It’s summer, and there’s nothing better than the smell of fresh flowers, cut grass, and clean ocean water. Hopefully, it also brings a less hectic schedule and more time for sharing healthy, delicious summer BBQs and leisurely lunches and dinners with friends and family. And it would be even more special if some of your feasts came from your garden. Biodynamic farming might be the first step to a garden feast.
HUmineral Healthy Share highlights Biodynamic Farming (or gardening), and One Gun Ranch (OGR) located in Malibu, California (OGR). HUmineral visited OGR last month, and absolutely stellar farming and gardening community with 100% self-made organic compost by Farmer Jack and his staff.
Humineral’s core message is better nutrition through better soil, and OGR shares that vision. All of their produce is grown above ground in planter boxes using their “Super(ior)” compost soil, which is grown on OGR using biodynamic standards while also being pest and contamination controlled.
Reuse and recycle are in practice at OGR, with all benefits going back to the land. OGR uses dairy cows from India, as they have unparalleled digestive systems that create nutrient-dense manure along with alfalfa, which provides vital minerals for composting. OGR is chemical, additive, hormone, and pesticide free.
Educational Farming
OGR works with ELSA (Experience Learning Support with Animals), which serves children, teens, young adults, families, and groups with special needs through the benefits of human/animal interaction in a ranch setting. Education is a passion of the founders of OGR, which is why they offer free school tours for pre-k thru the collegiate level.
Tapping into the depths of your soul develops passion. Passion allows you to grow into your greater self to lead a more productive and joy-filled, purposeful life.
In our next newsletter, we’ll highlight Marguerite Nesteruk, who went from fashion to farming. We will take you through the journey of how she left the fashion world in New York City and found herself farming in Malibu with a mission to change health through proper farming care, food and nutrition, and her infectious passion for plants (=food).
What is Biodynamic Farming?
Biodynamic farming (or agriculture) is a method of organic farming and is considered to be the most advanced and holistic form of organic farming and gardening on the planet. Developed in the early 1920s by Rudolf Steiner, a trained scientist, a respected philosopher, and creator of anthroposophy (a formal educational, therapeutic, and creative system seeking to use mainly natural means to optimize physical and mental health and well-being).
Origin of Biodynamics
Farmers were worried about the decline in healthy soils, plants, and animals. In the early 1920s, they sought the advice of Rudolf Steiner, who spent most of his life researching and investigating the subtle forces within nature. From a series of lectures and conversations held at Koberwitz, Germany (now in Poland) in June 1924, emerged the fundamental principles of biodynamic farming and gardening. At its core, biodynamic farming is a unified approach to agriculture that relates the ecology of the farm organism to that of the entire cosmos.
Steiner was the first to bring awareness to:
- the dangers of synthetic fertilizers
- the perspective of farming as a single, autonomous organism that thrives through biodiversity
- integration of crops and livestock and creation of a closed-loop system of fertility
- a comprehensive approach to soil, plant, animal, and human health that recognizes the importance of the healthy interplay of cosmic and earthly influences.
He developed a set of homeopathic preparations used by biodynamic farmers on soil, compost, and plants that help build up the farm’s innate immune system and vital forces. In the 1980s, biodynamic farmers in the northeast U.S. used Steiner’s economic ideas to pioneer the concept of Community Supported Agriculture, which has since been adopted by thousands of farms across North America.
Biodynamics is a spiritual, ethical, and ecological approach to agriculture, gardens, food production and nutrition.
The Purpose of Bio Dynamic Farming
Biodynamic farmers creates a diverse, balanced eco-system farm that generates healthy and fertile soils as much as possible from within the farm itself. This ensures healthier foods that taste good. Compost preparations are made from fermented manure, minerals and herbs which aid, restore and harmonize the vital life forces of the farm and enhance the nutrition, quality and flavor of the food being raised. Six compost herb preparations are made from specific herbs: yarrow flowers, chamomile blossoms, the whole areal portion of the stinging nettle while in flower, oak bark, dandelion blossoms and valerian flowers.
Watch this quick video on Biodynamic Farming to learn more: