When we think of organic gardening and permaculture we tend to
conjure up images of leathery-skinned bearded warriors who dedicate
their lives to working long days in their vegetable plots. Whilst this
may be a wonderful way to live your life, it doesn’t suit the average
suburbanite with a full-time job and a hefty mortgage.
Growing food is typically seen as either an art form or damned
hard work. It’s no wonder very few people do it on a serious level.
But what if a technique came along that was so easy and so prolific
that even the busiest corporate executive could grow a significant
portion of their family’s food in less time than it takes to drive to
the shops. Ecological gardening just might be the answer. In my
experience, it’s the ultimate modern-day convenience veggie plot.
I didn’t have a light bulb moment that said, “Ah, so this is
ecological gardening”. My vegetable garden was no different to anybody
else’s for many years until I made a few changes. The first and
probably most significant was squeezing far more plants into a given
area. The second change was to never dig the soil. And thirdly, I
upgraded my composting system. Once these simple strategies were in
place I noticed the garden taking on a life of its own. Weeds virtually
stopped growing in the beds and plants started living much longer.
The garden could endure longer periods without water, I was yielding far
more than I ever had and I could harvest every day of the year. I
wanted to know what was happening at a scientific level and applied my
university training as an environmental scientist to understand why I
was getting such amazing results. I had to completely let go of all my
preconceived ideas as a gardener and look at the plot through the eyes
of an ecologist. After some time I realized that I had created an
ecosystem made up of edible plants, and it behaved in exactly the same
way as a natural habitat. I became more of an observer than a gardener
and the role of head gardener was pulled from under my feet as nature
took up the reins.
Employ Nature, she works for free
The wonderful thing about nature is that she
works tirelessly, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Nature follows
very simple laws and works in the same way, on any system, anywhere in
the world. When we create an ecological garden we are creating a
living, breathing ecosystem. By doing this we get nature working for
us, and not against us, and her great stamina works in our favour.
Niche Spaces and why they are important
A pristine ecosystem is made up of thousands of living and
non-living components all coexisting in a given area. Each living
component occupies its own niche space and the role of the niche space
is very important to understand when creating an ecological garden.
Let’s look at an example. Imagine a giant rainforest tree crashing to
the ground after standing tall for hundreds of years. Such a large
tree would have filled an enormous niche space. Lying in the soil,
hundreds of dormant seeds spring to life, desperately fighting for
their opportunity to occupy the best real estate in the forest: the
empty niche space. The niche space is quickly filled and harmony is
restored.
When we look at a traditional vegetable garden with this type
of insight, what we see is a very unnatural system. There is very
little diversity and a lot of empty niche spaces. Nature enforces her
will on vegetable gardens in exactly the same way she does a
rainforest, and this means that empty niches spaces will be filled as
quickly as possible. However, in a traditional vegetable garden there
are no desirable seeds waiting to fill the niches spaces, so weeds fill
them instead.
The solution is to create a garden that has tightly filled
niche spaces so that weeds don’t have any opportunities. We can do this
by planting the garden very tightly with a diverse range of plants of
differing shapes and characteristics. The result is a dense
jungle-like planting arrangement that can yield an unbelievable amount.
The denseness also creates a highly protected micro-climate. This
ideal growing environment causes your plants to last much longer.
Greens don’t bolt to seed as soon as a hot spell hits and cold
sensitive plants are more protected as well.
How to manage an ecological garden
Managing an ecological garden is different to managing a
traditional vegetable garden. With an ecological garden, there is far
less to do. As you become the observer and allow nature to take over
as head gardener, you will notice that the garden is in a continual
state of gentle change, just like a natural ecosystem. It can be
difficult for the traditional gardener to stand back and observe as we,
human beings, like to control things. This style of gardening calls
for a great deal of faith in natural laws. Sure, there will be times
when you need to step in and direct the system in a certain way;
however that is almost always because a certain plant species is
getting too successful and the system is at risk of loosing diversity.
Natural Pest Management
The dense mixed-up nature of the ecological
garden creates a natural form of pest management. Pests generally
locate their target plant species using sight or smell. Imagine how
much more difficult it is to see your target plant when its outline is
blurred by a sea of green. And how on earth could you smell your
target plant when there are so many conflicting smells.
No More Need to Rotate Crops
Crop rotation is practiced by dedicated
gardeners for a very good reason. Different plants require different
minerals from the soil, in different proportions. After an area has
been planted with a certain species, the soil can be left depleted of
certain minerals. To lessen the effects of this depletion a different
crop will be planted in the area the following year. In addition, many
gardeners rest their garden beds periodically and grow a green manure
crop, usually a legume such as Lucerne or field peas. These plants
add nitrogen from the atmosphere through a process called
nitrogen-fixing. However, crop rotation simply isn’t necessary with
ecological gardening because the mixed-up planting arrangement
counteracts the effects of mineral depletion because a single species
doesn’t dominate a single area. Likewise, green manure crops are not
necessary as nitrogen is topped up in two ways. Firstly, through
planting edible legumes such as peas and beans within the jungle-like
mass. And secondly, by the addition of compost to the surface of any
bare areas.
Composting
Compost is an important part of the ecological garden and is a
very valuable commodity. To me, composting is a way of building
valuable nutrients that will, one day, feed me and my family. The
average person buys food from a shop, consumes it and then sends the
waste away. This is simply buying nutrients, taking what you need for
that precise moment, and disregarding the remainder. It’s a nutrient
flow that only flows in one direction, like a fancy car roaring down
the road. You admire the car for a moment, but after a second or two,
it’s gone.
My goal is to slow down the car and then get it to do a
U-turn. I want to keep the nutrients within my property where I can
capitalise on them. By doing this, I am able to use the nutrients
again, so I don’t have to buy them for a second time. In effect, I am
creating a system that is self-sustainable. Composting is a vehicle
in which we are able to create a nutrient cycle within our property. We
are part of that cycle because we consume the nutrients when they are,
for a brief time, in a useful form. Then they return to the compost
and slowly make their way into another useful form where we consume
them again. This cycle can go on and on indefinitely.
Throw away the hoe
Natural ecosystems don’t require gardeners with
shovels and hoes to come along every season to turn their soil, and
neither does an ecological garden. However, it is best not to walk on
the garden beds as this will cause unnecessary compaction. Of course,
this requires the installation of permanent pathways that are
positioned in a way that the gardener can obtain access to the plot.
Digging soil upsets the soil structure which, in turn,
reduces the soil’s ability to pass on valuable nutrients to plants.
The loss of soil structure also reduces the soil’s ability to hold
water. Developing good soil structure is actually the best water
conserving technique I know, and when practiced in conjunction with a
dense planting arrangement creates a holistic soil ecology management
plan. A dense planting arrangement will shade the soils surface,
stopping surface crusting which causes runoff and nutrient depletion.
Developing good deeper structure will allow soil organisms to do what
they do best – turn organic matter into available plant nutrients.
Self Seeding
If you are lucky enough to visit a pristine rainforest you will
probably be awestruck by the towering canopy. However, the future of
the rainforest lies in the soil in the form of seeds – tiny cells of
life waiting for their opportunity to prosper. If we are going to
create an ecological garden then we have to make sure it too, has a
future. By allowing some plants to go to seed, we can build up seed
stores, just like the rainforest. And like the rainforest, we should
aim to have thousands of seeds of many varieties spread right across
our plot. Most of these seeds will never germinate because in the
ecological garden the niche spaces are so tightly filled that
opportunities for new life are limited. However, eventually a plant
will be eaten and an empty niche space will appear. If we have
thousands of seeds lying dormant, the chances of the niche space being
filled with something desirable are pretty good
Who should set up an ecological garden?
Absolutely everyone from farmers to inner-city
townhouse dwellers. It may seem strange, but if you have never grown
food before then you are, in some ways, at an advantage. Experienced
gardeners may like to see themselves as adopting some ecological
gardening techniques, but find it difficult to let go of the need to
control the system. Like all industries, the gardening industry can
get stuck in doing things a certain way and most seasoned gardeners will
inevitably over-work the garden. As a species, human beings
prospered when we learnt to cultivate food using tilling and other
traditional agricultural methods, so it’s difficult to turn back to
where we came from - nature. It might even feel like a step in the
wrong direction. But if we can let go of our need to control every
living thing on the planet, and start to work with nature, we actually
gain more control by being able to grow food more efficiently than ever
before. It’s a paradox - but it works!
Setting up an ecological garden
Any existing vegetable garden can be converted into an
ecological garden. Firstly, get your pathways laid out so that you
never have to walk on your garden beds again. After that, get a good
composting system going and apply it to the soil surface. Then plant
densely and diversely.
If you don’t have a vegetable garden, my suggestion would be to
create a classic Esther Deans ‘no dig’ garden to get you started.
Once erected, simply follow the ecological gardening method.
Mini-ecological garden
If you live in a unit or townhouse with no soft
ground you could create a mini-ecological garden using a series of
containers. Polystyrafoam boxes with drainage holes are ideal. Fill
them with good potting mixture and arrange them side by side using as
many as you can fit onto your verandah or patio. Rather than
developing a large composting system, you could purchase a worm farm
and add the worm casts to the soil surface as fertilizer. Once the
boxes are set up, simply adopt the ecological gardening method.
The Ecological Gardening Method – the key principles.
- Plant densely
- Plant a diversity of plants within a given area
- Get a good composting system set up and use the compost as a surface mulch on bare patches
- Allow some plants to go to seed
- Only interfere with the system when a single species of plant
over-dominates and simply scratch out excess plants when they are
small.
Growing food is not hard work, especially when you have nature
helping you 24/7. A small area can provide you with such a bounty of
food, saving your family thousands of dollars per year. Most of us
don’t have much time to spend in the garden, including me. I only
invest around eight hours of time per year to growing my food, and
although I live on a small farm I only use a space of around 6 x 6m.
That’s an area that could fit into many suburban backyards several
times over. The most wonderful thing about this method is that I know I
can ignore my vegetable garden for months and it won’t miss a beat.
So, if you believe growing food is only for tough bearded warriors with
lots of land and time, think again. Ecological gardening could be just
the thing for you.
