Our Waldorf Homeschool Journey

Hi Everyone

Well, yesterday’s telling of the story the Little Red Hen obviously was absorbed overnight, because when I went to clear another vege bed, harvesting the last brocoli, onions and beetroot and tying up tomatoes,that sort of thing (and weeding….), StJohn asked if he could help, and he did. He dug out brocoli plants, cleared the few weeds around, and then dug beds over ready for new seeds. He did an amazing job.

Now to put things in perspective I need to explain that for our piece of earth we try our best to follow Bio-Dynamic principles. I found this incredible, as I’ve done this for most of my adult life, and never knew that Rudolf Steiner wrote a book and gave lectures on the subject.

More and more we see the echo of Rudolf Steiners wisdom in our lives. Places we never knew to look. Our Journey is one that is best described as a Waldorf existence, I guess. Or at least what people perceive and call “Waldorf”. It is just a discovery of Steiners work among others, that resonates with our 4 souls.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that we’ve been living it and didn’t realise that it was all waiting for us in Steiners teaching.

Anyway back to the bio-dynamic garden….our pests have been few this season.When we first bought our property the snails were awesome, thousands in a season. We removed them by hand, couldn’t keep up and they just ate everything. It was the first season digging over soil, composting and planting few things, as the ground just wasn’t ready. The entire property had been covered with stone in an attempt to have a maintenance free home. It took nearly 6 months to clear all the rock and gravel, just to find more rock underneath. We have a property covered in sandstone, which we collect now and use to build either a wall or an edging for a bed.

We’re now in the third spring, and between planting the right plants, using companion planting, and planting plants next to each other that ward off insects etc, we’ve managed to keep the pests to a minimum. Then the snails, well, we have the chickens and they love a good snail, initially they cleared large patches of snail homes. This cut down on them to such a degree we have about 10 or so a week that appear, but they don’t get near the plants, as we have a few resident snakes that eat snails and slugs. We haven’t bought anything to spray on the plants, or dig into the soil. It has all just arrived, and works well together. It’s amazing to watch and see how nature just sorts these things out. We set it up as close to how it would be naturally and then Mother Earth takes over….

 

This is a pic of our one bed that gives us, peas, or beans depending on the season, 2 different squashes, carrots,lettuce, cucumber, and 2 medicinal herbs, being lavender and bulbine, and mint for so many things. You’ll see a space at the back, beans have been planted and should pop out in a week or so. The yellow bush, with the climbing rose behind,provide a ready home for our little snake, who we see regularly as he protects our food from a snail invasion…bless him.

One of his friends nearly caused me to pass out this afernoon, as we grow our potatoes in grow bags. I was moving them to reposition them and fill them with soil, when I looked down and saw a fat scorpion in the space I had just had the bag. I backed away and yelled for John, he came and was attempting to help the scorpion cross the Rainbow Bridge, when a close relation of my helping snake shot out from the other side of the bag. I of course scream and freeze. I still struggle with snakes moving fast. The smaller ones I can just manage and I respect and am grateful for what they do, but the others, yugh!

Now I have to go and bottle the beetroot we’ve harvested. I’ll cook it now and do the pickling tonight last thing, when I have some quiet time. I need to start getting out of bed earlier, as my days are too short to achieve all I need to at the moment.

Be blessed this day,
Sue.xx

Filed under: Bio-Dynamic Gardening, Waldorf Homeschooling, HOMESTEADING on November 6th, 2008