“I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me – like food or water.” ~ Ray Charles
“The Eyes of the Future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time.” ~ Terry Tempest Williams
***If you’d like to jump ahead to the official business part of this post, please do – below you will find a heading “CSA Pick Up Locations & Times Have Been Confirmed” This is important info, feel free to scroll ahead to find out when and where you can pick-up your CSA share this year (its not too late to order one if you haven’t yet…)
Why do we have favourite songs, and enjoy hearing them over, and over again? Or stories for that matter? One might think it is better to listen to something new, to only read or listen to new stories, but time and time again virtually everyone comes back to a favourite tune, or recollection of past events. They help us make sense of a sometimes cacaphonic existence and bring peace and reverie into our lives.
Just like a favourite song, with its dependable transitions, can bring comfort to our lives, so too can the familiarity of other rhythms. As we come closer and closer to the beginning of spring, its hard not to feel the quiet excitement that is developing, whispering of a promise of warmer weather, the joyful sounds of familiar song birds, and fresh leafy greens!
The rhythms of the seasons are hard not to notice, but for the avid gardener, there are more subtle rhythms: the influences of the moon and planets on plants’ growth.
I reckon i was my love for music, and rhythms more specifically, that helped cultivate in me a willingness to explore the biodynamic practice of planting according to the rhythms of the moon and planets.
For ages these celestial bodies’ impact on plants was common knowledge and shared through stories and rhymes of folklore from generation to generation.
Maria Thun, a biodynamic gardener, quantified this old-world wisdom, and from her work, the biodynamic calendar was created, a tool that helps gardeners work with the forces of the moon and planets to amplify their combined effect on the growth of plants.
Without going into too much detail, when you take all of the different factors together, including the locations of planets and the moon in the sky, you are usually left with a dominating elemental energy, either earth, water, fire, or air. Each of these correspond to a specific developmental function of plants, namely, the development of roots, leaves, fruit or flowers. And so, we can work with these rhythms by seeding spinach, for example, on leaf days, radishes on root days, and cauliflower on flower days, for example.
Now there is more to the intricacies of gardening with the biodynamic calendar than what I’ve described above, but this is a good start. For anyone interested in learning more, the Society for Biodynamic Farming and Gardening in Ontario has plenty of more information.
And so, as we start another movement in the orchestrated symphony of life on earth, and march into spring, take time to notice some of the subtler rhythms in your life, and to enjoy them!
CSA Pick Up Locations & Times Have Been Confirmed!
There are Four Pick-up locations in total, including two for the communities of Clarksburg and Thornbury…
1. Clarksburg – Thursdays from 3-5:30 pm at the Honey House (Marsh Street)
2. Clarksburg – Sundays from 11 am – 2 pm at the Clarksburg Farmers Market
(That’s right – the Clarksburg Farmers’ Market is now held on Sundays from 11-2!!!)
3. Collingwood – Saturdays at the Farmers Market from 8 am until 11:30
(the market runs until 1 pm, but its helpful for me if folks can pick-up their veggies earlier, and that way they aren’t sitting out for too long either).
4. Farm – On Farm Pick-ups can be arranged for Thursdays after 3 pm, or Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays between 9 am and 7 pm. (The farm is near the hamlets of Redwing and Duncan)
Kolapore Gardens 