Posted on 05/09/2007 8:32:30 PM PDT by anonsquared
MIKE BENZIGER'S DAY is packed, no time to spare, but as he kicks through the dirt at his family's biodynamic vineyard he can't resist stopping to grab a handful of the rich soil.
"Smell that," he says. "Doesn't it smell like beets? This is great soil. It's alive. This is what it's all about."
Soil this healthy, Mike says, doesn't just happen. It has been just more than a decade since the Benziger Family Winery in Glen Ellen decided it was tired of growing mediocre grapes, tired of working a chunk of pesticide-laden land so sterile that even the birds didn't come near.
The solution? In 1996, the family became one of the first U.S. wineries to chuck commercial farming techniques in favor of what has now become a buzz phrase with the environmentally conscious — biodynamic farming.
(Excerpt) Read more at insidebayarea.com ...
gaia sayeth plant the doodoo horns amongst the corn
How can nettle tea provide phosphorus at homeopathic levels? Nothing is there at homeopathic levels but “water memory.”
I like organic gardening as much as the next person, but you can make yourself nuts with this.
And don't get me started on Thistle, Dandelion, Mugwort and the rest.
What bullcrap. Proof positive that Californicators have too much time and money on their hands.
A decent read, but lost it at the biodynamic farming when it came to "Cow's horns are filled with manure and buried at the end of each row of vines at the fall equinox. Six months later, they are dug up, emptied and turned into a tea that is sprayed over the vineyard."
Be +/- on this low volume wine ping list.
Oenology news ping.
= = = =
Be +/- on this low volume culinary ping list.
Culinary news ping.
I went off on nettle after I read how it loved to colonize graveyards for the phosphorus...
Mrs VS
Nothing new about this. My old grandfather ALWAYS planted by the phases of the moon. Any farmer's almanac has guidelines for this.
Don't know what to make of the bull horns...
essential nutrients....also some lithium in seaweed
That’s all very well but we’re talking about homeopathic levels, 30X or so, a concentration of 1 x 10 to the -30 g/l, in other words, not there.
Mrs VS
It can't. I think if you do the math on 'homeopathic' dilutions, it comes out to one molecule in an Earth's worth of water.
The birds won't show up unless there are insects to eat.
My family did the same thing a few generations ago.
Of course, these folks are taking it pretty far. There is a good movie this kind of thing going too far. Wicker Man. The old one with Edward Woodward, not that travesty with Nicholas Cage.
My family did the same thing a few generations ago.
Of course, these folks are taking it pretty far. There is a good movie this kind of thing going too far. Wicker Man. The old one with Edward Woodward, not that travesty with Nicholas Cage.
Don't you plant root crops by the dark of the moon and leaf crops by the light? Isn't that the gist of it?
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