This week Wanda gave us a lot of resources about biodynamics that she had gathered since the last time we saw her. One particular source that stood out to me right away was the book about the biodynamic calendar from Stella Natura, I had read this source when I was looking at the calendar on my own. However, it was nice to see that my information was backed up by the information given in this book. It said that the charts in the calendar can “assist you this in choosing optimum times to sow seeds of annual crops, transplant, cultivate, and harvest them, for storage” (Wildfeuer 3). One of the questioned that remained in my mind about the calendar was why there were greyed out areas and this reading explained that these areas are like that because they are boundaries between constellations that are hard to define The changeover is indicated by two hour gaps with the grey. It is best to sow seeds more towards the middle of the of the time period because all of the plants will have this time in common, there is documentation that when the orbital planes of the moon, Mercury and Venus cross the orbital path of the sun it is unfavorable to sow seeds. Therefore these times are also greyed out on the calendar.The reading also had a fun fact that if there is a seed that you are worried about germinating it is best to plant it before a fill moon because it enhances germination.
As I said in my post a few weeks ago the words that are written in the times (such as leaf, fruit, roots) are to note when each type of plant that should be grown at this time. The book that I was looking at also gave a key of the symbols that are used in monthly calendars. I thought this was very important because the key gave a lot of information about what was being shown in the calendar. It also allows us to be able to read about what needed to be planted and when.
Overall, reading the information that was written in in the Stella Natura book really helped me to understand what is being shown in the biodynamic calendar. The first section of the book, before the monthly calendar, had so much information that that really broke down parts of the calendar as well as FAQs. I found it funny that many of the questions that I had remaining were the FAQs that were addressed in the writing.
I am going to try to talk all the information that I learned and create a watered down versions that when we pass this project down they are able to learn about the aspects of the calendar in an easier way then my group had to sift through the information. I think that learning how to read this calendar is key for our biodynamic garden to be successful on campus.