD but it takes a while to get the swap over. The ash will knock it and retard its vigour the first year. Then when you keep repeating it you will gradually win. You also need to keep knocking the weeds physically as you are and be sure they don't seed. Some weeds spread underground when they are cut and so it is often best to cut them just before the seed sets. Burning them in a low fire risk time is also good on a leo moon. Weeds are not easy. However they are good indicators of what is going on in the ground. You do need to plant competing pasture and then spray it with all the preps 500 plus 502 to 507 in a barrel compost spray. Be sure also to use 501 also. Thistles, if purple, often show the ground needs light and is a bit sour. This is just a brief summary. You could keep me going for hours on things we have tried. There isn't a weed problem at home but I have tuned into many properties where there is and given advice on a programme to turn it around. Its a fascinating lead into understanding an area. Great fun trying out brews to help. Barbara MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: Click Here
Fwd: Bio-Dynamic weed control
Status: U Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 01:31:51 EST Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Bio-Dynamic weed control X-Comment: Original message was addressed to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hello, snip I have been Bio-Dynamic for many years. I live in Sandpoint, Idaho. I have sold valerian plants to Hugh Courtney for a few years now. I also do a bulk order of Stella Natura calendars. I'm certified organic, but mostly I am a clay artist and sell handbuilt one-of-a-kind animal statues for gardens. I'm also the only organic person on the Bonner County Weed Advisory Board and have a grant from the state to do non-chemical weed control on an 8-mile road right-of-way that is the feeder road for many private roads in my neighborhood. We had a chemically sensitive man living on this road who was injured by a clandestine herbicide spraying by the county in 1999 and he has had to move away. I think that is why the state gave us the money. We have been fighting being sprayed with 2,4-D and clopyralid for 9 years, but haven't really taken care of the weeds until this summer, our first year of the grant. I didn't own a weedeater and they bought us one with all the trimmings. We spent 76 hours weedeating the knapweed, tansy, hawkweed and thistle. I need some way to discourage a lot of so-called noxious weeds. I have 15 units of Pfeiffer Field Spray that I hope to put together with a D-7 weed ash solution of the four varieties of weeds and spray every year for four years. I am thinking that I could repeat just the weed ash spraying several more times in the season. We have built a sprayer out of a Shurflo pump to be run off a truck alternator with a professional spray nozzel to go on three successive 50-gallon barrels down and up the other side of the road again in one pass. I also thought of demonstrating some other non-chemical methods like planting competing plants like rye, native grasses and red clover; mulching; in test plots to use up the money, but really, what I want to demonstrate is superb weed control that does not harm microorganisms or animals. Do you have any expertise on this subject that you can share? The state has granted me more money than I can use and won't carry it through this year. I don't want to have it sent back and am writing a sort of grant application to the new Weed Supervisor and the Commissioners and also trying to interest the Extension Agents. Bio-Dynamics is so foreign to them and nobody believes that we can get rid of the weeds with homeopathic doses of a weed ash solution. I've always just dug up or pulled weeds on my own land and I have maintained the strip of right-of-way on either side of our private road mechanically for many years. Thank you for any help you can give me Merla Barberie 1251 Rolling Thunder Ridge Sandpoint, Idaho 83864
Re: Fwd: Bio-Dynamic weed control
bdnow a écrit : Status: U Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 01:31:51 EST Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Bio-Dynamic weed control X-Comment: Original message was addressed to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hello, snip I have been Bio-Dynamic for many years. I live in Sandpoint, Idaho. I have sold valerian plants to Hugh Courtney for a few years now. I also do a bulk order of Stella Natura calendars. I'm certified organic, but mostly I am a clay artist and sell handbuilt one-of-a-kind animal statues for gardens. I'm also the only organic person on the Bonner County Weed Advisory Board and have a grant from the state to do non-chemical weed control on an 8-mile road right-of-way that is the feeder road for many private roads in my neighborhood. We had a chemically sensitive man living on this road who was injured by a clandestine herbicide spraying by the county in 1999 and he has had to move away. I think that is why the state gave us the money. We have been fighting being sprayed with 2,4-D and clopyralid for 9 years, but haven't really taken care of the weeds until this summer, our first year of the grant. I didn't own a weedeater and they bought us one with all the trimmings. We spent 76 hours weedeating the knapweed, tansy, hawkweed and thistle. I need some way to discourage a lot of so-called noxious weeds. I have 15 units of Pfeiffer Field Spray that I hope to put together with a D-7 weed ash solution of the four varieties of weeds and spray every year for four years. I am thinking that I could repeat just the weed ash spraying several more times in the season. We have built a sprayer out of a Shurflo pump to be run off a truck alternator with a professional spray nozzel to go on three successive 50-gallon barrels down and up the other side of the road again in one pass. I also thought of demonstrating some other non-chemical methods like planting competing plants like rye, native grasses and red clover; mulching; in test plots to use up the money, but really, what I want to demonstrate is superb weed control that does not harm microorganisms or animals. Do you have any expertise on this subject that you can share? The state has granted me more money than I can use and won't carry it through this year. I don't want to have it sent back and am writing a sort of grant application to the new Weed Supervisor and the Commissioners and also trying to interest the Extension Agents. Bio-Dynamics is so foreign to them and nobody believes that we can get rid of the weeds with homeopathic doses of a weed ash solution. I've always just dug up or pulled weeds on my own land and I have maintained the strip of right-of-way on either side of our private road mechanically for many years. Thank you for any help you can give me Merla Barberie 1251 Rolling Thunder Ridge Sandpoint, Idaho 83864 hello merla, can you explain me what is Pfeiffer Field Spray? thanks A+ PB
Re: Bio-Dynamic weed control
Dear Merla, What you propose sounds good. We control noxious weeds here with BD but it takes a while to get the swap over. The ash will knock it and retard its vigour the first year. Then when you keep repeating it you will gradually win. You also need to keep knocking the weeds physically as you are and be sure they don't seed. Some weeds spread underground when they are cut and so it is often best to cut them just before the seed sets. Burning them in a low fire risk time is also good on a leo moon. Weeds are not easy. However they are good indicators of what is going on in the ground. You do need to plant competing pasture and then spray it with all the preps 500 plus 502 to 507 in a barrel compost spray. Be sure also to use 501 also. Thistles, if purple, often show the ground needs light and is a bit sour. This is just a brief summary. You could keep me going for hours on things we have tried. There isn't a weed problem at home but I have tuned into many properties where there is and given advice on a programme to turn it around. Its a fascinating lead into understanding an area. Great fun trying out brews to help. Barbara - Original Message - From: bdnow [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2001 12:37 AM Subject: Fwd: Bio-Dynamic weed control Status: U Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 01:31:51 EST Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Bio-Dynamic weed control X-Comment: Original message was addressed to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hello, snip I have been Bio-Dynamic for many years. I live in Sandpoint, Idaho. I have sold valerian plants to Hugh Courtney for a few years now. I also do a bulk order of Stella Natura calendars. I'm certified organic, but mostly I am a clay artist and sell handbuilt one-of-a-kind animal statues for gardens. I'm also the only organic person on the Bonner County Weed Advisory Board and have a grant from the state to do non-chemical weed control on an 8-mile road right-of-way that is the feeder road for many private roads in my neighborhood. We had a chemically sensitive man living on this road who was injured by a clandestine herbicide spraying by the county in 1999 and he has had to move away. I think that is why the state gave us the money. We have been fighting being sprayed with 2,4-D and clopyralid for 9 years, but haven't really taken care of the weeds until this summer, our first year of the grant. I didn't own a weedeater and they bought us one with all the trimmings. We spent 76 hours weedeating the knapweed, tansy, hawkweed and thistle. I need some way to discourage a lot of so-called noxious weeds. I have 15 units of Pfeiffer Field Spray that I hope to put together with a D-7 weed ash solution of the four varieties of weeds and spray every year for four years. I am thinking that I could repeat just the weed ash spraying several more times in the season. We have built a sprayer out of a Shurflo pump to be run off a truck alternator with a professional spray nozzel to go on three successive 50-gallon barrels down and up the other side of the road again in one pass. I also thought of demonstrating some other non-chemical methods like planting competing plants like rye, native grasses and red clover; mulching; in test plots to use up the money, but really, what I want to demonstrate is superb weed control that does not harm microorganisms or animals. Do you have any expertise on this subject that you can share? The state has granted me more money than I can use and won't carry it through this year. I don't want to have it sent back and am writing a sort of grant application to the new Weed Supervisor and the Commissioners and also trying to interest the Extension Agents. Bio-Dynamics is so foreign to them and nobody believes that we can get rid of the weeds with homeopathic doses of a weed ash solution. I've always just dug up or pulled weeds on my own land and I have maintained the strip of right-of-way on either side of our private road mechanically for many years. Thank you for any help you can give me Merla Barberie 1251 Rolling Thunder Ridge Sandpoint, Idaho 83864
