by Jessica Standing
Summer is a glorious time in the garden, a feast of delights, tender summer crops, and soft fruit galore! Practicing biodynamic mindfulness and daily observation, together with regular use of the biodynamic calendar and sprays, including equisetum, will help you and your garden glow with health and wellbeing. In a biodynamic garden we are looking to create a healthy and harmonious relationship with the balance of nature, while still getting the specific vegetables, fruit and flowers we want to feed ourselves and brighten our house and garden. Here, I’ve found frequent use of the biodynamic sprays helpful.
The biodynamic sprays (soil activator, Barrel Compost, Horn Manure and plant heath giver/sunshine tonic Horn Silica) will give the garden and plants a real boost! The soil activator and barrel compost are helpful when sowing, re-sowing and planting out at any time over the summer, especially in dry periods. These sprays are best used at least monthly in a transplanting time on a Root day – late afternoon/evening time. The plant health support that is the Horn Silica is an early morning spray, to be used before the sun gets hot (before 10am latest, earlier better). It helps in grey or damp periods bring in light qualities, it helps plants find their true nature and ripening, so good on green vegetables on Leaf days, on roots on Root days, etc. If doing a general ‘healthy garden’ application then a Flower/light day is good.
Maria Thun advocated the benefits of hoeing on the most favorable day for your crop type (i.e. hoe on a Leaf Day for leaf crops, Root Day for root crops etc.) to assist with your plant’s vitality. She explained it can be very useful, especially if you were unable to sow your crop on a favorable day, as this will help to ameliorate this. Do you want the healthiest continual supply of salad leaves? Then choose Leaf days to sow your successional supply.
As we move past June’s summer solstice, July and August usually grow hotter and drier 3 and the watering can becomes your constant companion. Using the biodynamic calendar is a tool I’ve really come to appreciate when sowing, and find it helps to ensure deeper roots and greater resilience. I love to keep sowing salad crops like rocket and mixed salad leaves in old window boxes, on a leaf day in the biodynamic planting calendar, to give a continuous summer supply.
Many plants are greedy as they grow most strongly, so now is the ideal time to try making your own feed from comfrey and nettles. Mixing comfrey and nettle tea is highly recommended, as it gives you a good balance of macro and micronutrients. The nettles bump up Nitrogen levels, and the comfrey bumps up Phosphorus. Put the nettles in a sack, immerse them in water and cover, stirring every couple of days for 10 days. You might add a brick or rock to keep them submerged… Add an equal quantity of fresh comfrey, torn up roughly to the sack, and stir every two days for another seven days. For foliar application dilute this tea with 6 parts water to 1-part feed. For root feeds it can be used 3 parts water to 1-part feed.
Making a different salad every day from leaves of whatever salad plants are in the garden, supplemented with a few choice savory extras on top, is the best thing ever to liven up your taste buds and really tune into seasonal eating.
• Lettuce: soft buttery butterheads, Baby Gem, and Lollo Rosso provide an excellent foundation for mixed green salads – the trick is to tear a few leaves to add bulk to your daily collection of other saladings.
• Misticanza: the gardener’s cut -and –come- again instant crop of salad leaves at a fraction of the cost, and much tastier than you will buy. Bulk out with lettuce leaves!
• Edible flowers: a few edible flowers add piquancy and delight. Favorites for summer include marigolds, nasturtium, borage, 4 rocket and herb flowers – e.g. chives, thyme, mint, oregano, anise hyssop.
• Herbs: Chervil, dill, French tarragon, mint, coriander, basil, fennel, sorrel; fried sage leaves add a savory crunch
• Fresh pea shoots: the easiest of all: sow marrow fat peas, and harvest when about 5 cm tall.
