# Applied Biodynamics — Issue 096 (Fall/Winter 2019) **By JPI Admin** · 2025-12-31 Issue 096 asks how more biodynamic farms can become skilled, economically viable, and enduring. Its answer is practical: gain experience, match scale to labor and capital, track every farm enterprise, build multiple income streams, cultivate strong cooperative relationships, and make the preparations through documented observation. The issue follows these principles from a five-acre startup to a 171-acre cooperative farm and a 40-acre preparation-making center. **“How Do We Meet the Need for Healthy Food and More Farms?”** presents farming as a profession requiring soil, crop, livestock, business, marketing, labor, and legal knowledge. Wali Via recommends broad farm exposure before starting, five to seven years of experience where possible, careful cash planning for operating costs and equipment failures, equipment matched to intended scale, safe and meaningful employment, and regular renewal of the farmer’s sense of purpose. The article encourages compatible farmers with different strengths to consider cooperative ownership rather than carrying every responsibility alone. **“Stony Ridge Farm: Transitioning to a Market Garden”** documents how Lorrie Schoettler and Bob Shelley converted five acres in West Virginia without prior commercial experience. They hired an organic-farm consultant in year two for crop rotation, amendments, pest management, succession planting, and four-season production, then had their business plan reviewed in year five. One acre of vegetables was served by ten hoop houses, each approximately 10 by 70 feet. The tunnels advanced brassicas and extended mache, chard, spinach, roots, and especially early beets. The CSA grew to 60 families, supported by Baltimore deliveries, recipes, farm events, preserving workshops, design products, and targeted communications. Stony Ridge also offers clear risk-management lessons. Heavy snow destroyed every tunnel in early 2016, and ice and high winds damaged replacements the following year. The farm’s strongest enterprise was the CSA; its largest vulnerabilities were tunnel design, extreme weather, pest pressure, staffing, and physical workload. A repeatable startup review should therefore track gross margin by crop and channel, CSA retention, labor hours, pest losses, structure loading, repair cost, cash reserve, and owner workload before adding acreage or infrastructure. In **“If Farming Isn’t Always Good Vibes and Friendly Fairies, Is It Still Worth It?”** Natalie McGill describes the discipline that sustains a farm through weather, animal care, loss, and crop failure. Her experience complements the business cases: resilience comes from honest records, reliable systems, community, care for the farmer’s body, and daily contact with the beauty and purpose of the work. **“Winter Green Farm—A Model for Future Farms”** shows the cooperative model at mature scale. The Oregon farm manages 171 acres: 23 acres of intensive market crops, 105 acres of cattle pasture and hay, and the balance in wetlands, riparian buffers, woodland, roads, and buildings. Fertility comes from biodynamic compost, crop rotation, green manure, and pasture rotation. Its CSA grew from 35 to a peak of 600 households and stood at 450; approximately 85% of sales were direct to consumers. The farm employed seven year-round and about 13 full-time seasonal staff, tracked each enterprise for profit or loss, adjusted crops and markets accordingly, and used equal owner votes and consensus-based decisions. Winter Green’s succession structure is equally valuable. Long-serving younger partners first entered the shared LLC, then purchased produce, CSA, market, wholesale, and retail operations through a new LLC under favorable terms. The original LLC retained the land and cattle enterprise and became landlord to the operating business. The result preserved farm continuity, housing, skills, cattle within the farm organism, and a path for working farmers to become owners. In **“For the Earth as for Human Beings,”** Karen Davis-Brown’s interview with Mac Mead turns preparation making into a clear observational practice. Mead compared mid-September and mid-October [BD 500](https://go.jpibd.org/product-bd-500) burials for three consecutive years. The September horns achieved complete transformation with dark-brown material and a neutral, woodsy aroma; the October horns reached approximately 65–70%. The repeated comparison led the Pfeiffer Center to move routine burial to mid-September, with an additional festival batch on September 29. Mead also records a field-specific [BD 501](https://go.jpibd.org/product-bd-501) variation: one-third fine field soil, one-third farm sand, and one-third powdered quartz, screened and packed into the horn alongside a conventional BD 501 batch for comparison. For [BD 502](https://go.jpibd.org/product-bd-502), he compared bladders filled in early June with dried yarrow blossoms moistened by yarrow-leaf tea against bladders filled in early July with fresh blossoms. Both hung in the same place and were buried in the same pit behind dividers; the fresh-blossom batch showed greater vitality in his evaluation. Home-sourced cow manure provided another visible comparison: vegetables following compost made from the farm’s own manure showed stronger form, color, and vigor. The issue concludes with a memorial for Alex Podolinsky, JPI’s Permadynamics workshop, preparation-community news, and the introduction of board secretary Teresa O’Shaughnessy. ## Articles - How Do We Meet the Need for Healthy Food and More Farms? — Abigail Porter - Stony Ridge Farm: Transitioning to a Market Garden — Abigail Porter - If Farming Isn’t Always Good Vibes and Friendly Fairies, Is It Still Worth It? — Natalie McGill - Winter Green Farm—A Model for Future Farms — Abigail Porter - For the Earth as for Human Beings: Mac Mead on Making the Biodynamic Preparations — Karen Davis-Brown - In Memory of Alex Podolinsky — Mary Maruca - Permadynamics: Conceptual Marriage of Permaculture and Biodynamics in Farm Design Introduced at JPI — Pat Frazier - Introducing Our Newest Board Member: Teresa O’Shaughnessy, Secretary ## Key Topics Covered - Five-to-seven-year learning path for new farmers - Farm scale, operating capital, safety, and labor planning - One-acre market garden with ten 10-by-70-foot tunnels - CSA retention, niche markets, and multiple income streams - Weather-resistant infrastructure and enterprise risk records - Cooperative ownership and enterprise-level accounting - 171-acre farm allocation and direct-market strategy - LLC-based succession from retiring to working owners - Three-year comparison of BD 500 burial dates - One-third soil, sand, and quartz BD 501 variation - Paired fresh- and dried-yarrow BD 502 batches - Home-sourced manure and whole-farm fertility ## Related JPI Resources - [Download Issue 096 PDF](https://go.jpibd.org/ab-096) - [BD 500 Horn Manure](https://go.jpibd.org/product-bd-500) · [guide](https://go.jpibd.org/guide-bd-500) · [instructions](https://go.jpibd.org/instructions-bd-500) - [BD 501 Horn Silica](https://go.jpibd.org/product-bd-501) · [guide](https://go.jpibd.org/guide-bd-501) · [instructions](https://go.jpibd.org/instructions-bd-501) - [BD 502 Yarrow](https://go.jpibd.org/product-bd-502) · [guide](https://go.jpibd.org/guide-bd-502) - [BD 507 Valerian](https://go.jpibd.org/product-bd-507) · [guide](https://go.jpibd.org/guide-bd-507) - [BD 502–507 Compost Preparation Set](https://go.jpibd.org/product-bd-502-507-set) · [instructions](https://go.jpibd.org/instructions-bd-502-507) - [Making and Using the Biodynamic Preparations](https://go.jpibd.org/instructions-preparations) - [Rudolf Steiner’s Agriculture Course](https://go.jpibd.org/book-agriculture-course) ## Citation _Applied Biodynamics_, Issue 096, Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Biodynamics, Fall/Winter 2019. **Tags:** Applied Biodynamics Archive, BD 500, BD 501, BD 502-507, Farm Economics and Community, Research Methods --- > Source: [The Josephine Porter Institute](https://www.jpibiodynamics.org/blogs/applied-biodynamics/applied-biodynamics-issue-096-fall-winter-2019)