NATURAL BALANCE IN THE GARDEN

COLLECTED EXPERIENCES IN CONFIRMATION

 I experienced this some time ago on my plot of land at Lake Geneva. I laid out a garden and began to work it organically. I began growing medicinal plants as well as vegetables, berries and fruit. As the land was sandwiched in by woods, I could see how prolific the insect pests became. All kinds of green fly settled in it, black, green and others. I sought to combat them with a tobacco extract. My apple, plum and cherry trees and particularly the blackberry bushes were all full of aphid. Since I had to travel abroad I had no alternative but to leave the garden to its own devices. How astonished I was upon returning a few weeks later to find everything cleaned up. What had happened? Very quickly I discovered that the green fly had been replaced by hundreds of little beetles with red wings and black dots. They are usually called lady birds. The greenfly multiplied as long as they had no enemies. But then the busy little beetles arrived, since in an• organically treated garden they can settle and begin to work, and they were able ‘to remove the nuisance. They may be small but they are nevertheless very useful and welcome helpers!

The newly planted espalier trees grew well, branched out and reached a nice height. This pleased the birds that began nesting in them. Every year a pair of house robins settled in the boiler room, feeling protected and safe there. They regularly built their nest high up in the room on top of the heating pipes. There they hatched their eggs and reared their young until they were able to fly away. More and more birds settled in my garden and them regularly did away with all the caterpillars. Although I kept seeing cabbage whites flying around that laid their eggs on my land, I never had to fight the caterpillars because the busy little birds relieved me of this task.

The nearness of the woods was responsible for a mice plague. Although the garden was surrounded by a strong wall and hedges, the bands of mice found their way in under the wall, climbed up about a meter and caused considerable damage by eating the roots. I fought them with the best organic means but all in vain. So how astonished I was when I began to notice that the rodents were diminishing. One day almost all of them were gone. How was this possible, so quickly and without any effort on my part? But now I had reason to complain about a certain untidiness in the garden. Wherever I had done green manuring, the grass, which served as a cover, was no longer orderly but lay either buried or strewn around on the path. I presumed that perhaps the blackbirds had been up to mischief, although I saw no reason for such behavior. Then one night I had to turn on the large floodlight I had in the garden, and lo and behold the riddle’s solution toddled along the garden path a young hedgehog! This little hedgehog, no doubt together with other family members, had finished off the mice. And of course it was these hedgehogs that had disarranged all the green manure around the trees. They had done so while chasing the mice and looking for insects under the green cover. I had never seen them during daylight. Most likely they stayed hidden in the bushes. If I had not turned on the floodlight, I would probably never have met the spiny brownie.