Since 1993, Biointensive for Russia has promoted GROW BIOINTENSIVE sustainable mini-farming (GB) through Russian-language publications and workshops hosted by NGOs, agricultural colleges, and schools in many cities of Russia and Uzbekistan. We have also supported mini-farming experiments conducted by our partner organizations the NGO VIOLA and the Grassroots Alliance PERESVET in Bryansk, Russia, in and near the Russia’s Chernobyl radiation zone. Detailed information on our work may be found on our older website http://biointensiveforrussia.igc.org . For basic instruction on the GB method, see http://growbiointensive.org/Self_Teaching.html .
We published the third Russian edition of How to Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons in 2016, and its re-issue led to the holding of workshops in the Bryansk oblast, Kaliningrad, and St. Petersburg that fall and one in Kazan in the spring of 2017. The workshop held by Dr. Ludmila Zhirina of the NGO VIOLA in St. Petersburg and its region inspired a series of workshops in May in the three provinces north of Moscow, which are documented in photo albums on Biointensive for Russia’s Facebook page. We created this site to present photos and reports from Ludmila’s follow-up workshops in late August and early September, and invite you to support our ongoing work to get the book into the hands of Russian teachers.
We trust you’ll enjoy seeing the efforts of gardeners of all ages in Russia’s northern provinces to grow more vegetables, more sustainably, in their short, intense summer. Their results are phenomenal, not only due to the efficacy of the method and the long summer days at their latitudes, but because so many Russians have food gardening in their hearts and souls!
Ludmila wrote that all the components of GROW BIOINTENSIVE were described and discussed. Our readers can find and review descriptions and more details at http://growbiointensive.org/grow_main.html and can also learn the basics at http://growbiointensive.org/Self_Teaching.html. Everyone wanted books (the latest Russian edition of How to Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons), which we sent them in due course. The books are being printed "on demand" in the US for now, while we seek a publisher, or at least a printer, in Russia to decrease the shipping costs. Joining the local group in in Yurevskoe were three teachers and 15 students from the Waldorf School in Voronezh in Central Russia who had already been studying with Ludmila via Skype.
Ludmila and her team held four meetings with children and adults in libraries and clubs. They explained that organic farming can provide financial stability, and that Biointensive can help any family feed their children. They showed the films "Home" and "Earth from Above" by French director Yann Arthus-Bertrand and conducted presentations about Biointensive mini-farming and about birds and earthworms in the garden. They represented Biointensive as a viable alternative to GMOs and held discussions that helped the young people to visualize the new-to-them method. Then, happily, the Skiba family hosted the groups to tea!
The town of Danilov held an Organic Agriculture Festival on August 26, 2017. The Yuryevskoe farm actively participated, and NGO VIOLA, the Skiba family, and the Biointensive in the North of Russia team displayed posters, banners, books, and photos about Biointensive.
We conducted classes on the use of sheep wool for medicinal purposes and psychological support for disabled children, and art activities and tastings to promote organic food (vegetables and cheese). We collected money for the purchase of horses for work with disabled children. The children from Voronezh made a horse mask, and the town provided us with several horses and ponies for children to ride. Three local schools decided to organize Biointensive gardens on their school grounds. Irina Skiba will serve as their adviser.
More from Ludmila: "In the summer months, many schools and farmers with whom I met in May read John Jeavons' book and created their first 'lazy' beds, planting various crops and doing their best to build compost piles correctly. They tried very hard, but of course they all made some mistakes.”
Irina and Vasilisa Skiba described how they made Biointensive compost piles to the team and the school group from Voronezh. "The Skiba farm hosts summer farm camps, so they had more than 30 people in June and July helping to create piles. The Skibas are now clearing biomass from their fields.
“In our analysis of the results of Biointensive in the summer of 2017 on the Yurevskoe farm, we started with monitoring the compost piles. The campers in June and July helped create piles. The Skiba family is clearing their fields of weeds now, so the piles have both Biointensive and local features.
“The compost piles are not built at 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 meters, as recommended by John Jeavons. Here, the piles are 1.5 meters wide and 1.5 high (as specified in a book for recommendations for northern areas) but their length is 30-50 meters! This is not a compost pile, but a compost ridge!
“The soil here is clayey and very damp. There are many branches and roots of bushes on the farm. Farmers decided not to break branches and roots into small parts, rather to place them whole in compost ridges. This helped make the work easier, but the farmers understand that these ridges will take longer to make compost.”
During Ludmila's first visit in May no double-digging could be done in many gardens due to the frozen ground. Therefore, Inna Yuzhakova proposed to offer a Biointensive seminar to be held in the Tarnogsky district (Vologda province) with representation from the neighboring Ustyansky district in the Arkhangelsk province. The school officials agreed and sent about 20 school and kindergarten principals on a bus to the village of Markusha, located not far from Inna Yuzhakova's home village. The local teachers had started an orchard there, so the officials decided to place the Biointensive garden nearby.
Inna lectured at a big table in a meadow. The principals made drawings and paintings from the banners that Ludmila had presented to Inna in May, paged through Inna's copy of the Russian translation of How to Grow More Vegetables, taking intense interest. The land in the area is hilly, so they were delighted when they learned that John Jeavons' garden was created on a hillside.
The participants created a large (2 x 12 m) bed on a light slope. They had watered the soil before the morning lectures with natural water from a small pond fed by a stream and used seedlings from a school greenhouse.
Very few photos were taken of this seminar, but Inna and Ludmilla had several meetings with participants in the gardens near their schools in August and September. The school officials and principals expressed their great gratitude to all who made it possible for the seminar, for the information on the Biointensive method of organic farming, and for translating the book and promoting Biointensive from California to the north of Russia.
The team designated the Shebench school in Staryi Dvor, which has the environment as its focus and is the model school for Biointensive. I had taught classes there in May, and consulted with the teachers on the phone afterward. In June, Inna Yuzhakova and the teachers and students made several huge lazy vegetable beds in the school garden. Few vegetable seedlings were ready for transplanting into the beds, but there were plenty of perennial flowering plants, which have been grown in the school's large greenhouses in recent years. The school sells the flowers to help fund its programs.
When not growing vegetables, they followed John Jeavons' other guidelines. They double-dug, and added compost made last year from plants and food waste from the school cafeteria that they created last year. They watered the beds on the first day, raked up the weeds, and noted the proper dimensions for each bed. On the second day, more than 30 students practiced double-digging, creating several raised beds with rounded edges. They transplanted 4-6 different kinds of vegetables into each bed at the recommended distances. I saw these beds in August and in my next letter I'll send photos of these vegetables.
Birds often peck the vegetable seeds out of the beds, and some nights are frosty, so the students covered the beds with Spanbond (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanbond ). Some of the watering was done through the Spanbond, at first.
The beds were very successful! A huge harvest of large, delicious vegetables and beautiful flowers was grown by this school in the summer of 2017 in lazy beds!
Galina showed Inna Yuzhakova and Ludmila the garden at the Shebench School. During the school’s summer camp, the students built new compost piles along Biointensive guidelines -- but in the old location, and they did not create another pile using their old method. Therefore, they will not be able to conduct a comparative analysis of compost by two different methods. The students double-dug their beds and raised beautiful vegetables. Galina said that the teachers will tell the principals of other schools about Biointensive in the fall of 2017.
We discussed the need to help the Shebench School with posters, books, and presentations on Biointensive. Galina asked Ludmila to write a curriculum for conducting Biointensive studies as an elective for the entire school year. Later we provided them with this one from Ecology Action: http://growbiointensive.org/Curriculum/ GBCurriculum_6thGrade.pdf
Galina described how children of varying ages planted different crops in their Biointensive beds and made observations. All of the lazy beds kept their height and none became compacted. Each bed was about 20 centimeters high. Ludmila asked why the students did not plant vegetables at the edges of their beds, and Galina replied that they had not paid close enough attention.
The children were happy that weeds did not grow in these beds, as they dislike weeding! Each class had one ordinary and one experimental bed. Ludmila visited the school just prior to back-to-school day, and Galina said that the children would harvest, weigh and measure all of the crops in late September.
June was cold this year, so the vegetables in August did not look particularly well-developed. But September is sunny and warm, so all the farmers, teachers and students hope that the vegetables will gain growth and weight by 30% more. On the example of the example of carrots, beets and cabbage, Galina showed Ludmila that all the leaves and stems were perfectly formed, but the fruits themselves were still small.
The students planted the vegetables that the school program needs: dill, parsley, four varieties of cabbage, carrots, beets, zucchini, pumpkins, potatoes, peas, beans, beans, and flowers.
Galina Maltseva promised that her school will continue to work with the Biointensive method.
Inna and Ludmila held a Biointensive workshop for teachers in the Vologda and Arkhangelsk regions. They described Biointensive and their research this summer to the teachers and showed them our books and website, and Inna, her family including her granddaughter Alena, the teachers and Ludmila created a large bed in Inna's garden, taking about nine hours over three days.
Inna and her son Alexey described how they created a compost pile and their first lazy beds in May 2017. The teachers took pictures, measured all the parameters, and asked many questions.
Every evening, Inna invited the participants to a traditional Russian banya (steam bath), then they tasted vegetables grown by the local school and by Inna and Inna's neighbors in both traditional and Biontensive beds. To their surprise, the teachers found that the taste of the vegetables from the Biointensive beds is more natural, and that they are juicier and crispier. We are tasting cabbage in the photos.
To demonstrate how to create a Biointensive bed, Inna first showed the group a lazy bed that she had prepared in May 2017. She had neither Biointensive compost nor manure, so she used ordinary compost and added a lot of sapropel from a nearby lake: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/choking-russian-rivers-sustainable-water-technology-sapropel-algae
She used about 400 grams of sapropel per cabbage, zucchini, pumpkin, or tomato plant. She also used about 30% sapropel when mixing it with ordinary compost (from last year) for planting small crops such as dill, parsley, onions, and peas.
Then Inna showed the group the new Biointensive compost pile which she built last May according to John Jeavons’ guidelines. Inna cut additional biomass and straw into small pieces, turned it often, and watered it, so the upper part of the pile is already ripe!
Ludmila noticed that Inna made one mistake, by placing her pile under a huge spruce tree, and advised that the spruce needles will create acidic compost. Inna will build her next Biointensive compost pile in April 2018 under an oak tree. But in August 2017, they used compost from the pile under the spruce.
The seminar participants took all the basic steps to create a lazy bed. Inna had mowed the tall grass in the area planned for the garden with her scythe. These grasses were used to create a new compost pile.
The group cleared the weeds from the area with rakes, and moistened it in advance. they removed the weeds from the root system and took them out on a wheelbarrow to a new compost pile. We made wooden pegs with a bright orange ribbon. These pegs showed the seminar participants the boundaries of the lazy garden.
They removed the top layer of soil from the first strip and put it in buckets. They started to loosen the bottom layer with hay forks, but Inna had not been able to buy strong forks, so the forks got broken. Alexei suggested using the device "Tornado ripper” ( http://www.tornadoshop.ru/ ) which is made of durable metal. John Jeavons may not recommend the use of the Tornado, but Ludmila and Inna wanted to make a big lazy bed during the workshop, so they used the Tornado Ripper. This device perfectly loosens the soil and does not require much physical effort from the person. Ludmila asked us (John Jeavons), if they can use the Tornado instead of expensive forks?
The group brought the compost (which was a bit acidic) in a wheelbarrow and added the necessary nutrient layers. Alena (Inna's granddaughter) collected earthworms all over the garden and poured them into the compost layer for the bed, on her own initiative to improve the bed.
A raised bed with rounded layers was made, with great love! Inna will plant winter vegetables in this patch in October, and the teachers promised to create Biointensive beds at their schools in autumn 2017.
Peter and Natalia Vaimin are Inna Yuzhakova’s parents (both former teachers), living in the town of Tarnog. Inna lent them John Jeavons’ book for just one week in May. They created both traditional and Biointensive beds close to each other and observed and compared the growth of the vegetables; before they harvested and weighed them in October they had already drawn some conclusions:
• Peter and Natalia made compost piles by the traditional method in a wooden box and also by the Biointensive method. They believed that the Biointensive compost pile ripened more quickly due to the availability of air and because it had been turned. Natalia spread some of the Biointensive compost on their young apple trees.
• Peter and Natalia decided to plant vegetables of one type in their lazy beds, as they traditionally do — that is, each bed would have, say, carrots or beets only. But after double-digging, they planted their vegetable seedlings tightly and not in rows, but in a cellular grid. They noted that the vegetable crop is greater by quantity and weight in the Biointensive beds.
Inna's neighbor Alexandra Silinsky in the village of Virgino and the Biointensive demo school in the Tarnog district also practiced the method during summer 2017, with great results.
Irina Eynovna Baksheeva, principal of Ilezsky Kindergarten, participated in the seminar on Biointensive in May 2017 that was taught by Inna Yuzhakova. She later consulted with Ludmila by phone and Skype who helped her to plan our first program to teach Biointensive gardening to children aged 3-7 and their parents. Irina had little time to obtain permission from the school district for an experiment, so the teachers just made a few lazy beds following John Jeavons’ book.
Irina instructed each child to grow 2-3 plants independently. The children were given vegetable seeds of vegetables, which they sprouted in pots on the windowsill.
The parents helped their children to double-dig. The authorities required that small fences be built near each garden bed so that the children could move around easily, and that the compost pile be surrounded by a fence.
Ludmila continues, "I sent Irina my book about birdhouses. The parents built these houses, then decorated each house with the shape of a musical instrument made of plywood. The teachers and children dried a great deal of green dill in plastic boxes, and harvested much garlic and dried it on a Russian stove.
The teachers helped the children to present their photographs and observations in projects, which won prizes for using an innovative agricultural method from gardening organizations.
The smallest children made a model of a glass jar containing canned vegetables. After Irina Baksheeva described the kindergarten’s great work on Biointensive to me, she asked that I write a program for teaching the method to children."
As described by Ludmila after her and Inna's visit:
Galina Khudyakova, 60, lives alone in Tarnog (Vologda region), on a small pension. Her garden and 5 pigs provide her with vegetables and pork all year round, some of which she sells to help make ends meet.
Galina uses her pig manure to make large quantities of compost for the garden. She built tall boxes for the compost with boards; grows many vegetables in these compost piles while compost is maturing.
Currently she has some problems: (1) In recent years, increased body weight, diabetes and kidney failure, and (2) The large, beautiful vegetables she grows are beautiful and crisp, but cannot keep all winter. They begin to decay and fall apart just a month after harvest.
Galina attended our film forum and Biointensive festival in the Yaroslavl region. She invited Inna Yuzhakova and me to offer advice for solving her health and food preservation problems. She also wanted us to help her to make her garden Biointensive.
Inna and I carefully studied the compost, beds, pyramid-shaped greenhouses, vegetables and manure. We took samples of her vegetables and made an analysis for nitrates. I suggested that vegetables may accumulate extra nitrates from the unripe pig manure and compost. The nitrates cause the vegetables to have limited storage capacity; they decay into liquid porridge. The analyses showed that Galina's vegetables contain nitrates 22 to 28 times normal! There were a lot of nitrates, especially in her squash, pumpkins, and cabbage. We consulted with doctors who suggested that her nitrate-filled vegetables caused Galina’s health problems.
Inna and I described the Biointensive method in detail to Galina. Inna will give Galina one of the books by John Jeavons when she receives it from Carol. Galina likes to experiment with new methods in agriculture. We explained to Galina that Biointensive will help her grow more healthy vegetables and herbs not only for herself, but also for her pigs.
Galina highly appreciated our recommendations, advice and materials on Biointensive. We hope that she will start making her first lazy bed in September 2017.
We realized that Biointensive can provide benefits not only by increasing the yield for the family, but also by helping people conserve vegetables and become healthy!
We held three small working meetings in the Vologda region:
First, the director of the Tarnog Center for Assistance to Orphaned Children invited Inna Yuzhakov to conduct workshops for their children from September 2017 to July 2018, and Inna agreed. These orphans have developmental problems and cannot learn in regular schools. Therefore, the director asked us to develop a program of lessons in Biointensive for them. The director wants to help these children develop into ecologists and lovers of organic farming. The director asked me not to take photos during our meeting with the teachers and children.
Next, Nina Zhukova, Inna’s sister who lives in the village of Kaplinskaya in the Vologda region, invited us to visit her garden and offer recommendations on how to increase the yield. She cannot afford to buy animal manure and believes that her garden’s soil has become depleted. She makes compost from weeds and fallen leaves only. Inna and I showed her a book on Biointensive and explained how to make a compost pile properly. We explained that the use of all the components of Biointensive will raise the vegetable yield for her family.
Finally, we watched Inna and her children Tatiana and Alexei harvesting a lot of leaves of the Ivan tea (blooming sally, fireweed) plant, which they process and pack for sale. This was a traditional tea in Russia from the 18th to the early 20th centuries, and we marketed it to European and Scandinavian countries. During the past ten years, Swedish, Dutch, and Norwegian environmental organizations have been buying this tea from residents of the Vologda and Arkhangelsk regions. Inna's family sells it every year. I helped prepare the leaves to make the tea. I also sometimes have high blood pressure, so I took some home with me. This tea really helps lower the blood pressure and stimulates a sense of youthful energy.
Ludmila writes, "A farm family invited us to their home in Obonegovskaya, a village in the Arkhangelsk region. This family participated in my Biointensive seminars in the village near Inna’s in the Vologda province in May, 2017."
IInna and Ludmila then conducted Biointensive trainings in Obonegovskaya on a farm where organic farming is practiced with children from orphanages for difficult adolescents, that is young people aged 12-14 who have committed hooliganism.
The family offers educators the opportunity to bring groups of 10-15 young people for 2-3 weeks to practice and learn to farm. They have dug to depths of 5-6 meters below the ground and built greenhouses that deep and with a glass roof that helps to keep the greenhouse heated for 6 months per year. They have a large vegetable garden, horses, and huge cellars for storing vegetables over the winter.
The family asked Ludmila to send them books on Biointensive, which they will use to conduct training courses for problem teenagers. Inna will share the books and advise them in Biointensive.