Moon raker

Can burying a cow horn and planting by the lunar cycle give you a bumper crop? Annie Bell investigates the curious world of biodynamic farming

WHILE A FRENCH gardener will think nothing of chucking litres of herbicide on the weeds in the drive, he wouldn't dream of ignoring the moon's cycle when deciding the right time to plant his leeks. Planting by the moon is an ancient tradition, still followed by many gardeners on the Continent. It is also one of the defining practices of biodynamic farming, the most stringent of the six original organic standards.

Biodynamic goes beyond organic. Based on the same traditional farming principles, it adds an extra dimension, a belief that natural forces, allied to preparations equivalent to those used in homeopathic medicine, are effective. Animals can be reared biodynamically, but at this time of year its benefits are most apparent in the abundance of fruit and vegetables the farms produce. Biodynamic farming is still in its infancy here. While there are 80 registered farms in the UK (double the number there were in 1995), there are 14 times that number in Germany, where it began in the Twenties.

In the East Sussex Weald, Tablehurst Farm has been farmed biodynamically and co-operatively for seven years and was joined by neighbouring Plaw Hatch Farm last year. Farmer Peter Brown had run biodynamic farms in South Africa and Germany, and returned to Britain with no money and big ambitions. Fortuitously, he and his wife Brigitte made contact with Emerson College, whose biodynamic farm was losing money. The Browns' vision of a biodynamic farm run along co-operative lines showed the way forward.

Both farms are small: Tablehurst is just 300 acres, Plaw Hatch about 200. While the former specialises in livestock, Plaw Hatch not only has a dairy herd, but a vegetable garden that supplies a thriving farm shop. Cows are an essential part of the system as the horns from slaughtered animals form the foundation of cow-horn manure. In autumn, the horns are filled with manure and buried in fertile soil. In spring they're dug up, the fertilised earth is mixed with water and sprayed on to the fields. The liquid manure is thought to have attracted forces from the horn, the cosmos and the earth.

Another preparation designed to improve the quality of produce is made from powdered silica crystals. If all this sounds suspiciously like New-Age mumbo-jumbo, those who advocate homeopathy shouldn't need convincing. Just as homeopathic remedies are thought to derive their strength from dilution and have more to do with forces than substance, so too with the preparations employed here.

A biodynamic farm should be as self-contained as possible, operating as a self-perpetuating cycle. Ideally, animals are born on the farm, fed with produce grown on the farm on land fertilised with their manure. It's a holistic system that thrives on diversity and, in common with good organic practice, plenty of rotation. And that means a greater variety of vegetables than even the most enterprising market gardener usually grows.

In the course of a year, Plaw Hatch Farm grows up to 60 different types of vegetables and salad crops. Now they are harvesting peas and broad beans, courgettes and marrows, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, beetroot and spinach, as well as a wide variety of lettuces and herbs. Having seen the glossy, healthy outcome of gardener Jonathan Wellman's endeavours, their produce cannot be faulted for its quality. There are certainly none of the blights we have come to accept in produce grown without chemical interference. But Wellman is either modest or genuinely reluctant to make any claims for the standard of his produce. Instead he credits the soil as being the measure by which he judges the proceeds. "The soil is the vital element, vegetables are simply the outcome." Success shouldn't just be measured by the produce, but by the health of the whole farm.

Brown thinks the spiritual aspect of biodynamic farming puts many people off, although his own analogy is logical and convincing. "If you study the needle on a compass through a microscope to determine why it points north you won't find the answer, it's just a needle. If you then learn there's a magnetic field around the earth, you start to understand why it behaves as it does. It's the same with nature: by taking into account the moon and the sun, other planets and the zodiac, you begin to understand." For those of us who appreciate the fruit and vegetables, the produce is the most delicious proof of the system's benefits.

Old Plaw Hatch Farm, Plawhatch Lane, Sharpthorne, East Sussex (01342 810201). Shop open Mon-Fri, 10am-6pm, Sat 9am-6pm, Sun 10am-4 pm; Tablehurst Farm (off London Road), Forest Row, East Sussex (01342 823173) Shop open Thur-Sat, 9am-5pm. For further information contact the Biodynamic Agricultural Association on 01453 759501.