Five large sausage-shaped ingredients and a cup of liquid should be the result
Five large, sausage-shaped ingredients and a cup of liquid should be the result. Alternatively, and slightly unbelievably, you can get them by mail order. The Biodynamic Association will send you the preparations (dried), with instructions for use.However obtained, the sausagey parcels and juice should be inserted into the centre of an existing compost heap, or buried in a soil stack, where they must remain all winter. It seems only right to entrust the “preps” (as old hands at this game call them) to a suitable compost heap Somehow, a plastic, dalek-shaped barrel will not do. Let it not be forgotten that the aim of Steiner compost is not just to enrich the soil organically, but to reunite the earth with its severed spirit.
This calls for a little imagination in the construction of the heap. Perhaps the best model for this originated in America (where they have entire magazines devoted just to compost); a circle is composed of wooden stakes set about 50cm apart, pushed firmly into the ground (freshly cut hazel or ash would be ideal), measuring roughly 1.5m in diameter and height.Then, having obtained a bale of straw (barley or oat straw is better than wheat, which mops up water too readily), you strew the straws into a long, fat row and roll it, as though rolling a sausage out of Plasticine. Some soft twine should hold the thick rope of straw together, which may then be woven in and out of the upright stakes. The straw will decompose along with the contents of the big “basket” so that the container (minus the stakes) as well as the compost within can eventually be used on the garden.
It goes without saying that, whether or not it is aesthetically pleasing, to meet with full Steinerian approval the straw should be organic.Back to the plot and, come the spring, when all the ingredients have degraded and are worked into the existing heap or soil stack, the benefits and mysteries of alchemical compost await your garden. It is not difficult to feel slightly sceptical; even if you meet Steiner gardeners who swear by the stuff and produce gorgeously tasty, big vegetables, you may well be persuaded that any good, rich compost would have achieved the same result. And there are older gardeners around who would add that this or that flourishing vine was planted over the carcass of a dead calf. (“We knew we’d dug the hole big enough for the plant if we could get a calf in too.”) Who could possibly prescribe a recipe for exactly the right blend of animal, vegetable and mineral ingredients? Why a bovine intestine rather than a sheep’s intestine; why chamomile and not rosemary, say? Steiner doesn’t give the answer to that, and a large amount of trust or faith is required to make the exercise worth the effort.Whatever the prescription, restoring the spiritual as well as the physical health of the soil – and eating the consequences – will sound cranky to some and enlightened to others.
For real compost addicts, though, the challenge of creating Steiner compost will prove irresistible.Rudolf’s recipe1 stag’s bladder stuffed with wild yarrow flowers1 cow’s mesentery (gut) stuffed with dandelion flowers1 skull of cow, goat, sheep or pig, filled with chopped oak bark1 bunch stinging nettles wrapped in peat moss1 length bovine intestine filled with chamomile flowersjuice of crushed valerian flowers. Autumn is a crucial time for the gardener. Naila Green on what you should be doing this weekend
Building a bonfire is a great opportunity to check out trees before autumn gales bring down dead wood, but don’t burn leaves or other compostible material.
Finish off fruit and ornamental tree pruning, cutting out damaged, diseased or crossing branches. If you didn’t get around to pruning your wisteria in August, you can now cut all the long shoots back to two buds, thus keeping it under control and encouraging flowers.
