Come and see the Physic Garden Project in bloom. You will have an opportunity to explore the garden form 11am -6pm. There will be a guided tour and a talk on herbal medicine. There will also be an opportunity to try some delicious, freshly picked and blended herbal teas at our tea tasting session in the afternoon.
There will be a pop up cafe hosted by Stanmer organics at the Brighton Earthship, so come and and meet the team and find out what we do on our fabulous Stanmer Park site.
February and March at the Physic Garden Project
From winter to spring?
February was a quiet and gentle time in the garden.
Chie (my most intrepid and regular volunteer and assistant) and I have cleared and prepared the nursery beds ready for this year’s seeds.
We have also worked our way round the herb circle, clearing the dead remnants of last year’s plants, weeded out the new bramble, useful but rather prolific ground ivy and red dead nettle.
Chie in a snow flurry
Even with the bitterly cold weather and amongst the snow flurries there are signs of new life in the herb circle. I was surprised to find tiny little self-seeded Thymes and happy to see the very first very dark pink marshmallow shoots appearing in the respiratory bed.
Hardy little Chamomiles
The German Chamomile plants have proved to be very hardy, grown from seed last year and having defiantly returned after the rabbit onslaught, they have been popping up all over the sleep bed right through the winter.
I might regret not isolating the chocolate mint (Mentha piperita cultivar) an indulgent buy! It is sending runners out at a rapid rate of knots and may start to dominate the digestive bed, but for now it’s great to see its vigorous lust for life at work. Another mint, the notorious Penny Royal (Mentha puleium), is spreading like a carpet and packed with essential oil pulegone, a gentle stroke releases the most stimulating (but toxic) aroma.
We dug our new vegetable plot on one of the tantalisingly sparse spring days, nestling it next to a lovely winter-through-spring flowering prunus hedge line. It is covered with black mypex in an attempt to raise the temperature of the earth in preparation for seed sowing.
Bax has nearly finished the new veg patch
We are now in March and there have been no real signs of the temperature rising! Apparently this is the coldest March in 50 years. It certainly has felt pretty chilly.
We have taken advantage of the slow start to Spring by digging up a whole row of young organic Goji berry plants, kindly donated by neighbouring project Village fruits, whilst they are still dormant. They are to become our brand new medicinal hedge and provide a windbreak for the herb circle.
We also received a wonderful Demascena rose from my friend and mentor, Sarah Fury, which is now springing to life and whose blooms should provide us with the most intoxicating heady perfume this summer!
More herbs are breaking the surface, and this week we were delighted to discover the garlic we planted in January standing in rows like a little protective army in the heart and circulatory bed.
Although a little later than in the wild, it would appear that the Ramsons bought as bulbs last year are just peaking through the soil and as promised, we won’t be disappointed with the purchase!
Chie and I had a little field trip, seeking out Silver birch trees to tap for their sap.
We used the traditional herbal method of drilling a small hole in the tree and feeding in a straw to collect the sap in a tied on plastic bottle. We have since discovered a rather more tree friendly method using just a knife. To see a video of this method in practise please follow this link: . http://www.naturalbushcraft.co.uk/wild-food/tapping-the-birch-tree-for-sap-in-march-collecting-birch-sap-a-clean-sugar-rich-water.html
The sap is rising now, perhaps a little later than usual due to the cold weather so there is still time to try this wonderfully therapeutic spring tonic for your self. It is very important, should you be new to this and fancy trying this for the first time to follow some simple guidelines including correctly identifying a silver birch, remembering to return for the sap and not leaving the tap running and then to re-seal the hole you have made once you have finished.
My dear friend Vaikunthanath Kaviraj passed away this month.
May I introduce you to this great man, a homeopath, agro-homeopath, teacher and friend to all who knew him.
I suspect this is one of the few times Kavi sat on the fence!
This great teacher has spent his life healing patients all over the world using homeopathy and was, i believe, one of the founders and certainly one of the finest teachers of agro-homeopathy ( the treatment of plants using homeopathy).
http://www.homeopathyworldcommunity.com/profile/VaikunthanathdaKaviraj
My dear friend Kaviraj
Vaikunthanath Das Kaviraj 31st October 1946 – 2nd March 2013
With great sadness I report the passing of Vaikunthanath Das Kaviraj, born Ben Rozendal, who many of you knew as the Plant Doctor. He died on March 2nd in Northern France. 
A Dutch Homeopath, Kaviraj was an extraordinary healer and researcher, who did pioneering work in the development of agrohomeopathy, developing it to a high art. His knowledge of that field was unmatched. He was one of the most generous hearts I’ve ever encountered. His was a life dedicated to service and he spared nothing to help others. It was common for him to traverse continents to visit patients who couldn’t travel to him. Lately he had gone to India where he was teaching sustainable agriculture to poor farmers. He understood the delicate interactions of plant, animal, insect and microscopic life.
Kaviraj was a passionate person who spoke frankly and did not suffer fools or injustice gladly. He was ardent about stopping GMO crops from ruining agriculture and harming life on the planet. He saw it as criminal, an illegal experiment, conducted without the consent of the subjects.
During the 1960′s Kaviraj co-founded the Magic Bus company, offering rides to India by minivan. He experimented with psychedelics and kept company with Alan Ginsberg, Bob Dylan and Ken Kesey. He ran organic farms in France and Belgium, studied with an herbal witch and astrologer and travelled the world to study plants. While in India he became ill and was cured by homeopathy. The desire to understand what had cured him lead to an apprenticeship in the 1970′s followed by 10 years running Dr. Chatterjee’s rural clinic. He wrote textbooks on various aspects of homeopathy as well as the fictional Boon Files (in the style of homeopathic detective stories.). In 1982 he was initiated into the Bhakti and Shamanic healing traditions.
In 1986 Kaviraj successfully treated apple trees with Belladonna and subsequently moved to Australia where he did large scale experiments with remedies for sick plants. This led to his pioneering book Homeopathy for Farm and Garden. He was a unique and powerful spirit who lived with purpose every day, spending a lifetime working to relieve suffering and preserve life.
I find it difficult to imagine him gone. He still lives in the minds of those he taught, and the hearts of everyone who knew him. Good bye dear friend.
(You can read an interview Kaviraj gave to Hpathy in Dec. 2008)
Author: Alan V. Schmukler
Iman Navab, who was a close friend of V.D. Kaviraj, offers a rememberance of him, including some stories in Kaviraj’s own words.
On March 2nd of 2013 at 6:30 p.m., to our sorrow we had a great loss as Vaikunthanath Kaviraj left to a new journey. Like Hahnemann, he passed away in France. He is now free of the constraints of his earthly-life. Kaviraj was known as a pioneer in Agro-Homeopathy and as doctor of plants. However, to his pupils and those who know him well, certainly he was much more than that. Kaviraj proved to be a remarkable philosopher, author, a loving father, restless activist, a natural healer and a true Hahnemmanian homeopath. Wisdom was a God given gift to him, which no one can learn in any school. Kaviraj always recognized the truth and defended the truth without compromise. Indeed, Kaviraj deserves to be regarded as Prince of Homeopathy due to his genius, deep knowledge and outstanding skills in classical homeopathy.
His name, Vaikunthanath Kaviraj, was an honorary title granted to him by his spiritual guru in India. Kaviraj was not a religious person, but he followed the Vaisnava spirituality beliefs and he had a very strong faith in the Lord. Once Kaviraj said: “I owe, I owe, it’s off to work I go. I don’t owe anything to anyone, but owe my skills to God and he does not charge any interest.”
Kaviraj was a unique, cool, talented individual; he knew five different languages; among his favourite music was Mantra; his favourite animal was the horse; and he liked French made cars. Among the modern scientists, he favoured Albert Einstein. In art, Kaviraj really enjoyed Surrealism and among his favourite artists was Hieronymus Bosch.
Kaviraj was born on October 31st of 1946 in the Netherlands. According to Kaviraj, at the age of 14, he held his first job at a tree-nursery, with adjacent herb garden. The master gardener became his first teacher. A few years later, he learned more from a woman called Mellie Uyldert, a famous Dutch herbalist and astrologer.
It is difficult to encompass his biography in such a short article. In a nutshell, he was a homoeopath and scientist with more than 30 years experience and he was the developer of homoeopathy for agriculture. In this regard, he said: I am a homoeopath. Learned in Vriindavan UP Bharat, as an apprentice of Dr Chatterjee, who had 70 years of experience. He taught me very well. I discovered that the principles of homeopathy stem directly from the spiritual plane as described in SB 1/5/33. I developed Agrohomeopathy from a chance experience with a client in 1986.
In 1964, for personal reasons, Kaviraj took his first trip to India. This was the beginning of an extraordinary chapter in his life. In his own words, Kaviraj explained:
“I was a restless soul – and finally found direction in the art of healing. In the village of Vrindavan, I learned homeopathy. I came to stay 3 nights, because that is the maximum, when visiting a Holy Dham – a sacred place. On the first day I got sick – great purification, because all the sins of youth came out. So I could not travel. I tried herbs to no avail – being an herbalist and acupuncturist at that time – and my needles did not do it either. I went to see allopathic and Ayurvedic doctors, Mantra-Wallahs, who I have personally seen cure people, but none could help me. After 11 weeks of this, I lost a lot of weight. Finally, one day I walked into the market and asked for a homeopath. One of my friends, a cloth merchant, told me where to go. I arrived and was asked what the trouble was? I replied, forceful explosive diarrhea every hour, day and night, with good appetite and thirst, eating and drinking aplenty. So he gave me 3 little pills and told me to come back in three days. I asked, what are you giving me? He replied, I don’t like self medication, so I won’t tell you. “But I want to know”, I said. Be here every day at 6 am and I’ll teach you, he said. And that is how I became a good homeopath. I lived in a rented house, where I practiced, just across from the maternity hospital. I served many people and those from as far away as Nandagram. So by Radharani’s mercy I was allowed to stay and treat countless patients in a period of 10 years. I would open at 7am. In the evening I used to go to the market and get fresh vegetables.”
“Loi Bazar market is where all the mukut wallahs have their shops and where you can buy everything, from sweets, to cloth, to food and deities. You see them making them, right in front of your eyes. There are some very good tailors there too. The monkeys of Vrindavan are the smartest in the world by far. They go on rampages. They all sit on the roofs. Then the biggest male jumps up a pole from which all the electricity wires hang to the next pole. He will furiously shake it, till those wires touch each other and the market is dropped into darkness. Then they all come down from the roofs and go on a stealing spree – 300 of them. The merchants panic, grab lights, and while they light an oil lamp, the monkey steal his fruits, nuts, cookies, vegetables, and anything directly edible.”
“In 1982, I received initiation in the Bhakti tradition from Srila Bhakti-rakshak Sridhar deva Goswami, in the Brahma-Madhva-Gaudiya Sampradaya or disciple succession. In 1983, I received my second initiation, after which the title Kaviraj was bestowed upon me.” (kaviraj comes from kavi – healer; and raja – king; king of healers. All Ayurvedic doctors are called kaviraj).
“In 1986, while spending a few weeks in Europe to renew my visa, I accidentally began my experiences with plants, which led to the publication of a book on the subject in 2006. In 1990 I moved to Australia, where I did many experiments with remedies for sick plants on a large scale. In 1997, I received another shamanic initiation, this time from Aboriginal Men of High Degree, (the literal translation of their titles as medicine men) during a corroboree in Arnhem Land. Since 2000, I have lived in Holland, where I spent my time writing about homeopathy and medicine in general. And in 2007, I moved to the United Kingdom, and continued my services.”
Throughout his career Kaviraj received many honourary titles and awards for his selfless contributions to homeopathy and people in distress. He volunteered many times to travel and help the helpless in situations such as Haiti’s earthquake. He wrote countless articles and some essential books on homeopathy for farm and garden. He was the founder and CEO of the Similicure Company, and an advisory board member of the Applied Research in Homeopathy Foundation of Canada.
Kaviraj was part of my family, he was my own spiritual guru, and after Hahnemann, to me he was the godfather of homeopathy. He touched and saved so many lives including trees, plants, bees and animals. We miss him every day, his light will always remain in our hearts, and we love him forever.
I always keep in mind this quote by Kaviraj “Mother-Nature is the best teacher and if we want to read her book, we must walk its pages. She will reveal all to the sincere who want to understand.”
God bless his soul.
Physic Garden Project 