| Culture and Horticulture: a philosophy of gardening |
 Culture and HorticultureA philosophy of gardening Wolf-Dieter Storl ISBN 0-938250-01-9 435 pages published June 1979  Contents and sample readings - Culture and Horticulture 75.60 KbThis book is not just a collection of garden facts and practices, for there are enough good books of this kind on the market. It is not written primarily fort he seasoned bio-dynamic agriculturist versed in anthroposophical lore, or for the academic biologist and college-trained horticulturist, who, while dealing with his relevant and irrelevant variables, test tubes, and statistics, loses the total picture. This book does not intend to amass detail after detail, hoping to eventually emerge with the larger concept. Unlike the archeologist who matches potsherds hoping to find and finally reconstruct the complete pattern of the vessel, we hope to approach the subject as one who has glimpsed into the potter’s workshop having caught sight of the overall shape of the vessel while lacking knowledge of most of the details. Thus we start with the holistic concept of the archetypal image of the garden, trying to outline, sketch, and accentuate this image by the use of various observed facts, details, and useful analogies. For this reason, if it becomes evident that some of the minor details are mistaken or obscure, as some surely are, it should not detract from the overall concept, the archetypal garden, which is central to our concern. This methodology is a surer way of avoiding the truncations and frankensteinian distortions that have come about by a blind amassing of facts and details without regard to the holistic aspects, and which have eventually been translated into our social and environmental crisis. (…….)While strolling through the experimental fields of the college and mentally comparing them to the other soils I had seen in the small Ohio farming community where I had grown up, I noticed their lack of a certain living quality. When I saw more of the research equipment and procedure, when a professor received an award for a starling-killing machine, when I heard of placing windows in the stomachs of experimental animals in order to watch the digestion, I became upset. I could not think of trees as renewable capital or mere, albeit complicated, chemical processes. Though I had been part of a group of honor students, candidates for a technocratic elite that was mean to implement these concepts later, I gave up forestry and studied anthropology instead. I, for the most part, forgot about my early contact with agriculture until the research in the rural community in Switzerland where I found a better way of doing farming and gardening. Buy "Culture and Horticulture" at Amazon Praise for Culture and Horticulture "The Best Text on Biodynamic Gardening for Anybody to Start With, August 20, 2005 This book is so well-written and clear on every point. Wolf Storl clarifies in clear detail multiple points about Biodynamic gardening, which, if presented by many others could have have just come across as confusing or hocus-pocus. The subject is difficult to explain, but not for Wolf Storl. His points are all well researched and well supported with good references and extremely well written, giving the reader comfort in the clarity and authenticity of what they're reading. For anyone wanting more knowledge about natural processes in their garden or on the farm and how to utilize them to maximum effect, Wolf Storl's book really is the answer. Read this book and with good solid work produce bumper harvests of superb vegetables and farm products which most people will never have experienced before." By mayrunner (Buffalo, NY) at Amazon |