workshop

By creating a balanced and diversified biodynamic farm organism, we can develop high levels of soil fertility out of the farm's own resources, providing great flexibility in the mix of possible enterprises and ensuring financial stability over the long term. This workshop will track the development of the biodynamic orchards of Threshold Farm over 23 years of profitable operation with very low debt load.

Want to know what biodynamic planting calendars are all about? In this workshop, Sherry Wildfeuer will offer an introduction to basic astronomy, the history and context of biodynamic planting calendars, and a practical explanation of how to work with the charts in the Stella Natura calendar to inform your work with your farm or garden.

This workshop will be presented in English with simultaneous interpretation to Spanish.

Each biodynamic preparation has its own unique properties and timing. This workshop addresses how to make and use each preparation to fit in within the Earth as a living being, weaving each into the course of the year, helping to bring the individuality of the farm.

Sam Hitt will share the story of how he came to create a diverse, thriving small-scale market garden and nursery in a changing neighborhood on Santa Fe's southern fringe. He will cover crop selection, hand tillage, propagation, irrigation, planning, pest management, egg production, speciality nursery plants, and marketing. The focus will be on lessons learned, mistakes made, and the many challenges and opportunities of sustainably growing and marketing high-value produce in an increasingly water-stressed environment.

Biodynamics grew out of the work of Rudolf Steiner, whose brilliant integration of his early scientific studies of mathematics, chemistry, and biology led to the deepest penetration of nature's mysteries of our times. Biodynamics provides insights into and answers to the problems that hinder and discourage practitioners of all other forms of farming and gardening. Hugh Lovel will explain the core principles of biodynamics and the science behind why biodynamics works so well.

* Photo credit: Broken Banjo Photography

Use the preps. Make biodynamic compost. Understanding biodynamics starts with the DOING. From here, the living processes at work become easier to follow as one incorporates experience into understanding. We will explore how healthy soil functions, how conventional gardening products and pollution destroy soil, and how a focused effort on composting and the use of the biodynamic preparations can bring your soil back to life. What are the physical, biological, chemical, and microbiological processes at work?

The wisdom of the Aztec empire developed in Tenochtitlan in pre-Hispanic times was demonstrated in the arts, education, agriculture, and society, under leadership of the great Aztec priest Tlacaelel who, based on observation of the cosmos, managed to bring the human to deeper regions of consciousness and spiritual being. Aztec remedies, which are analogous to the biodynamic preparations developed in Europe, include preparations made with pumpkin stuffed with cow dung, pumpkin stuffed with cempasuchil flowers (Tagetes erecta), and coconut shell filled with cow dung.

Come as we journey around the world to celebrate an ancient plant that has woven itself throughout the world; indigo. Children will explore the magic and beauty of this amazing plant through story, art, and a take home dye project using natural found and household materials. 

With the increases in agro-chemical toxins, radiation, EMF, top soil loss, and other environmental degradation since Rudolf Steiner’s time, how can we best work with biodynamic preparations to meet the challenges of today and the future? In this conversation with advanced preparation makers and seasoned biodynamic farmers and gardeners, we will discuss research and experiences in the field related to topics such as dynamizing, homeopathically potentizing, combining preparations, increasing application rates and frequencies of the foundational preparations, and developing new preparations.

Biodynamic agriculture has been growing in Costa Rican tropical rainforest, which offers many unique opportunities and challenges compared with other growing systems and other climates. Danilo Solano will share the results of the Tropical Farm System Trial, whose main objective was to determine the agricultural practices that most significantly contribute to capturing carbon in the soil. In this project, three distinct forms of agriculture (conventional, organic, and biodynamic) were statistically compared over a period of two years.