Bob Flowerdew's Organic Bible [antikvár]

INTRODUCTIONLet nature do the workYour own home-grown food is fresher and tastes better than anything you can ever buyIt has long been recognised that it is easier to work with nature than to fight her. Much of the resurgence of organic and green gardening has come about because we have realised how precious the natural ecosystems all round us are, and how dependent we are on them. However, I want us to go further - not just co-operating with nature but enticing her. I have found it possible to make any plot into a paradise within a short time and without much hard work. But this is not achieved by letting nature have her way. No, we must guide and channel her so that we get what we want by adjusting the balance of nature's own interdependent systems. Nature always reaches a balance; we aim to move that point so that it is in our favour and not aligned against us.Plants want to grow, wildlife wants to increase, so let them do the hard work By their very nature, seeds 'want' to germinate, plants 'want' to grow and flower and fruit, creatures of all sizes 'want' to multiply. If we plan well and grow the right plants in the optimum combinations in the best places, and if we encourage various forms of life to accompany them in our gardens, we can let nature have almost complete control over pests and diseases, over maintaining and increasing fertiUty, and over producing bigger returns than we could ever wrest from her by coercion.Using our wit and cunning to produce flowers, fruits and vegetables fit for the pleasure and tables of kings Most of being a good gardener lies in giving the plants what they need and not giving them anything which hurts or harms them. Many pesticides have turned out to be as harmful to the plants as they are to us - one greenhouse market-gardening company found their yields went up by about a fifth when they stopped using insecticides and went over to biological control. We don't even need pesticides - almost every pest and disease can be outmanoeuvred. The best way to do this is to utilise other bits of nature to do it for us. There are tens of thousands of different sorts of insects in the UK and only a few hundred in total do any direct harm to us, our property or our garden flowers and crops. The rest are all engaged in their own world, but we can persuade them to do our bidding. For example, if we lure hoverflies to yellow flowers which are (to them) irresistibly full of honey and pollen, then they lay more eggs in our garden than elsewhere and their larvae control aphids for us.