BioDynamics with Allan Balliett

In this episode Allan Balliett introduces me to the new term BioDynamics(or is it an ancient term as old as civilization itself?). Biodynamic agriculture is a method of organic farming that treats farms as unified and individual organisms, emphasizing balancing the holistic development and interrelationship of the soil, plants, animals as a self-nourishing system without external inputs insofar as this is possible given the loss of nutrients due to the export of food.

Allan Balliett mentions the book Ideal Soil: A Handbook for the New Agriculture by Michael Astera numerous times and presents the book as a manual on how to create plants that are both healthy and nutrient dense. The idea that we can just add more compost to solve many of our gardens problems may be flawed because the soil is more dynamic than what conventional wisdom would have you believe. In some cases soil samples may be necessary to identify missing nutrients.