Applied Biodynamics — Issue 002 (Winter 1992)
Issue 002 links winter reflection, force-based nutrition, Hugh Courtney’s preparation lecture, JPI garden work, storage guidance, and an early BD 508 field report.
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Issue 002 (Winter 1992) turns the themes announced in Issue 001 into a fuller working newsletter. Across seasonal reflection, nutrition, preparation making, storage, practitioner reports, and JPI garden notes, its recurring question is how biodynamics understands and works with forces rather than substances.
Issue Overview
“Christmas” - Candace Coffin. Drawing on Rudolf Steiner’s 1904 lecture The Birth of the Light, Coffin presents the winter turning point as a call to consciously re-establish harmony. In the article’s account, farmers and gardeners participate through work that brings earthly and cosmic influences into relationship.
“About Nutrition” - Betsy Cashen. Cashen argues that chemical composition and caloric value alone cannot describe nourishment in living organisms. She asks readers to consider plant and animal life cycles, seasonal change, formative forces, and the effects of food on thinking, feeling, and willing. At the same time, she cautions that spiritual interpretation should remain grounded in careful observation and scientific method, and she announces future columns drawing on both formal and practitioner research.
“Biodynamic Preparations” - Hugh Courtney. Adapted from a December 1991 ACRES USA lecture, Courtney challenges the caricature of biodynamics as folk herbalism, situates it within Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual-scientific work and the Threefold Social Order, and then describes the preparations in practical terms. The historical directions include BD 500 at one-quarter cup per acre with one hour of stirring; BD 501 at one-half teaspoon by volume per acre with one hour of stirring; approximately one teaspoon each of BD 502-507 for a compost pile of roughly one to ten tons; and BD 508 as a horsetail tea. Barrel Compost, identified as the Thun recipe, is presented as a way to apply the compost preparations when finished biodynamic compost is unavailable, with a 20-minute stirring period. These are archival instructions from 1992, not a substitute for current JPI guidance. The lecture continues in the next issue.
“The Gardens at JPI” - Gisela Franceschelli. Franceschelli describes the Woolwine, Virginia site, its uneven terrain and varied garden soils, and the practical rhythm of plants, livestock, staff, and volunteers. Fall work included a BD 507 valerian seed soak stirred for 20 minutes with a one-hour soaking time; recycled-carton mini-greenhouses; a temporary nine-bale cold frame; seedlings grown in sifted biodynamic compost; Barrel Compost worked into beds; BD 500 sprayed on beds and pastures; and cover crops including rye, vetch, subclover, rape, and mustard. The article also explains how JPI’s cattle supplied manure for compost, horn manure, and barrel compost.
Additional Departments and Notes
- BD Practitioners Research: Rick Lemke reports that after reworking a compost pile and spraying BD 508, a sunflower test flat was fungus-free within a week. The newsletter presents this as a practitioner report and invites further observations; it is not described as a controlled trial.
- Preparation storage: JPI warns that unglazed clay containers can dry preparations when the surrounding peat and air are dry. It recommends glazed ceramic or glass and suggests tongue-and-groove or lap-board insulated lids to reduce peat-dust leakage.
- From the JPI Board: The board confirms that JPI has assumed preparation work while retaining a supportive relationship with the BioDynamic Farming and Gardening Association.
- Associative contracts and reader response: The issue continues the advance-support model introduced in Issue 001, notes that contracts can be adjusted for acreage needs, and prints encouraging early reader responses.
- Erratum: JPI corrects the attribution of the quotation printed on the back of Issue 001, identifying it as a Rudolf Steiner quotation to Ehrenfried Pfeiffer reproduced in Pfeiffer’s preface to Agriculture.
Why This Issue Matters
Issue 002 shows the newsletter’s intended range: spiritual interpretation, conceptual argument, historically specific preparation methods, institutional transparency, anecdotal practitioner evidence, and detailed garden practice. Its strongest editorial improvement over Issue 001 is the movement from a proposed forum to an operating publication with recurring departments and reader participation.
Articles
- Christmas - Candace Coffin
- About Nutrition - Betsy Cashen
- Biodynamic Preparations - Hugh Courtney
- The Gardens at JPI - Gisela Franceschelli
Key Topics Covered
- Christmas, seasonal change, and the restoration of harmony
- Nutrition as a study of living processes and formative forces
- Observation and scientific method in biodynamic inquiry
- Threefold Social Order as context for the preparation lecture
- Historical methods and quantities for BD 500-508 and Barrel Compost
- Preparation storage materials and moisture protection
- Practitioner reporting on BD 508 and fungal pressure
- Fall garden work, cover crops, livestock, and preparation making at JPI
- JPI’s transition into sole responsibility for preparation work
Citation
Applied Bio-Dynamics, Issue 002, Winter 1992. Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Bio-Dynamics, Woolwine, Virginia.
