permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

[][][][]

[here is one from The WELL, the Whole Earth Catalog online forum - a very early online resource]

Article 13461 of rec.gardens:
Newsgroups: rec.gardens
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From: kjp@well.sf.ca.us (Karen Paulsell)
Subject: Re: Alan Chadwick 1979 Lecture on Anemone Culture
Message-ID: <C23n3u.Apu@well.sf.ca.us>
Sender: news@well.sf.ca.us
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
References: <1993Feb7.041837.7244@samba.oit.unc.edu>
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1993 22:14:17 GMT
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Thank you, I enjoyed that immensely! More, you have more?

I heard Chadwick speak once, and while I didn't (quite) get the urge
to throw up my life and move to Round Valley for the requisite year of
study, I could certainly understand that impulse in the many who did so.
I could hear his voice echoing through that post, and will look at my
anemones with new respect.

Monday, Oct. 26, 1992
[]
A Tribute to Alan Chadwick,
Master Gardener by Hilmar Moore

reprinted from  STELLA NATURA Inspriation and Practical Advice for Home
Gardeners and Professional Growers in Working with Cosmic Rhythms - (The 1993
Kimberton Hills Agricultural Calendar available from the Biodynamic
Association, Kimberton, PA)

When I think of the culture of agriculture in the United States, three names
come to mind: Liberty Hyde Bailey, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, and Alan Chadwick.
Bailey had a tremendous effect on the cultural life of rural America through
his work at Cornell. His hundreds of bulletins and his characterizations of
rural life brought self-respect to a generation of farmers. His 65 books,
written between 1885 and 1953, are still standards of excellence for their
clarity and usefulness as references, particularly when one needs practical
information. The two books on nature study for children were decades ahead of
their time. Pfeiffer was the great pioneer of biodynamics in this country. His
innovations in scientific research, his ability to inspire quite diverse kinds
of people, his leadership of the biodynamic movement for over twenty years, and
his spiritual insights have left an indelible record of achievement.

Alan Chadwick's contributions are more difficult to categorize. He was an
artist, not a scientist like Pfeiffer or Bailey. He had no formal academic
training, nor was he skilled at any form of management, yet a number of people
are successfully pursuing agriculture professionally who were inspired by him.
I do not believe he undertook any systematic form of spiritual development,
although he spoke with devotion of Rudolf Steiner and considered himself a
Roman Catholic, and yet he played a large role in the spiritual development of
many people. Three of the five big gardens he began are still in production. He
was one of the most enigmatic men I have encountered and certainly one of the
most inwardly tortured.

He was born in England in 1909 to a wealthy family, and had private tutors for
his education. He received a formal training as an actor, in the manner for
which England is justifiably renowned. How he attained his horticultural
training is the subject for some debate. Indeed, a journalist who tried to
write a biography of Chadwick gave up after months of work. Nothing about Alan
Chadwick's lifehis personal relationships, his biography, and even his legacy
in horticultureis straightforward or conventional.

He came to California in the early 1970s from South Africa, after having worked
some years as actor and restoring the Admiralty Gardens in Capetown. He was
vited to establish a garden and a training program at the University of
California at Santa Cruz, then one of the most innovative universities in the
world. Soon his incredibly beautiful and productive garden, his inspirational
lectures, and his magnetic personality had attracted a devoted group of
gardeners. He inspired and helped to
 develop a garden at the Zen Center at Green Gulch, north of San Francisco, and
another at Saratoga. He founded the Round Valley Garden Project in Covelo,
where he worked and taught for over five years. Then he moved to Virginia,
where his last project existed for several years. Finally, seriously ill he was
invited back to the Zen Center, where he was cared for with real love until his
death on Whitsunday, 1980.

I think that the source of Alan's strength as a teacher and inspirer lies in
his unique vision of what a garden can be. This vision is based on two pillars:
a clear understanding of the rhythms of nature in creating an environment in
which plants can thrive, and of the role of the garden in human culture.

The enthusiasm, delicacy, and accuracy of Alan's presentation of the rhythms of
nature are unforgettable. "Why do you water the soil?" he would ask. "So it
will dry out!" came his answer, thus pointing to the rhythmic undulations
between warmth and cold, wet and dry, that plants require and that must come
from the environment skillfully managed by the gardener. His vividly pictorial
lectures on the management of fertilization, propagation, irrigation, and
cultivation within the cycle of the year, the breathing of the earth, will live
as long as people remember his words.

 He taught that the garden is both the epitome and the mother of all true
culture. He foresaw a society thatwould become ever more decentralized and
diverse, with its foundation an agriculture that would unite art, science, and
religion. What religion? That service to the spirit of the earth without which
we have no real inner life; that devotion which allows us to become creative
collaborators in the future of earthly evolution. He showed how horticulture
can bring about artistic creation in each household, religious devotion in the
soul toward one's environment; and how by understanding the requirements of
building a living soil community, one receives the bounty of a renewed and
enlivened earth.


A Tribute to Alan Chadwick Part II
by Hilmar Moore

reprinted from  STELLA NATURA Inspriation and Practical Advice for Home
Gardeners and Professional Growers in Working with Cosmic Rhythms - (The 1993
Kimberton Hills Agricultural Calendar available from the Biodynamic
Association, Kimberton, PA)

Alan taught that the garden would become the center of a new kind of village
life, modeled somewhat on an idealized medieval village or town. It would
combine aspects of the old monastery, with its culinary, medical, vegetable,
and meditation gardens, its orchards, animal husbandry, clinic and hospital,
school, and small scale farming. This vision comes from the distant past, from
the ancient temple cultures that flourished in Egypt and other places, and
which had a last burst of glory in medieval Europe. There were also elements of
the great 19th century English landscape gardens of Repton and Capability Brown
in Alan's picture, as well as of the "wild garden" of Robinson and the huge
flower borders of Gertrude Jekyll.

It is easy to ridicule Alan's vision. He related much more to the past than to
the present which he hated. He had a relationship to ancient Greece which one
could feel emanating from him at times as if part of his soul had never left
it. But his vision was not based on a romantic view of human nature; far from
it. He constantly inveighed against the inherent evil of human "disobedience"
towards the laws of nature, to which he contrasted in powerful images the
obedience of the plant kingdom. He was like an Old Testament prophet, railing
against the people's falling from the Way into sin and decadence.

That he never found an understanding for the mystery of the human spirit was
one reason his projects fell apart after some time. In this he was certainly
typical of our time. Community based on individuality and not on an older group
consciousness is clearly one of our greatest challenges. One could say that
what compassion he communicated was much more often for the soil, plants and
animals than for the human condition. Yet I often wonder if his vision will not
find its true place in the future and that time may be nearer than we think! We
may find ourselves working much more closely to our home, as many futurists
tell us; and if so, Alan's vision of the "home in the garden" may prove to be
much more prophetic than anachronistic.

When one speaks to a wide variety of his students, one hears comments which
make clear the tortured nature of Alan's destiny. He was through and through an
artist, and one whose being looked with reverence to the past, to a society
organized around the ancient mystery centers. He felt intimately connected to
myth and fairy tales. The most peaceful moments for him seemed to be when he
taught "mime, deportment, and elocution" in preparation for dramawork. Here he
lauded the most miniscule attempts at creativity. By contrast, managing a large
garden, the increasing teaching load, and the many people who looked to him as
a spiritual guide caused him real pain. "I am not a maestro, " he once said to
me. H e wished that we had such a spiritual teacher, and was aware that that
person was not himself: He yearned to place his life in the service of the
spirit and to
 found a community (actually, a village more than an intellectual community)
based on his vision, yet he felt constantly pulled by the selfish individuality
of his artistic temperament. Constantly he drew people to him through his
charismatic personality, abilities, and insight, and just as constantly he
drove them away.

For perspective, one must look to the many students who have already
transcended those areas in which Alan's vision was inadequate, and who have
taken his inspiration into the most varied endeavors, by learning to work with
appropriate machinery, creating new social forms, and working with
disadvantaged people and communities This alone qualifies him as a significant
figure in American agriculture. Most of the people who worked with him had a
lasting experience of what can be accomplished through common work without
machines. The combination of so much hand labor, such quantities of compost and
manures, and of saving every scrap of refuse for the compost, can create a
truly awesome transformation of the soil.

This memory may become more helpful some day when the luxury of working like
that becomes a necessity.

Another measure can be found in the emphasis he placed on flowers and fruit, on
artistically designed borders and other landscaping for beauty and for feeding
the birds and insects, whose presence in a living organism is essential for its
health. He regarded beauty as just as important a "product" of a garden as
vegetables and herbs. I think one will find elements of this concept in nearly
every gardening book written after about 1975.

If, as Rudolf Steiner predicted, there will come a time when there will not be
an atom of earthly substance that has not been transformed by human effort,
then there will come a time when Alan Chadwick's ideas will be applied over
whole regions, where every aspect of the landscape will be consciously designed
for scientific (ecological and agricultural), artistic (repose and beauty), and
spiritual (for our meditative life) reasons. Then we will all live in the
garden, our true home.

[]

MORE:

[]

Allen Chadwick said, "We need to create the beauty and the quality  first.
The quantity will follow."

[]

Reprinted from ACRES USA July 1991 without permission.

  INTRODUCTION [from ACRES, USA]
  Alan Chadwick, the founder of the biodynamic/French intensive school
  of growing food crops, left the scene over  a decade ago. We are told
  that on the wall to the left of his bed had been hung a copy of
  Shakespeare's Sonnet XV, a fitting summary to the man's life.

  When I consider everything that grows
  Holds in perfection but a little moment,
  That this huge state presenteth naught but shows
  Whereon the stars secret influence commeth;
  When I perceive that men as plants increase,
  Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky,
  And wear their brave state out of memory;
  Then the conceit of this inconstant stays
  Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
  Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,
  To change your day of youth to sullied night;
  And all in war with Time or love of you,
  As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

  Not many people know that Alan Chadwick was a child of the stage as
  well as a gardener. World War II impacted his nature like a stunning
  hammer. The government demanded that people ignore their preferences
  and take on the choice of war. Chadwick ended up on the bridge of a
  mine sweeper, and after the war he went to South Africa to act in A
  Streetcar Named Desire. But he had this vision - a marriage between
  Steiner biodynamics and a French system of raised bed growing. Later
  he me Countess Freya von Moltke, the widow of the German general
  Helmuth von Moltke.

  It was Freya von Moltke who arranged for Chadwick to be offered a
  teaching post at Santa Cruz. As a consequence, this teacher and other
  teachers have created thousands who know the system. Hunger in this
  world would be quite impossible if such training became widespread.

  These few notes necessarily preface a presentation Alan Chadwick made
  on the subject of fertility at New Market, Virginia about a year
  before he died. His message was so timeless it rates reiteration over
  a decade later.

  There is poetry in ChadwickUs insight. Those who cannot take the time
  to cherish each syllable, each though, each sentence or fragment
  there of can go to others reports in this issue. Our editorial marks
  have been imposed to achieve clarity, and not to alter what Chadwick
  had to say. Otherwise this, a final lecture in a way, is presented
  here exactly as taped.

  FERTILITY
  Robert Graves in quotation: The decline of true taste for food is
  the beginning of a decline in a national culture as a whole. When
  people have lost their authentic personal taste, they lose their
  personality and become the instruments of other peopleUs wills. And
  Linsay Robb in his address entitled "Altius Longius Sitius": We have
  lost that essential unity with the soil. The break in this
  relationship is first indicated in the disregard for spiritual
  values, and sense of obligation and obedience to the creative powers
  of the universe.
  By way of contrast: On perceiving the violet: that the re-creation
  of the mind, which is taken thereby, cannot be but very good and
  honest. For they admonish and stir up the man to do that which is
  comely and honest. For they admonish and stir up a man to do that
  which is comely and honest. For through their beauty, color and
  exquisite form do bring remembrance of honesty, comeliness and all
  kinst of virtues. So it would be unseemly and impossible, even though
  the observer was a criminal, to be able to look upon this [flower]
  and yet remain defiled.
  Fertility has no limits. It is a gift. And it is an endless eleve
  uplift or reverse. But remember that the more fertile, the more
  eleve  we introduce, the more danger and susceptible is nature
  to the four elements, and error. It requires guarding as it becomes
  gifted in creation.
  For a moment, IUm going to talk practically again. Fertility,
  altogether in the whole our lives connected with horticulture,
  connected with the garden, connected with our art, with our craft is,
  of course, a marriage. Now, you must perceive that when we dealt with
  and looked a little into the cosmic, there were enormous keys there,
  one in particular. That so much of the atmospheres, the gifts we
  discover, receive and accept are by a form of marriage, and that
  there is a synergist in the always. And that they are the two
  energies: the energy of creation, the sun, and the energy of the
  recipient, the earth, which is always obedient to the leadership.
  And that you accept it with an obedience and reverence and obey its
  techniques, obey its requirements in order to bring it about, in
  order to make it eleve, for it is not static. It will increase all
  the time and can increase, as you comprehend-- equally by miracle,
  instantaneously.

  Therefore, when we spoke of the sun and the earth and this marriage
  that creates atmosphere, which we call warmth and light--here you
  have a continuation of this performance, but the multitudinous the
  fertility is coming out of the energy of that marriage of atmosphere.
  And as it is part o the destiny of humanity in particular, as the
  director of the orchestra, as a gardener or a farmer or an
  >oikosomiast< to invect this and create the >eleve<. it is endless,
  remember, and can go either way, like a sedge, into the salt ocean or
  into the sweet land.
  We discussed cultivation, fertilization and propagation in very
  minimal degrees as utter basics. Fertility is a marriage of these
  (three) and it is the marriage of all other that comes out of that
  marriage in the creation of atmosphere. For the moment, I'm focusing
  somewhat on a >conservatoire< of productivity in the garden, the
  production of the garden, not only for the produce for the kitchen
  but the whole garden, of course.
  So I want to bring to your observation the utter obedience to
  technique. If you obey the technique to perfection, that technique
  will become invisible because it is a craft and that is the Greek
  word, >technae<, [technique which it has become]. >Technae< means
  art: Being the creation of God in everything and craft being the
  method by which humanity brings it into performance in the visible
  world--very much the way in which we talk about seed and plants.
  Therefore, technae is art revealed in this world by a craft, and that
  is the word technique. It combines those. It's a phrase. Therefore,
  when we look at the subjects that we have slightly dealt with
  technically, we have talked about stratifications in these raised
  beds. We have talked about why this is a raised be: to get
  >motionibus< exposing to >revolutionibus<.

  And that you have your drainage which is one of the first
  implementations of acquiring >revolutionibus<. And so you are
  applying all of these techniques into a marriage which is all working
  towards the uplift of the procedure of fertility.
  And if you will make stratifications after you have made you
  cultivations and you will add these fertilizations and
  stratifications and texture, and the performance of shapes and
  movements up to the surface of the soil, which is the skin of the
  earth, the area of discontinuity where it meets the air.
  And here you will have produced your plants in a likewise technical
  manner to produce the utmost fertility in their performance.
  And now you will either sow the seed or the plant the plants in that
  formative, artistic bed of enormous technical procedure and thought
  and obedience, and you will plant it so that all the time the (four)
  elements will be your friends and not your enemies - - the six houses
  of fertility and the six houses of destructiveness.

  And that you will sow or plant that bed in such a manner that the
  plants will cover that bed, either ley (or bee) plants or weed plants
  or other plants, will cover that bed as instantly almost as
  germination can take place. but this mean you will have breathing
  pursuing with the >revolutionibus< of each day with the cosmic forces,
  and you will have an in flow and an intake and an outflow of breathing
  that is of the utmost fertility that at present you can produce in this
  area. And that those plants will aalmost immediately cover the area of
  discontinuity--the skin of the earth--with an exquisite mantle. And
  that will prevent that seizure of the topsoil, which is so dangerous,
  and a seizure of the collars of the plants, which is so dangerous for
  there will now be a little area in there of a conservatory, of a
  glass house. And if you put you hand in on a very windy day, it will
  be protected, and if you put you hand in on a very hot sunny day, it
  will be cool, and on a very dry day it will be moisture. And you
  will find you have come into a conservatoire.
  And as those plants grow, those warm, moist gases are being retained
  inside, and that the foliages are performing their duty of protecting
  that bd and the plants and that area which is dangerous with them.
  Therefore, you will get this acceleration and this beautiful growth
  whereby those plants will remain tender, young, succulent and full of
  nutritives, and gentle. And so they will grow faster and faster and
  happier and happier, and they will breathe in and out with the
  inclination and the declination, applying it into the bed through
  numerous planetary governments--minerals--and breathing into the air,
  into that atmosphere that aurora (dawn) is crating each day--those
  mineral atmospheres. It will be taking place ad lit. Ad infinitum.
  And suddenly, you have got a whole bed full of exquisite lettuce all
  ready for the salad bowl, or carrots or yount turnips or turnip tops,
  or whatever the bed may be. And now it will be taken and utilized in
  the kitchen. And when you collect that crop, you will perceive that
  soil, and you will perceive what has happened. That within its
  contents, and even deep down, a change has taken place. That although
  you have what vulgarly the agricultural world says taken the food
  values out of the soil and into the plants, you have *not*!
  This is the adaptation of the purport of fertility: that soil in that
  bed is better now since the plants dealt with it, when you prepare it
  and put the plants in and left them to it. It is superior. It is more
  fertile. And in each cycle this will take place, and out of that bed,
  what weeds you take, what roots and green matter you put into the
  compost will produce a secret.  That secret is all connected with
  >image<., (spiritual vision) with >idee< for it has come out of this,
  out of a pre-thought, for you were given this thought, not from your
  thinking mind of words. You were give it through your poise, through
  your breathing, through your diaphragm, from the cosmic, from above,
  from the stars. thatUs where that impetus came from. And it belongs
  to *totemism*.

  FROM ABOVE
  And now that compost heap will go through the domrancy of winter, and
  when you place it in the bds next year, the apporaches are the same.
  you thoughts are from above. your thoughts are to fertility, not
  fertility for your use, not fertility towards a crop of 1,000 pounds
  of tomatoes or 500 baskets of strawberries. That calculation would
  get you nowhere now, or if you want to turn 1,000 pounds of beans
  into $1,000 to put it in the bank as a cash deposit! It didn't come
  out of that kind of thought. It came out of a thougtht that was not
  given you in words, an order to which you were obedient.
  And now out of that compost come seeds and plants and soil and matter
  and nutriment and humus which you are putting in the soil, and you
  will notcie that this spring the worms are different. They may be
  bigger. They may be a bit more moist, but yet they are changeing,
  There's a lot of whittling going on. There is fresh color that you
  didn't notice before, and suddenly you see a butterly.
  oh, there were those little white ones last year, but that oneUs got
  orange tips. And suddenly you will seed all sorts of new variations
  of snakes and lizards and snails and birds. And they are new! Why did
  they come? Was it just like the nightingale? Did they go when they
  know they were not wanted and had they come back up the river and
  were waiting in the tree for the emperor to come and listen that he
  may sleep and dream? And so something will happen now that is the
  greatest secret concerned with the garden and fertility and the
  gardener.
  Magic comes out of your surprise, for there is in nature always
  surprise. You don't know anything. you can go through a little
  woodland, a little alpine area, and you will think you have seen
  what's growing there., and you can go through it for three months,
  and each day you will find it incontestably new. It is not static.
  Every bit of it is new.  And now, suddnly, new weeds have come up.
  They weren't here last year and you walso notcie that there is an
  appearance of more succulence, of probably mroe intense color, of
  scent and form.
  It may not be size and you will certainly notice a differnce in
  nutritivies and flavor. And this is the gift of the plants in their
  giving and forgiving, that through their spritiual >image< now relate
  to our spiritual >image< and have come up to where were were led to
  lead them to enter--when our thoughts were given to us as from
  above--we were above that >elve< and were thinking of a new pear, of
  lettuce more wondreful, a flavor more exuisite, or walkway that id
  something tht no walkway had ever quite done before, or a tree bow
  which held atmosphere underneath in a manner that never happened
  before. They are all meetings of that matter. And now, suddenly, this
  coming up of nature, of the garden, enters you diapragm and connects
  again with the cosmic and your spiritual image is lifted again into
  a real that no verbosity, no ordinary study through words, through
  books, can give you.
  It's new! It's out of the atmosphere. Its out of the birth of the
  hand of God, that is flowing throughout this are in which you are
  constructing and fulfilling and being obedient and performing. That
  surely can proceed ad infinitum. And is this not, then, the word
  fertility? And does it not conjunct with all the bird in the trees?
  All of the things that you can't comprehend. So many people at
  lectures, like at Villa montalvo, where threee dear old ldies got up
  and said, Yes! Yes! Yes! But what do we do about the ants? But, you
  see, there is always this inclination to rush to a store for a powder
  because something's happening that's got up your petticoat.

  ELVE of FERTILITY
  Now, perceive you, that where I'm speaking of a French Intensive
  biodynamic bed, I'm only focusing on one little fraction of the whole
  focus of the garden. That, therefore, it includes all of those
  insects that you do not comprehend but appear as enemies.
  And here is a little statement about the seed of tansy; burr
  marigold. This plant, wilde, grows beside water, but not in water,
  and cannot grow away from water. It can't exist on dry land, and it
  cannot exist in abog, so it grows on teh edge of little ponds and
  pools and around the edges oflakes and streams. In the fall, when it
  goes to seed, those seeds fall on the dry land and cannot germinate.
  And when the winds of winer come, they blow it into the path and,
  Oh, dear, now whatUs going to happen? Those seeds have four horns
  on the uper end like floats, and the seed floats upwards with the
  germinative point in the air so that the see sits on the water at an
  angle facing up, and along comes Mr. Carp, and he says Oh, dear,
  here we go again.

  But those four horns are made like fish hooks, and every fish is
  aware by relationship/disrelationship of what those four horns will
  do. And any fish tht have had this tuck in their gills for several
  hours to get rid of it, wouldnt dream of goinG near tht see agAin
  knowing full well what it would do.

  [TO BE CONTINUED]

[]

[this appears to be from Allan Balliet's own FidoNet BBS]

Fri 5 Feb 93  6:07
By: ALLAN BALLIETT
Re: Part 1 ALAN CHADWICK on ANEMONE redux

Here is a repost of Alan Chadwick's lecture on anemone cultivation.
It is a sure irritant for those with growing Spring Fever.
This time of year, You may be find the part about the building of
a hot bed to be particularly valuable.

Let me know what you think

-Allan
:
:
:
:
Alan Chadwick Lecture September 12, 1979



ANEMONE


This is a very simple practical little study of which we shall be
having many. And we have discussed this morning- and you've had your
basic herb study yesterday- we have just discussed herbs and we are
going to introduce a herb (study) just before each of the
subjectivities of the lectures and talks that we have- so you will be
having a herb, literally a herb a day so to speak, during the
(coming)weeks. And in this way you will cover something like 200 in
the year - just to let you know that.

The subject today is the Anemone, De Caen and the anemone St. Brigid-
they're known as the coronarias- how to grow them to perfection. And
it is one of the most exquisite and beautiful plants. An invaluable
cut flower of enormous lasting value, of brilliant color, excellent
form and really very simple if the technique is applied properly it is
utterly, utterly superb in its performance. But if it is disobeyed,
it's a complete failure and a dead loss. I'm going to begin and go
through the performance of this plant so that you understand it in all
its attitudes so that you know how to produce it, because it's
becoming very difficult to get in the world. You cannot buy the seed
of the De Caen. You can buy the seed of St. Bridgid, but it's almost
impossible to buy the seed of the De Caen and if you do, it's not
necessarily very g~od.

I produced some 28,000 plants-corms-at Santa Cruz and each of those
plants produced 26 blooms each a year-that all the students
enjoyed.They last tor three weeks and more in water. I give you a
little picture of what is possible with great ease, provided that you
obey the technique. So we're going to begin- since you cannot get the
seed easily- we are going to begin by saying we purchase corms.

And those corms that we purchase will be, from an economical point of
view, reasonable to buy. They're becoming very expensive, so we should
buy 2000 corms at one year nurseryfication of De Caen. This is the
best anemone of the two by far. It is plain edged; it's colors are far
more intense and it is single and it comes utterly true to its type.
The four colors being blood red, purplish blue, mauve, and a white, an
ivory white. Therefore, we will purchase 2000 corms one year
nurseryfied; they will have been produced from seed. And those corms
will be a very small centimeter - I don't know quite what to say-
about the size of a, not very much bigger than a rather round oat. And
they will be purchased in the late fall.

And they will be planted in a bed in the spring of this preparation:
preferably in January or February - a deep well-drained, performed bed
with an excellent hot bed placed within it. Now these corms are very
small and are going to go into a very close area, certainly not more
than four times the length of this table (20') and either 3 or 4'
wide. So we would have a hot bed placed upon a good drainage. In other
words, the stalks of any helio at the boKom. On the stalks of those
helio will go a green matter of any sort anything like nasturtium or
the sort of matter that is green and on top of that, preferably. a
pretty fresh horse manure to produce the heat. On top of that an
ordinary top soil as a coverage. And now you have a mixture of 1/3
sharp, 1/3 turf loam, and 1/3 well rotted rich manure, six months to a
year stock piled. If possible well turned and eradicated from seed,
weed seed issue, no weeds are going to be allowed in these beds at any
time. No weeds. NOT, NOT, NOT PERMISSIBLE!

Now on top of that soil that we have mentioned that's on top of the
hot bed, we will now place a strata of well rotted leaf mold. So that
will be leaf mold taken either from a leaf pit or deep in the woods
somewhere, from a dell. And that we want to be about two inches.
Between an inch and two inches. A really good swathing. Now we will
place six inches of that soil that we have just mentioned- that
preparation- 1/3 sharp, 1/3 turf loam and 1/3 manure.

We will plant our corms gently into the surface of that after it has
been pressed down, either with a roller or by the planting boards.
Preferably with a roller. We will plant them just into the surface,
about, literally about an inch. On to that we will place a strata of
sharp, very thin, for disinfectant as much as anything. On to that we
will place one inch of utterly well-rotted, seed free, rich manure. An
entire strata.

And on top of that we will place a thin strata of 1/2 top soil mixed
with 1/2 leaf mold. So now you've got your corms down at about 2 1/4 -
2 1/2 inch and the whole preparation is made. Now if the weather is
very severe and there is a lot of frost and ice in the district, the
preferability of the coverage of the whole of that bed would be with
lightly blown up pteris, that is the bracken fern. Or second to that,
if you could not get terrace (I imagine there must be plenty of pteris
aquilinum up in the mountains and the woods here. Anyone notice?)
Well, if not, fern leaves. Female fern - any of those - as a covering
from the climate. So that that is removable if possible the moment
that the shoots begin to come through.

The foliage should be evident in 6 - 8 weeks from those corms. You get
one leaf uncurled first and then quite a long time, some weeks, before
the next.

Now if the weather remains bad, it's perfectly feasible to leave that
fern on and let the plant grow through it. There's no harm in that at
all. And that that would be much more likely the case in this
district. Even though the pteris, or any other fern, you see, were
sitting that depth(4"), this plant will work through the fern
perfectly simply and is aerated. Therefore it should not be disturbed,
unless it is removed before the foliage becomes obvious. At that time
of year those corms will come into bloom at 16 weeks. The first blooms
will appear at 15 - 16 weeks. The normal period from planting a corm
in really good weather in a really good climate is 12 weeks- into
bloom. At 8 weeks the foliage has begun to perform pretty properly.
And a month after that the blooms begin to appear.

Those corms are now blooming for the first time and they will produce
about 18 good blooms, not of first class-large for cutting- but the
first 2 or 3 will be small and "mini" and probably should be cut off
and discarded. And quite quickly will follow decent blooms that can be
used for cutting. Now you must understand that what we are doing in
this production, we are thinking that it is very difficult to obtain
this plant, and we are growing this bed for productiveness -
reproductiveness. Do you follow? Therefore, you will want a lot of
little pegs- and in this case of the De Caen- you can't possibly do it
with the St. Brigid (and we shall be operating from seed with St.
Brigid anyway)- but with the De Caen, you see, you have four colors.
You sometimes get a puce, one slips in, that's fifth color, we won't
bother about that at the moment, but you can have the five pegs if you
like. Now those pegs,therefore, will have a color nomination on them.
It could be those very colors, which makes that simple. Therefore, as
those plants grow and the blooms come, according to which appear to be
your best plants during the growing period, so will nominate them with
the pegs. Do you follow? That can be used as a cutting bed throughout
the growing season which is probably four to five months. And that
each of the plants which is assessed to be superior shall be marked in
this manner with this peg very clearly so as to be unmistakable. So it
must be well-placed because the bed is very full.

When they have died down, but are still just visible in growth- is the
time to lift the whole bed. But before lifting the whole bed, those
which are labeled shall be lifted each with their labelings into what
you would call a drying sieve so that all the reds go into one sieve,
all the blues go into a sieve with their label and so on. Do you
follow? Now these are the pick of the bunch which in the next year are
going to be grown for seed production.

And the rest will go in en masse as a cutting bed again. So that same
performance will take place. The longer you will delay the lifting
without losing sight of them the better. But you see to get up the
labeled ones you must be able to still see where the plant meets the
corm. Now you see the imperative importance of no weeds, for you
cannot unearth or discover the matter at all. And what is more, they
do not employ the liking of other plants around them. They like to be
alone.

Now you take a similar performance and you prepare a bed in the same
way and you plant those particular selections in their color groups,
and you now double space them. You give them plenty of room. That
nomination is quite easily made when it comes to the technical
performance of the planting, the exact distances.

Now as this plant comes up- again you run into- you will plant them a
little later this time to be on the safe side, end of February or
March according to when the moon is playing. And again you will
prepare the bed in the same way. But now the planting is further apart
to give them ample room, and again you will roll it before you plant,
and again you will cover it in the same way. And indeed you can leave
the coverage on again if that is required.

The first 2 or 3 blooms shall in any case be removed. Now the plant is
going to send up 24, 25 or 26 blooms this time. And now they are going
to be verging upon full size. Very big. It's a very big anemone. So
any number on the plant- now this bed has got to be looked after by a
staff with apprentices, and it's got to be looked after absolutely
regularly and attended to, as it is utterly important, for one little
mishap and you are in serious trouble that you won't get over- but
when you come to number four blossom up to about number ten, according
to the performance of the flower up from the bud and its appearance,
you either leave it or remove it. And you will allow four or five per
plant, total, so that after approximately number eight or number nine
all blooms are now removed, as small buds; you can't even make use of
them. So that the whole issue (energy) goes into those four or five
who are to produce the seed.

Now the seed are very tricky. It develops a cone, a long pointed cone,
and it withstands any weather, any wind. And suddenly out of that cone
issues a little volcano. Suddenly, all unexpectedly the cone undoes,
all the way from the tip downwards, and unfolds like a "smoke" of
cotton wool. Sometimes spreading as much as that, an incredible thing
hanging almost like a swarm of bees. And attached in that cotton wool
are all the seeds. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds per blossom per
cone. And every one of them is liable, almost certain, to be fertile
and first class.

Therefore, you must not lose this. But you must not collect it until
it is about to fly. And there is no manner of telling that other than
the technical on the spot obviousness. There is no other way. But to
pull it off by force as you might pull a peach before it's ripe or fig
when it is straight, the seed will not be in its ripe composition
which is required. In other words it must be about to take off. Now

sometimes that cotton wool will hang for 2 or 3 or 4 days in a swarm
and increase. And not usually does the cotton wool from right down the
cone all together. So you usually have to make two collections. Do you
follow?

And they, of course, can go into the same bag. There is nothing much
better than a large brown paper bag with a big opening, one of the
very big ones. "SAFEWAY",you see, becomes useful for the first time.
And you see even though there is a wind or a breeze take it on the
lower side and pop it in quickly. And you just, as it were, wipe it.
Therefore, the unripe remains hanging on to the swarm and leads the
rest of the cone into ripeness,so you do not pick off the cone because
the cone would go sloppy and would rot. So you've only got the cotton
wool in the bag. And you leave that absolutely loose, tie it up around
the collar and hang it up to dry. So you make two collections and
there is your seed and you will sow it either in the fall or in the
spring. Both of them work perfectly.

Now this plant does not force. Therefore, you must not produce that
seed under a forced heat such as you would raise the tomato. It must
be a cooler raising such as you would use for cineraria and freesia
and you will get a 99 - 100% germination. And when you come to sow
that seed you will find that you've got one huge mass of swarm of
cotton wool with little seeds you can't even see. Therefore, you've
got nothing but cotton wool. Do not worry. But don't try to sow in any
form of draft for it will be away! - which is exactly what it's meant
to do to migrate. It can go from here down to South America!

You will prepare your seed box- for this must be grown in this manner-
you will prepare your seed box and on the day according to the moon,
in a beautifully sheltered position, you will slightly press that
soil, having filled the box with a special preparation. That
preparation will be a thick rotted leaf mold at the base, a coverage
of well-rotted- if possible seed proof- manure, and a 1/3 a 1/3 a 1/3.
1/3 sharp; 1/2 well-rotted turf loam, "seed proofed", turned in other
words, and 1/3 well-rotted leaf mold. All mixed in well together.
Very, very fine and nice and full and pressed. Now you take your
cotton wool with your fingers and you simply spread it, undo it, as
much as is possible, and don't get in a flummox over it because it
doesn't separate.

So in other words you end up with a box of one sheet of cotton wool
out of the bag. And of course, you must begin with a lump or several
lumps in the middle of the box because otherwise- the least little...
I mean if you go "Ha! Ha!" Poof! The whole lot of seed is gone! Do you
follow? So it's no good mucking about or what have you, or somebody
comes in and says, "Wait!" And it's all gone! Now, it is very
important for the coverage of this that you have the lightest of
light,fine soil. Again the finest sifted, well-rotted leaf with the
sifted sharp with the sifted turf loam; 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. And nothing but
the finest sitting so that you can still just see the cotton wool. In
other words, golden rule "under cover, do not over cover."

You could always add a little more soil at germination. Golden rule:
"Under cover, do not over cover." Keep thoroughly moist, well-watered.
No need for glass. Temperature of 50 degrees at night, 65 degrees by
day and you will get an excellent germination. It's slow. There is in
the seed the double procedure generally of the hard and the soft shell
and, therefore, you are quite liable to get a repercussion, after of a
month, of regermination - it nearly always happens. In this way you
will produce plants which are superior to those that you grew from
those corms. And that you have started an uplift of fertility in your
corms. If you proceed on that line from those and take again the
second year from those seedlings, not the first, the second and third
year (the life of that corm will be approximately five years), and it
will start with 18 blooms the second year, will go to 24 - 25 the next,
28 the next at full size, and then will begin to get smaller and remain
numerous and then go back to 18 rather small, and after five years as
a cut flower you've finished with it.

Now the St. Brigid you will deal with in the same way. With the second
issue that I've just described with sowing the seed. You will buy the
seed and sow it in that manner. It's easy to get and it's cheap, to
buy the seed. If you buy the corms it's expensive. So I'm talking
about economical. This corm does not force. Convolaria, freesia,
daffodils, hyacinths, tulips, you can force them all. With a lot of
heat you can have them on by Christmas, January. You cannot force the
anemone, it does not. But it is a winter plant. In Cornwall it is in
bloom in January and goes to London and the Scilly Isles even in
December. It has the capacity, that even though the stalk is quite
short with the cold weather, with the frost, and the little bud is
only just showing color during the period of one month having picked
it, it will come into full bloom in the London market and in the home
where it is purchased. It's lasting power is enormous. It is a
colossal drinker. It drinks water at a tremendous pace.

The vase which you put it in will be drunk in three days. And you must
always resuscitate it. It does not need to have the stalk cut to keep
the flower going. That color in the winter is one of the most
beautiful cut flowers that you can have. Therefore, if you are in a
wicked climate the ideal way to grow this is in frames. Therefore,
from seed into bloom- now if you had left those corms in the ground
that you had purchased, they would come into bloom at the end of that
year, providing the climate was satisfactory. If not, they would wait
until the next spring. So when you have got a thoroughly satisfactory
climate, after you have sown the seed, you can produce bloom from that
corm, from that seed that year, in seven months. Do you follow? Now
you will perceive that by sowing seed either in the fall or the early
spring, you can reproduce blossoming throughout the fall, and the
winter and the spring. And, therefore, if you manipulate this growing
in frames in the same manner as the beds made in the frames exactly-
exactly the same manner- you can have a whole frame full of anemones
if you will plant those corms, and you see, for frame ones you want
your 3rd and 4th year. Your very best. And the others you will be
growing in a bed and using. And that you may play this by planting in
August, you see, the corm. You begin at 14 - 15 weeks into bloom and
as the winter comes on and the weather gets very cold you will go into
16 and 17 weeks into bloom. So, you simply nominate your dates of
sowing and you can have relays of frames coming into bloom, in full
bloom, next lot coming on, going out of bloom, taking out, putting in
the French beans or the lettuce in place! Do you follow? And,
therefore, you have an enormous thing. On Long Island I had these
frames made the moment that I was building these gardens and, of
course, I had anemones from Christmas onwards which astonished
everybody. And you see with all the snows on the frame lights, on the
mats, still these anemones and the lettuce all performing, there is no
difficulty. You must, of course, take those provisions to prevent the
severe freezings of below zero going right into the bed for that would
destroy it. So again you would use pteris. You remember that I had
remarked about the great miracle of pteris. Pteris actually prevents
freezing from entering the soil. It is like the most eiderdown,
eiderdown, eiderdown in its performance. And the lighter you use it,
the most eiderdown it is. It equally prevents scorch and "dryth" from
entering the ground. It's a most bewildering and astonishing
protective and, of course, does in time make the most exquisite
disinfectant soil and is beautiful for growing all bulbs and corms in.
In time you can imagine it is this like, beautiful like spongy loam
soil. Therefore, do not attempt to grow the anemone De Caen or St.
Brigid in the glass house in heat. It won't work.

So you start off all through the winter with your frames and then you
go into your spring beds. And you are making the utmost of your
anemones. You have got bloom going on there seven months.

Now should you go to such an area as the Mediterranean or California,
you will find that if you left... now you could leave your corms in
the beds here if you covered them, through the winter and that they
would come on of themselves and that this very useful when you do the
nurseryfication of the 1st year seedlings for they're very very
finicky and tiny. And, therefore, to leave them in the bed and cover
it well with terrace and with lights of some sort, or with a cloche or
bell, they would come up the next year and you would pursue the same
thing and that bed would be perfectly ordinate because of its
preparation to perform again the second year. So it is very advisable.
Now this is a matter to beware that in a good climate that is a
ten-month performing climate, that anemone would try to bloom in
September and would also want to bloom again, having died down after
the November and Christmas issue of 18 blooms, it would again want to
come up and bloom in May and June. And that the corm would not be able
to supply the issue of. Now it is very interesting that that little
corm has only the tiniest of roots. Many bulbs, like gladioli have
very little root, dahlias, out of their tubers have very little root
at all. In other words, they're growing out of the Revolutionibus much
more than out of the Ahrimanic. And therefore, you would have to lift
(the corm) to prevent this or your corm would be finished after the
one year performance of two blooms. That is just a note that you must
remember.

Of course, where you are growing the whole of this bed or these beds
as a cut flower crop- and it is particularly a good cut flower- it is
not a vastly desirable flower for instance, in the herbaceous borders
-- either the annual or perennial- not really. In rock garden, some of
them like the apenina and the multipulata are very charming. But I am
talking about this today and the study is all towards a cut flower.
And when I was in New York and stayed with some very important people,
I had to give them a little gift and I knew that she loved anemones
and I went to one of the florist's. I was there at Christmas and I
said, AH! the very thing because I know that she loves a bunch of
anemones. There they were, these wonderful Adonis, the blood of- as
you know Apollo killed Adonis by mistake- and this wonderful red at
Christmas and I said I was thinking of six bunches. I said how much.
He said $10.00 a bunch, a dozen. Ten dollars! I supplied Buckingham
Palace. I supplied the queen; she wouldn't get them from anywhere
else. And I used to sell them at ten pence a dozen. And I made the
most fantastic profit. So that I paid for my whole farm in one year;
the laying out of it, the buying of it and everything, almost off this
alone! For I used to collect thousands and thousands and thousands
every other day.

Now out of this method of growing in this way- you see frequently you
will find in the market that you will get a little stalk so high and
that's very finicky in a little vase- but with this method, even with
the coldest weather with these coverages, with this intense manuring,
you get the utmost fertility and you will get a stalk of that length.
And that's a very different matter in cut flowers. And that's what you
want to go for, and you won't lose the quality if you blossom by the
length of the stalk, because of this beautiful fertility of the soil.
But you must remember those stratifications I have given you. They are
absolutely adamant and predominant. Absolute.

Now, there is a matter that has to be looked at. The De Caen is what
you might call a classic. You know that the ranunculus that you
purchase, the Turban (Persian) Ranunculus, they're all double, and
they look rather like a Venician carnival and fireworks. When you come
to look at those in bloom -- and you know they are very Lipstick Pink,
Wicked Yellow, Love Citron Lemon Acid (laughter) all the tricks of
colors at their most festivalia wickedness- and suddenly you look at
this great classical anemone and you see that this intense color is
incredibly classic, deep and very subtle, while this ranunculus looks
like a HA HA HAAA! business. And this is very interesting. Now, do you
see, with the St. Brigid that they are none of them a complete color!
They're various colors. Rainbow mixed up in them. And that 8 I still
had excellent blooms in June. Some of you, some one or two of you might
remember. No, probably not. (Student - I do Alan) (Alan - you do.)

And so you can see the number of tens of thousands of blooms you can
cut from one bed. And that cutting can take place two and three times
per week in those beds. It's an exorbitant gift. Incredible excitement
of happiness.

Student - Thank you, Alan, that answered my question beautifully.

Alan - Yes, good.

Student - Alan, if you are lifting your corms, those that you are not
to use for seed the next year, is it best to let the plant die down
completely?

Alan - No. Yes, it is, but it's all advisable because of finding them.
Now if your bed is thoroughly well prepared and the soil is perfect,
that's all right. Put them very carefully in a very technical manner
through a particular sieve. A sieve that will allow the soil, all of
the soil, to go through quickly. But you must remember that the little
roots hang on to quite a lot of leaf mold. I am glad you mentioned
this. Therefore, do you see, the sift method you can indeed let them
die down. But I am warning you because in many instances I have had
inexperienced people and they have allowed weeds. The moment you've
allowed weeds, there's nothing you can do. Do you follow? You've mixed
your soil and your weeds and the weeds take the corms with them -
always. And you've lost the lot.

Now, there's one matter that's very important, and it concerns the
storage of all such matters. Dahlia tubers. The storage of potatoes.
The storage of vegetables. We're going to deal with all of that. Now
gladioli is a corm, but it's a very strong corm and it can dry. But
the anemone is a very small corm and during the period of summer in a
hot climate or moist climate, or a bade climate will either dehydrate
or it will even to a degree rot or contaminate. Do you understand?
Therefore, you must use certain dried herbs, you already being to
perceive some of them, and you must have ready an excellent peat moss.
A really first class peat moss that will not moisten. That will remain
dry. And, therefore, you bury all of those corms, and you realize
you've got twenty thousand in that size, and they are best in a
basket. A very close wicker/bamboo basket with this peat moss in. And
all your corms are buried in that peat moss. Now, they are not moist
at all but there is a prevention of dehydration of air or interference
of damp days entering in. And that method of storage is ideal.

Question: What would the best temperature be for storage?

Alan: Cool, dry. Plenty of air as in fruit stores. America does not
understand, forgive my being so vulgar as to put it that way,
ventilation. You need ventilators, you see this in the first place is
impossible - concrete floor, to perspire, does everything it
shouldn't. But you want ventilators below and you want ventilators
either in roof such as you've got here such as you have in a root
store or ventilators as all houses in Europe have to have ventilation
up near the ceiling. Every room has to have a number of ventilators
according to its size and you can have those open and shut. Do you
follow? So that is the proper manner. Remember that all such matters
should also be on slats, rather than placed on a floor.

Oh! It is a technical, practical matter and you will not in the least
worry about it. But, I would imagine that nine people out of ten would
not know which way up the corm was when it's dry. It is the

most funny looking little thing. It has more flanges and is very
weird. The first year it's pretty obvious that there is a crown
presentment on one end and the other is a point which is the root.
That is very obvious at the end of the first year only. The second
year that vanishes and these flanges come and it's quite difficult.
The moment that you have been shown, a dozen, which way up they are,
and if you plant them the wrong way up they will not come up. So,
that's just to remind. Not to worry about because the whole point is
the technique will be shown. Anything else? Very good.

Warren: May I announce that on Monday, the fruit?

Response: Yes.

Alan: Very well. We've discussed regarding the program. We're going to
work very hard producing an adequate and suitable program for you.
That you shall be able to study to the utmost. And you shall have the
utmost information and leadership that's possible here. You realize
how tremendously we lack staff. We're going to try to till these gaps.

On Monday, we will take our first orchard fruit study. This will not
be the history of fruit, which is extremely fascinating, or the
history of the American fruit orchards. This will be the basic of
fruit growing. The formation of the trees, which includes, of course,
the pruning. Shape of the trees and why. The different shapes and why
their valuations. And the stock and scion, the principle base of the
formation of the growing of fruit trees. That will be the study on
Monday. Now shall this be at 10 or 11?

Response: 11 is best for everybody.

Alan: Eleven. Very good. I have to go to the doctor, but that is all
right; it is in the afternoon. So it is 11:00 as usual. That is the
subject for Monday. We will bat it up later with all the histories.
Very good?

Thank you Alan.
:
:
:
:
Please let me know if you are interested in seeing more of Alan Chadwick's
lectures up here.

Thanks!

-Allan
 * Origin: The Twilight Clone (1:109/70.914)

--

Lawrence F. London, Jr.
lfljvenaura@gmail.com