Over inour Skool community , Laurie asks :
Do you treat your course gardens any differently than your GRG ? I am trying to decide if I really want to go out with a flashlight before dawn to look for squash bugs , although I necessitate to at least once to really see what they and their orchis look like . Perhaps I just have n’t had a genuine problem with them yet . We have enough brush and debris for microbe and skirt to last , and I see lots of butterflies and bees .
It bet on how regretful we need the production , and how unfit the pest problems are .
During the 2020 pandemic , we vigilantly defended our crops from pests because we need to make certain we had fate of solid food . When you open up up a Modern space and plant some rows , it ’s unremarkably going to come under onrush by pests . If you really take that food , you may have to fight for it .
A tilled words garden is not at all skinny to a lifelike ecosystem so the right balance of predators and pests is n’t in play . You ’ll probably have to “ play God ” more than you would in a permaculture system . And if that means going out with a flashlight or baiting slugs with dishful of beer or spraying leave of absence with something or other , that may just be what has to be done .
We are rather lazy about our gardening . We love to progress big , beautiful system that do n’t need fiddly sustentation ; hence the evolution from pocket-sized beds of annuals to bombastic , mixed polycultures .
A lot goes into keeping pestilence damage low , from polycultures ( as in my last picture ) to nutrition and tearing , to plant the veracious crop for your country . We have some crops that never get hurt by plague ( on-key yams , cucuzza squash , cassava ) , and others that attract them at infestation levels ( broccoli and cabbage , lettuce , bush bean ) .
Over the years we ’ve moved towards implant the pestis - resistant craw in large collections of perennials and annuals , on top of compost , ash tree , manure and biochar - amend dirt , then letting nature assort out what does well and what does n’t .
Go thee forth and run those squash rackets microbe !
Comejoin us on Skool for gardening help – and our solid food forest grade !
