We hosted a biodynamics field day at The Oasis on Sunday the 14th of December which was attended by approximately 25 people some travelling from as far away as Armidale and the Liverpool plains. We were fortunate to have staff from Biodynamic Agriculture Australia (BAA) in Bellingen, Alan Johnstone and John Hodgkinson in attendance to share their biodynamic knowledge with us.
Angus and I enjoyed sharing the story of our lifestyle property The Oasis. We moved here in 2004 exactly 10 years ago (almost to the day of the field day) with the aim of developing the property to grow our own organic food from rotationally grazing sheep and cattle and we had a permaculture focus for the property. We were able to attend a biodynamics introductory course hosted by Hamish McKay from BAA in 2006 which started us on our biodynamics journey.
The key learning we took away from this first introductory biodynamics day in 2006 was that people only fail at biodynamics by NOT doing it so we joined BAA and started putting out the preps. We soon purchased a flow form to make the job easier but still spread by hand over our 20 acres. It takes us 4 afternoons to spread the preparations and around an hour of spreading with the two of us helping each time. We cant thank BAA enough as they have made it possible for us to learn about biodynamics, to purchase preparations and it would not have been possible for us to use biodynamic methods and enjoy amazing biodynamically grown food (you can so taste the difference!) with out the work they do.
Field day participants enjoyed a farm tour where we were able to demonstrate and discuss the transformation process that has been evolving on The Oasis following rotationally grazing sheep and cattle and using biodynamic farming methods. Our soil was in an extremely degraded condition when we came here 10 years ago and the improvement is amazing, especially considering many of the past 10 years have been severely drought affected. We also toured our vegetable garden and home orchard area and shared learnings and ideas for food growing in a harsh climate with cold frosty winters and hot dry summers.
Overall the feedback from the day heralded it a great success. All participants were inspired and enjoyed spending the day with like minded folk and were taking home ideas to implement at their own places. The social side of the day was just as important as the practical aspect. BAA are planning to hold more farm field days in 2015 to help spread the biodynamics message so keep an eye out for more information on these in coming months.
Angus and I enjoyed sharing the story of our lifestyle property The Oasis. We moved here in 2004 exactly 10 years ago (almost to the day of the field day) with the aim of developing the property to grow our own organic food from rotationally grazing sheep and cattle and we had a permaculture focus for the property. We were able to attend a biodynamics introductory course hosted by Hamish McKay from BAA in 2006 which started us on our biodynamics journey.
The key learning we took away from this first introductory biodynamics day in 2006 was that people only fail at biodynamics by NOT doing it so we joined BAA and started putting out the preps. We soon purchased a flow form to make the job easier but still spread by hand over our 20 acres. It takes us 4 afternoons to spread the preparations and around an hour of spreading with the two of us helping each time. We cant thank BAA enough as they have made it possible for us to learn about biodynamics, to purchase preparations and it would not have been possible for us to use biodynamic methods and enjoy amazing biodynamically grown food (you can so taste the difference!) with out the work they do.
Field day participants enjoyed a farm tour where we were able to demonstrate and discuss the transformation process that has been evolving on The Oasis following rotationally grazing sheep and cattle and using biodynamic farming methods. Our soil was in an extremely degraded condition when we came here 10 years ago and the improvement is amazing, especially considering many of the past 10 years have been severely drought affected. We also toured our vegetable garden and home orchard area and shared learnings and ideas for food growing in a harsh climate with cold frosty winters and hot dry summers.
Overall the feedback from the day heralded it a great success. All participants were inspired and enjoyed spending the day with like minded folk and were taking home ideas to implement at their own places. The social side of the day was just as important as the practical aspect. BAA are planning to hold more farm field days in 2015 to help spread the biodynamics message so keep an eye out for more information on these in coming months.
