Apart from picking discarded carnations behind the greenhouses in the small town where my grandmother lived I had never grown anything until a friend of mine started a bio-dynamic farm in the archipelago. Now that was a new experience! We tilled and toiled and planted according to the lunar cycle .
Adhered to Rudolf Steiners principles and things grew. Carrots, beets and potatoes in neat rows in square fields, I don't think we really thought about a kitchen garden of herbs and greens nor flowers around the house. When fall came I flew to Bali and a few years later as a young mother I planted my first garden, the entire available backyard of our Victorian house in Arlington, outside of Washington DC. I wanted to apply bio-dynamic principles but somewhere I was introduced to the Bio Intensive method. A combination of the French Intensive method and biodynamic principles. Building the soil building the future. From this method has developed raised beds and square foot gardening. Preparing the soil is the most laborious part but you pretty much only do it once and your future labors are minimized. Dense companion planting also provides a natural mulch and plants shade each other.
This method conserves water, produces a yield four times higher than conventional gardening and restores even the most nutrient poor compacted soil.
The beds are laid out no wider then 5 feet, easily accessible from both sides at desired length divided by garden paths. Spread out a thick layer of horse manure over the bed and start digging a trench around 12 inches in depth, placing the top-soil aside to be used later. Once the trench is completed, use a garden fork to loosen the under soil another 12 inches. Then move next to the trench and start placing the loosened top-soil from the new trench on the old trench. Continue this process until the far side of the bed has been reached, using the topsoil from the first trench to fill in the last. This creates a raised bed providing improved drainage and water retention and microbes for roots to develop. Once finished you will never step on or otherwise compress the bed again. The secret to this would be double digging and close companion planting and your yield is four times as large as conventional gardening. In addition it looks so lush!
After moving to New Mexico I continued to prepare the soil with double digging and initially lots of manure even for my perennial beds.
I also continued to plant according to the lunar calendar and occasionally use some bio dynamic preparations and always planted the beds in a hexagonal pattern letting the carrot tops shade the budding lettuce and the lettuce keep the soil from getting too hot for the carrots. For example. Then things got more intertwined. Trees, bushes and flowers intermingled in the beds. The beds started changing shapes and soon the garden became more of natural forest. As I find nature so beautiful in its own arrangement I have tried to emulate it in my gardens. Transplanting flowers, grasses and trees and cultivating and propagating them in the gardens preserving the biodiversity. Always first choosing heirloom and native seeds.
This makes my gardens easy to maintain, low in water needs, high in bounty and a closed loop in itself.
In Neptunigatans garden I tried to recreate a nineteenth century city garden. Where the household harvested its food as well as enjoyed the lawns and flowers. Frebbenby being a larger property will get its own woodlands with wild edible plants and mushrooms.
