The daffodils are in full bloom, and that means it is time to get the garden ready to plant. Some weeks ago Michael tilled leaves into the beds of rich red clay that we are enticing along on the journey to rich brown humus. Then he hauled wheelbarrow load upon wheelbarrow load of compost to the beds and tilled that in. We have planted greens and peas, but we had one more task, and the whole of our landscape cried for it. Sunday we mixed water with the Pfeiffer Field and Garden biodynamic preparation and let it sit while we waited for the March wind to abate a bit.
Monday was the day.
The Pfeiffer prep was one of many preparations created in the 1940’s by Dr. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer and the associates he gathered around him in New York to make biodynamics more accessible to widespread agriculturists. The Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Biodynamics in Floyd, Virginia is the exclusive owner of the proprietary formulas that came out of that work, and we had a packet of the field spray sitting in the kitchen, waiting for the day.
Our depleted farm ground needs so much, and finally, homebound as we are, we have time to give the pastures a biodynamic boost.
We gathered the equipment: sprayer, the one with the nozzle that works, bucket to hold dilution of the prep, stick to stir, jar of soaked preparation, measuring spoon, and oh yes, the copper water revitalizing tube that will one day be installed in our house water system.
We needed multiple mixes to cover the garden and both front and back pasture, so while Mike was walking the sprayer through the fields, Kate prepared the spray.
It took two of us to transfer the liquid from the bucket to the sprayer, so no picture of that. Then Mike pressurized the sprayer, tested the nozzle, and he was ready to go.
