http://quantumagriculture.com/articles/ ... -and-pests
Peppering: Controlling Weeds and Pests
Hugh Lovel
Control is not a synonym for kill. It is one thing to control a lawn mower, and another thing to kill it. When we seek to control weeds we need find out what gets them started and how they may change under various circumstances. This will help us understand what they do and why they are there, and it will provide valuable clues about how to stop them. The chances are we are unwittingly causing the weed to be a problem, and we should learn from that.
Peppering is a method used by biodynamic practitioners to clear an area of unwanted plants or animals that have become pests, reduce diversity and are resistant to other control measures. As a method for increasing and enhancing the growth and vitality of plants and animals, biodynamics also points the way to reining in plants or animals that have become so dominant and aggressive that they must be restrained. By understanding the forces that feed growth and reproduction for any given species, biodynamics also shows us how to break or impair the connection between that species and the forces that sustain it. Instead of trying to kill those species that offend us, making a pepper using the organism’s seed, exoskeleton or hide shuts down or breaks its connection with the in-streaming energies that sustain it and give it vigour. In the case of plants they dry up and struggle to grow or reproduce. In the case of animals, they tend to move out and go elsewhere.
We have seen the promethean efforts of the chemical industry and its many decades of billions of tons of poisons used on every sort of crop, while the problems of weeds and pests have become worse than ever. This approach has cost many lives and caused enormous suffering from its side effects. Residues are found in our food chain, even in the polar regions, and many of these chemicals contribute to loss of ozone in the upper atmosphere and toxic sediments in our lakes and oceans.
What really can rein in out-of-control species is simple. By burning seeds, insects or animal skins, and using the pepper-like ashes we can keep unwanted species out of certain areas. Because biodynamics identifies the actual causes of what happens in nature, it shows us how to adjust these causes rather than lashing out in a temper tantrum of indiscriminate warfare that ultimately fails while harming ourselves and the environment we depend on.
In controlling unwanted species, we must not lose sight of diversity, balance and basic environmental health. It is not to our benefit to simply eliminate every species that we find costly or annoying. But with that thought in mind, biodynamics shows us a clear path to controlling species that have gotten out of hand and threaten that very diversity, balance and health.
Weed Peppers
For weeds, the basic method involves collecting seeds of the plant we intend to pepper and burning these, usually over hot a wood fire, so all that is left is ashes and perhaps a little charcoal which can be filtered out. It does not matter if a little of the wood used ends up in the ashes; the key is the seeds. In the case of plants that reproduce by bulbs or other root-like structures or from leaf clones, as with some succulents, it is the part of the plant that has the power of reproduction that is important. This is why wood, which is without such power, can be ignored.
Each species has optimum timing or conditions for its reproduction, and that should be taken into consideration in making its pepper. For plants the cycles of the moon are enormously important for growth and reproduction. The patterns of plants stream into the earth’s environs from constellations in the heavens through the gateway of the moon, which works with the life giving properties of water. By burning, we separate the hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur from the seeds and drive these off into the atmosphere. Then appling the ash to an area imparts the seeds’ patterns but these are severed from their connection with water, nitrogen and sulphur. This means they are also severed from the etheric activities of chemistry, light and warmth associated with these elements. The ashing or ‘peppering’ of the seeds burns these connections up and breaks them.
Especially if we make a homeopathic remedy from an ash with the pattern of a particular seed severed from the chemical, light and warmth ethers needed for its growth, applying this pattern will impair the connection between the seeds of that plant and the moon’s watery interaction with nitrogen and sulphur.