This year I’m trying to time my seed sowing according to ‘The Biodynamic Sowing and Planting Calendar 2009’. I’m not convinced it will make any difference to the seeds, but it does help schedule everything in.
Anyway, today was heralded as a FRUIT day, so it was time to start my bean booster experiment.
Having washed two troughs clean, I filled them both with a mix of commercial potting compost and Perlite*. Then I planted up the Control trough – the one in which the beans will not be ‘boosted’. There are 10 beans in each trough, 5 Stereo and 5 The Sutton.
For the ‘boosted’ trough I had to prepare the beans before sowing. The instuctions on the bean booster packet say to sprinkle the beans with water so they’re damp, but not sitting in a puddle. Then you apply the bean booster (which looks a bit like coffee grounds – the whole sachet does 4 packets of beans, so if you have gardening friends it’s something you could share). Then you plant the beans.
My troughs will stay inside until the beans start to germinate.
I had plenty of bean booster left over, so I treated and sowed some bean seeds around the garden, and then I mixed the rest with water and applied it to the raised beds and the compost heaps. Hopefully the bacteria will survive and populate the garden – assuming, of course, that the experiment shows they make a difference.
The bean booster packet says you have to wash your hands once you’ve handled it, so any day now I’m expecting to be able to fix nitrogen from the air myself….
*I hate Perlite. It’s nasty stuff that makes so much dust it’s impossible not to breathe it in. When this bag is finished I won’t buy anymore.