Biodynamic vegetable garden

Our biodynamic agricultural vegetable garden began 2 years ago, with two aims: the understanding and refinement of the philosophical and practical methods of biodynamic agriculture and the research and selection of indigenous vegetable varieties that would otherwise be lost.

The equilibrium of the ecosystem, which in nature is perfect, in the hands of man becomes fragile, it falls apart immediately when the growing time of the plants is accelerated through fertilizing and forced pruning, the constant cultivation of the soil, which does not allow a period of rest between one crop and the next, treatments to eradicate parasites which render the products aesthetically less marketable etc...

All this leads rapidly to less fertile soils, causing the plants to lose their own environmental self-regulation processes, that is, the capacity to adapt and defend themselves against adverse climatic conditions and local parasites. For this reason the majority of the products we eat today have lost their vitality, their "nutritional energy", their flavours.

Biodynamic agriculture is in essence the natural integration between nature and man's work, which, for agricultural purposes compels him to "use" the soil as a means of production for vegetables and fruit. Biodynamic agriculture is a method of working which aims to utilize the soil in a less invasive and less aggressive manner. We create the same equilibrium and the same self-regulation in an artificial field that the plant creates physiologically in nature.

Our vegetable garden becomes part of an annual rotation system that we carry out on three fields. Two are for sowing; one for annual plants such as Fava Bean, the other for plants with a long-term cycle such as alfalfa, and partly for a vegetable garden. Every year we spread compost and manure which has matured for at least a year on the fields, and we make biodynamic preparations based on herbs and minerals, which help to revitalize the soil. We work the soil using only tools which aerate and deepen it, slowly, in appropriately humid weather conditions, without attacking and demolishing the structure through tilling. We do not use any type of plant protection products, except copper ore and pyrethrum in small doses. The plants selected locally, if grown in a healthy manner, are completely self-sufficient in terms of nutrition and are able to withstand most pests and adverse weather.

We have selected plants typical of the Lucca and surrounding region, from self-produced seed: climbing French bean ‘Stortino di Lucca', climbing string bean, cardoon ‘Hunchback of Lucca', cavolo nero (black kale) ‘Lancinato', red onion of Lucca, beefsteak tomato ‘Canestrino'. These seeds have no formal organic certification, but the plants from which they derive have been grown according to biodynamic methods. Thus for our own self-production and for the sale of our produce in the future, we will endeavour, where possible, to transform traditional seed into biodynamic seed, through the harvest of selected seed over 2-3 generations.

Paolo Gaddini