Re: silica spray/biodynamic gdng

**"* S* <m*@gmail.com>**

Hi,

I have used home-made horsetail spray for disease prevention in greenhouse
crops. It works beautifully. I'm sure you could spray it on the soil, too.
If you can't find any wild, you can buy it from almost any good herb
supplier.

If you make it, crumble the leaves into small pieces and wrap them in
several layers of cheesecloth--like a giant bouquet garni. Then put it in a
pickle crock filled with water. Cover the crock and let it sit in a warm
spot for at least five days and preferably a couple of weeks. Strain it
through a coffee filter before diluting it and putting it into a sprayer so
it doesn't clog the nozzle. (Cleaning nozzles is a major pain.) It should
look like weak tea when you use it.

For a faster brew, you can bring it to a light boil, preferably in a
stainless steel or ceramic pot--not aluminum or non-stick--and hold it just
under boiling for about 5 minutes. Again, strain, dilute, and fill the
sprayer.

Traditionally, there is a way of stirring these materials--first one way and
then the other, to create a vortex and bring in particular energies. It's
tedious--so much so that many BD farmers have mechanized it. I confess to
having stinted on this step--my arm gets tired. It still worked well.

Miranda

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 12:06 AM, MARY FRAN MCQUADE <mfmcq@sympatico.ca>
wrote:

> Margaret--
>
> I don't know about commercially available silica spray, but I remember
> horsetail (equisetum) is supposed to be full of silica. Some herbalists
> recommend horsetail tea for use on for hair and nails (as well as
> internally, tho I don't think I'd want to try that).
>
>
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