How can a farm turn the spring rush into a repeatable preparation plan?

Forecast preparation demand by acreage, schedule material gathering around plant and animal rhythms, assign workshop and packing roles, and keep one log for quantities, source materials, dates, storage, orders, and field applications. Issue 103 shows JPI moving directly from winter planning into BD 500 packing, preparation-plant harvest, horn and organ collection, teaching, and pasture development. A shared calendar keeps the spring surge purposeful and makes next year easier to plan.

What makes the Spiritual Foods urban CSA model repeatable?

Begin with committed consumers and dependable farm partners, agree on fair prices and a clear delivery rhythm, establish staffed neighborhood drop sites, and offer share sizes that match household needs. Track membership, route time, box contents, waste, volunteer hours, winter supply, and farmer payment. Spiritual Foods strengthened the system through prepacked boxes, half shares, supplementary foods, greenhouse-supported winter shares, and community service.

How does Issue 103 organize the spring equinox field sprays?

Apply BD 500 in mid or late afternoon, then apply BD 501 the following morning before the dew has dried. Use the current JPI instructions for dose and stirring, keep equipment and acreage consistent, and record the calendar date, weather, soil moisture, crop stage, application time, and field response. Repeating the same record across seasons makes the equinox rhythm observable and useful.

What can current compost makers learn from Jack McAndrew’s method?

Treat compost making as both exact practice and living observation. Study the established recipe, use the best available materials, avoid casual shortcuts, and document pile dimensions, ingredient proportions, moisture, temperature, preparation placement, turning, aroma, structure, and finished humus. McAndrew adapted intelligently to real farm conditions while holding firm to the principles that protect compost quality, then taught others to verify the results in soil and crops.

Applied Biodynamics archive

Applied Biodynamics — Issue No. 103 (Spring 2022)

Issue 103 joins JPI’s spring preparation work with a repeatable urban CSA model, year-round Demeter growing at Kimberton, and Jack McAndrew’s exacting compost legacy.

10mh An Lùnastal 2026 Published by The Josephine Porter Institute Download PDF

Applied Biodynamics, Issue 103 (Spring 2022) opens with spring as the farm year’s true beginning. JPI moves from winter planning into preparation orders, flower and leaf gathering, horn and organ sourcing, workshops, field sprays, and expanded cultivation of yarrow, valerian, chamomile, nettle, and dandelion. The spring checklist brings this rhythm into farm practice through Tree Paste, late-frost valerian, equinox applications of BD 500 and BD 501, and continued study of the biodynamic calendar.

Download Issue 103 PDF

Mary Maruca’s profile of Spiritual Foods for the New Millennium documents a consumer-founded urban CSA connecting metropolitan Washington, D.C., with biodynamic and organic farms. Its strengths are practical and repeatable: fair farm pricing, reliable transport, neighborhood drop sites, volunteer coordination, prepacked boxes, half shares, supplementary foods, winter production, and community service. Over more than two decades, the CSA grows by solving one logistical problem at a time while keeping soil, nutrition, farmers, and members in one relationship.

The companion profile of Frank Kurylo and Kimberton CSA shows how a ten-acre Demeter-certified farm feeds more than four hundred member households across its own CSA and Spiritual Foods. Eleven greenhouses, winter greens, stored roots, manure from the neighboring Seven Stars dairy, and attentive seasonal transitions extend production through the year. Frank’s work with BD 500 and BD 501 belongs within a whole-farm rhythm of planning, greenhouse management, field observation, labor, and personal steadiness.

The memorial section honors Jack McAndrew as a master of biodynamic compost. His students remember a teacher who joined exacting standards with practical adaptation, experimentation, careful study of the Agriculture Course and planting calendars, and reverence for the smallest entity in the pile. Compost making emerges as a high agricultural art whose results appear in soil vitality, food quality, and the living farm organism.

Taken together, Issue 103 shows biodynamics moving from inner commitment to visible systems: preparation work on the farm, food distribution across a city, year-round protected growing, and compost knowledge passed faithfully from teacher to student.

Articles in This Issue

From the Editor — Mary Maruca
News From the Farm — JPI Staff
Exploring Spiritual Foods, An Urban CSA — Mary Maruca
Introducing Frank Kurylo, Kimberton Farmer
Crossing the Threshold — Jack McAndrew
Jack McAndrew, A True Gem — Stefan Hagopian
What’s Happening With the Fellowship Conference?
Dandelion Blossoms Sought

Key Topics Covered

Spring preparation orders, material gathering, workshops, and farm renewal
Tree Paste, BD 507 frost support, and equinox BD 500 and BD 501 spraying
Consumer-founded urban CSA design and biodynamic food access
Fair farm pricing, transport, drop sites, half shares, and winter shares
Kimberton’s year-round Demeter greenhouse and field system
Whole-farm integration of dairy manure, protected growing, and preparations
Jack McAndrew’s exact, practical, and reverent compost method
Transmission of biodynamic knowledge through mentorship and records

Repeatable Practice in This Issue

Forecast spring preparation needs by acreage and keep one shared calendar for gathering, packing, workshops, orders, storage, and field applications.
For the equinox sequence, apply BD 500 in mid or late afternoon and BD 501 the following morning before the dew has dried; record weather, soil moisture, crop stage, timing, and field response.
Track CSA membership, routes, box contents, share sizes, winter supply, volunteer hours, waste, and farmer payment so the system improves through each season.
For compost, record dimensions, materials, proportions, moisture, temperature, preparation placement, turning, aroma, structure, and finished humus.