PHOTO 5: Loosen the subsoil. Continue the same procedure to the end of the bed. PHOTO 6: Dump the soil removed from the first trench Pinto the final ditch. MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

PHOTO 3: Fork loose the soil beneath the borders of the bed to match the slant of the finished raised plot. PHOTO 4: Dig a second trench alongside the first, and pile its soil into the previously dug ditch. MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

Preparing a double-dug beg: PHOTO 1: Mark the plot's borders with string, and dig a foot-deep trench across one end of the bed. PHOTO 2: Loosen the earth another foot deep with a garden fork. MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

Whether the problem is feeding a hungry world or simply increasing the productivity of a small backyard garden, the solution might well be biodynamic gardening.

Back in 1966 Alan Chadwick — an English actor, painter, pianist, and master horticulturist — was offered a chance to demonstrate the techniques of biodynamic (aka French intensive) gardening on a barren four-acre clay hillside at the University of California's Santa Cruz campus. Chadwick tackled the little "desert" (land that was so inhospitable that few weeds even grew there) with hand tools, a love for the garden that he knew the plot could become, and incredible energy. Before long the once dead-looking slope was a veritable paradise of vegetables and flowers, and a beacon that attracted students and followers.

Since then, biodynamic gardening (often referred to as permaculture or "the method") has slowly gained a reputation among organic gardeners in North America, largely through the efforts of Chadwick and John Jeavons (of Ecology Action of the Mid-Peninsula in Stanford, California). It was Jeavons who eventually took the technique — which Chadwick had synthesized from the intensive gardening practiced in turn-of-the-century France and the biodynamic theories developed by Rudolf Steiner in early 20th century Austria — and subjected it to careful modification and testing. He was always striving to produce the optimum yield from the smallest possible space.

And John's harvests have been little short of amazing! His per-acre "method" crop production has, for example, climbed to between four and six times that of the average U.S. yield (while, in rare cases, the biodynamic gardens have produced as much as 31 times the national crop average for a given amount of space!). In fact, Jeavons has gone so far as to estimate that it would be possible for an urban, suburban, or rural gardener to net as much as $10,000 a year from the produce that he or she could grow on a scant 1/10 acre!

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Furthermore, as if such incredible results weren't enough to recommend this revolutionary gardening technique, the biodynamic system uses no polluting fuel, no toxic pesticides, and no highly processed chemical fertilizers. In fact, the technique actually improves the quality of the soil with each crop that's grown! And it does so while using only 1/100 as much energy and 1/8 as much water as does commercial agriculture.

How Is Biodynamic Gardening Done?

All the different facets of the permaculture method serve to allow the gardener to produce as many healthy plants as possible on a given piece of land. The raised beds that are characteristic of such gardens, for instance, serve several purposes. First, since the growing areas are wider than are "normal" garden rows (approximately five feet ... in order to allow the gardener to reach plants in the middle without stepping on, and compacting, the soil in the bed), less space must be wasted on walkways. The rectangular beds are raised from four to 10inches above the original ground level, too, and their edges are angled down at a 45* slope ... effectively providing more (curved) surface area than if the same piece of ground were left flat.