Nirvana Biodynamics

Earlier in Spring we had a visit from Mr. Farhad Mazhar, Managing director of UBING, Bangladesh (Policy for Development Alternative) who created one of the biggest community seed banks in the world and is a leading player in South Asian bio-diverse and ecological agricultural movements. He spent a morning with us seein g how our biodynamic practices reflected our diversity & lifestyle. Seeds and seed saving were also compared as we strolled around the orchards. His visit was the initiative of Sue Germein, who together with Jacquie Emery from World Vision, accompanied him. Mr. Mazhar was touring Australia as an invited guest of One Just World and was in Adelaide addressing a Hawke Centre public lecture at the Adelaide Town Hall. The topic being “Will the world be able to feed itself in 2050? Food security and the developing world.” Rev. Tim Costello, CEO of World vision and Sophia Murphy, Senior advisor, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy based in Minneapolis. USA also addre...

Spring is the time that we are surrounded with new life and rampant growth. The berries in our little valley take a while to dry out enough to enable them to be weeded. Now that is mostly done, all the biodynamic preparations have been applied its time to turn our attention to mowing. While the geese and goslings have been doing their bit grazing the orchards , they can’t quite keep up with the spring flush . Mowing is very important in the orchard as the living mulch is cut to produce a protective layer of mulch ,over the season it will be cut around 3 times producing valuable organic matter some of which act as mulch and the rest is consumed by the soil micro organisms , especially after being sprayed with biodynamic cow-pat-pit after mowing. This living mulch becomes even more important as although the winter rainfall was average, the normal spring rains have not come and Spring has all too quickly turned to Summer. This year all the berries have been mulched with sawdust. The last ...

....are what makes working with nature all the more special. As well as encountering protective(not aggressive) goose parents and their fluff ball yet fast growing offspring’s ,a day in the gardens can bring many often interesting surprises. The other day while weeding with Ting we met one of these. Large & beautifully coloured but would give you a nasty bite if you upset it. Just before lunch a decided I needed to visit the outside dunny. Hebe beat me in as she new the resident ring tail possum was sleeping in the basket there. All curled up looking very cute. Latter on, the air was alive with swarming bees, such energy as they move along! Back at the tasks at hand i.e. weeding the currants, I noticed that a blue wren family had become very noisy and excited, Frank had noticed as well and had gone over to investigate, he barked once so I went to investigate and sure enough there was a beautiful red bellied black snake. We left it to get on and went back to weeding. Today another i...