The Alan Chadwick Archive
“We are the living links in a life force that moves and plays around and through us, binding the deepest soils with the farthest stars.”
Alan Chadwick (1909-1980) - E.M. Schumacher (Small is Beautiful) called Englishman Alan Chadwick "the greatest horticulturist of the 20th century." Chadwick was a student of Rudolf Steiner, an early advocate of organics, and founder of French Intensive Biodynamic System. He railed against the tragic policies of corporate agribusiness, while cultivating gardens of sublime beauty and production in the 60's and 70's throughout the United States. Nearly everyone practicing biodynamics today has been kissed by the Chadwick transmission.
The Alan Chadwick Biodynamic Archive is housed at Philosophy Farm in the mountains of North Carolina. In the summer of 2008 we were able to publish a book of transcriptions of Alan’s talks, Performance in the Garden, the first in what we hope will be a number of collections drawn from the 250 or so tapes we have of his lectures.
Come back from time to time as we will be putting up transcriptions of Alan’s talks, in no particular order. We remain open to any assistance in editing. The tapes are of varying quality and we do the best we can. The lectures presented on this site are done with a minimum of editing, so there may be of of sifting to go through to get to the heart of things.
We hope to gather photos and testimonials from his students and publish them here, especially as we go through the centennial of his birth. Contact us at ramsita@madison.main.nc.us .
“Horticulture is the greatest of all crafts, the art of the creation of God…the garden leads into the whole of the vision of Nature.”
“The garden is all secrets, the whole miracle of the garden is made up of secrets, and I’ve been granted the chance to expose a few others to this incredible ‘thing’ which, itself, is the teacher. It is, you see – though many people find the idea amusing – the garden that makes the gardener.”
