The GROW BIOINTENSIVE method of horticulture is a quiet, vitally alive art of organic gardening that links people with the whole universe—a universe in which each of us is an interwoven part of the whole. People End their place by relating and cooperating in harmony with the sun, air, rain, soil, moon, insects, plants, and animals rather than by attempting to dominate them. All of these elements will teach us their lessons and do the gardening for us if we only watch and listen. We become gentle shepherds providing the conditions for plant growth. Biologically intensive farming dates back to four thousand years ago in China, two thousand years in Greece, and one thousand years ago in Latin America. In fact, the Mayan culture grew food this way at their homes on a neighborhood basis. This is one of the homes on a neighborhood basis.
This is one of the reasons their culture survived when others around them were collapsing. The GROW BIOINTENSIVE method is a combination of two forms of horticulture practiced in Europe during the 1800s and early 1900s. French intensive techniques were developed in the 1700s and 1800s outside Paris. Crops were grown on 18 inches of horse manure, a fertilizer that was readily available. The crops were grown so close to each other that when the plants were mature, their leaves would barely touch. The close spacing provided a mini-climate and a living mulch that reduced weed growth and helped hold moisture in the soil. During the winter, glass jars were placed over seedlings to give them an early start. The gardeners grew up to nine crops each year and could even grow melon plants during the winter. Biodynamic techniques were developed in the early 1920s by Rudolf Steiner, a brilliant Austrian philosopher and educator.
His work began after the introduction of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Initially, only nitrogen fertilizers were used to stimulate growth. Later, phosphorus and potassium were added to strengthen the plants and to minimize disease and insect problems. Eventually, trace minerals were added to the chemical larder to round out the plants’ diet. The single, physical nutrients in soluble salt forms in chemical fertilizers were not complete and vital meals for the plants, causing imbalances that attracted disease and insects.
These imbalances that attracted disease and insects. These fertilizers caused chemical changes in the soil that damaged its structure, killed beneEcial microbioitic life, and greatly reduced its ability to make nutrients already in the air and soil available to the plants. Steiner noticed that the number of crops a3ected by disease and insect problems increased while nutritive value and yields dropped. Steiner traced the cause of these problems to the use of the newly introduced synthetic chemical fertilizers and pesticides. He returned to the gentler, diverse, and balanced diets of organic fertilizers as a cure for the ills brought on by synthetic chemical fertilization.
He stressed the holistic growing environment for plants: their rate of growth, the synergistic balance of their environments and nutrients, their proximity to other plants, and their various companion relationships. And he initiated a movement to scientiEcally explore the relationships that plants have with each other. The biodynamic method also brought back raised planting beds. Two thousand years ago, the Greeks had noticed that plant life thrives in landslides.
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The loose soil allows air, moisture, warmth, nutrients, and roots to properly penetrate the soil. The curved surface area between the two edges of the landslide bed provides more surface area for penetration and interaction of the natural elements than a Nat surface.
