by Jutta Russell | Jul 31, 2016 | Gardening With The Moon, Happy House, Uncategorized
If you have even the smallest of gardens there are prime times for pruning.
I usually urge people to put a lot of effort in the early spring pruning, then the Biodynamic summer pruning job should be a lot easier. But recently in the UK the weather has been so rainy and mild that most well-kept gardens have turned into mini jungles. So there is a lot to do now.
Firstly download the LWTM life-style calendar for August. It comes free with the monthly newsletter (you need to subscribe to this, if you have not done so already in the pink box on the website side bar). In the newsletter you will also find a symbols guide. For our exercise look at the pruning symbol and every time you see it that means it is an extra good day for this activity.
Sap goes up and down in plants and during the Waning Moon and especially during New Moon it is just more auspicious to do proper pruning jobs. One of my favourites is the
New Moon renewal cut: If a plant does not thrive you can try to revive it with this cut. First check if pruning in August is useful, as some plants object to pruning during the wrong season. If it is a good time season-wise, clip all the branches by a good third to half to jumpstart the new growth. You can try this method again at another New Moon.
A few years ago a water pipe burst and almost flooded our garden with the result that some of our established holly bushes were almost dead from a completely water-logged soil. But then I tried the New Moon renewal cut with great result, we managed to save them all.
If you tried a few times and the plant still does not recover then it may be effected by a bad disease or simply the spot you have chosen for it is just wrong – no sun/too much sun, wrong soil, etc. In this case you can either dig it up and see if it thrives somewhere else or just plant something else in its place.
Cutting back fruit bushes during the late summer:
August is a good month to prune red currants, gooseberries and other fruiting bushes that have already fruited. Cut the side shoots back by one third and make sure that there are not side shoots growing on the bottom of the bush.
Your can also cut back summer fruiting raspberries once you have picked them all. Cut the canes that have already fruited back to about 3cm above ground. The non fruiting canes can be tied to horizontal wires or a fence to bear crop the next year round.
This time of year is very useful to cut back hedges such as box, firethorn and thuja.
Other pruning tasks in August :
- deadhead annual roses and flowering bushes , pruning symbol (flowers and scissors)
- Plant and divide perennials (spade symbol)
- Prune flowering bushes like fire thorn (pyracantha), hornbeam, thuja hedges and Leyland hedges (scissor & tree symbol)
- Prune gooseberries, summer fruiting raspberries and red-current bushes (scissor & tree symbol)
- take cuttings from Alpines (flower in put symbol)
- Weeding, start weeding on Heat Days (red squares)
- Sow hyacinths (indoors) for the Christmas period
- For further help and information please download and read our e-book ‘Gardening With The Moon’. It will explain how to put a garden design into practice and help you find out what type of soil your garden has. It will further provide you with all kinds of tips. Form planting, digging, feeding, pruning, weeding to composting and companion planting (which plants thrive next to each other and which you should avoid planting together). In short everything you need to know to keep a well-growing biodynamic garden.
To find out more information about Biodynamic gardening, please download our e-book publication
‘Gardening with the Moon’ in the LWTM menu section.
by Jutta Russell | Feb 28, 2015 | Uncategorized
Gardening in harmony with the phases of the moon has been practised for thousands of years. Its modern version ‘Biodynamics’ has been redefined by Rudolf Steiner less than a century ago. It builds on the concept of organic farming by combining it with the Ancient Lunar planting method and the use of natural remedies, such as soil tonics and natural pest control.
Derived from the Ancient Greek words ‘bio’ (life) and ‘dunamis’ (power), the biodynamic garden is managed as if it was a single complex organism with a resource of energy or “life power” that can be recycled.
The biodynamic gardener prepares the soil in spring with compost, created from the grass clippings and plants from the very same land the year before. During the growing cycle, herbal preparations are added to the soil and crops are rotated and grown by the method of ‘companion planting’. Garden tasks like pruning, planting, re-potting and more are undertaken at specific times during the lunar cycle as marked on the moon calendar.
The founder of the Biodynamic movement, the Austrian Rudolf Steiner, held a series of lectures in 1924 on agriculture. In these lectures, he responded to a concern from farmers about deteriorating soil conditions and the effects it has on the growing plants. The deterioration of the crop and quality of the soil had accelerated since the introduction of artificial fertilisers at the turn of the 20th century and something had to be done to address this problem.
Soon after these lectures a research team was set up to look into how a ‘living soil’ can keep plants healthy and what methods can be employed to keep the land fertile and productive without the use of chemicals or other ‘foreign’ substances.
Today ‘biodynamic gardening/farming’ is practised in well over 50 countries worldwide and biodynamic farmed food tastes so good that it wins awards all over the world. The University of Kassel, Germany, even has a dedicated Department of Biodynamic Agriculture, which studies the effect of biodynamic food and lifestyle on human health.
Biodynamically farmed products are now protected and labelled by the’ Demeter brand. It was established in 1928 and aims to protect consumers and farmers alike. Similar organisations are the French ‘Biodivin” ( it certifies that the wine is biodynamicaly farmed) and the Egyptian EBDA (Egyptian Biodynamic Association).
How does it actually work? 
We know that the moon’s gravitational pull moves billions of litres of water around the planet Earth every single day. But there is not only water in the ocean. We humans, for example, consist of nearly 70% water, and a lot of water is also contained in plants.
The water circulating within a plant contains vitamins, minerals and other active substances and travels from the root system through the stem into leaves, blossoms and fruit. At certain times during the moon cycle more liquid is concentrated in the root system, at other times more in leaves, fruit and blossoms. On a practical level that is why there are ‘good and bad times’ for certain activities. For example, when you pick an apple and want to eat it straight away, you want it to be juicy and full of vitamins. Therefore you pick a time when most liquid will be concentrated within the fruit. However, if you want to store the apple for a long time, you want to pick it at a different time when there is slightly less liquid in the fruit, so the apple will keep fresh for longer.
by Jutta Russell | Sep 28, 2014 | Moon Science
In the early 1920ies the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner was approached by a number of concerned farmers who saw that in just a few years of using artificial fertiliser the soil was getting so depleted that they feared for the future of their land. Faced with this dilemma, Rudolf Steiner prepared a series of lectures that would become the foundations of the Biodynamic planting movement.
‘Biodynamic growing’ has now become a fashionable term, but what does it actually mean?
I would say, Biodynamics is more than just growing food, it is a philosophy or a way of life. Conventional farming methods are all about as much profit can be had, growing the most amount of food in the smallest space and shortest time. In order to do that, sacrifices have to be made. These come in the form of depleted soils, unnaturally forced or grown produce. Just think of the tomatoes or strawberries grown in rock wool with a bit of fertiliser and water, the thought alone just makes my stomach turn. Food grown in the way also tastes bland and uninspiring. But of course if you only eat this type of food then you would not notice the difference. But grow a few tomatoes in good soil on your window sill and taste the difference!
The Biodynamic way of growing food starts already with the soil. There is no rock wool, just rich, fertile soil that is not seen as a commodity, but as a precious material that produces great food.
The most precious ingredient in a healthy soil is humus. This is the part of the topsoil where all the nutrients lie. It is a complex process how nature turns leaves and other organic matter into compost and humus. The humus layer helps the soil to retain moisture and oxygen. It also helps the plants to grow by a way of ion-exchange. In short, humus is the soil’s ‘life-force’ and without it the soil is just a dead material where plants rest in.
Rudolf Steiner too
k particular interest in the soil and humus layer. He ordered compost preparations to be made out of plants such as nettle, yarrow, dandelion or valerian. These preparations were added to the soil and acted as a kind of soil tonic. In nature these plants are the natural healers and often grow next to fields and flowers. But today they are just seen as garden weeds. But by completely getting rid of them their vital contribution to keep your garden soil healthy is lost. So today’s Biodynamic famers and gardeners add these preparations to the soil to enrich the humus layer. Additionally they plant with the seasons, the water tables and the most controversial part of it – in accordance to the lunar phases.
In conventional agriculture animals are totally excluded from the food production process or are even destroyed by pesticides. In the Biodynamic model animals are actively invited in as part of the growing process. Ladybirds are introduced to kill the aphids, bees to pollinate the crop and earthworms to turn the soil. Cow manure and horns are used as part of the fertilisation process. Of course pests do occur and they are kept at bay with nets or by planting herbs and other (for them) bad smelling plants.
The land is not seen as a short-term commodity, but as a precious ground for growing food that has to be preserved for many generations to come. Sadly some studies claim that over the last century around 60%! of the world’s humus has been lost. The result is more frequent flooding, as it is the humus layer in the soil that can absorb a large amount of water in a very quick time and hold it there as a reserve for the dry days further down the line.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not advocating to go back to the dark ages and of course a growing population brings with it pressure on food resources. But all I am hoping we are getting away from a farming model that only looks at profits and have no regards whatsoever for the soil and its long-term health. I also would like to see animals and ultimately humans again as part of the growing process. We all need to wake up and reconnect again with what we eat. Let’s make all sure that what is farmed is done so in a humanely and sustainable way, not just for us, but for all species here on earth.
P.S. The WWF has just published a study where it claimed that between 1970 and 2010 50% of wildlife has vanished over this time span. Many species such as the River Dolphin have now become extinct.
