Krishna’s Perfect Permaculture

It is Krishna’s perfect arrangement that every thing and every creature in His perfect creation have a job to do. If we learn to follow His perfect plan, gardening can become a lot less work. There are groups out there today that utilize a similar realization in the form of what is called “permaculture”. They try to get along with material nature rather than turning everything into a battle. 

Of course, learning  to work with nature will take some trial and error, since we are conditioned to rely on quick fixes rather than nature’s plan.  

In any case, this year we had what is called interplanting or more diverse plantings rather than beds of monoculture or containing one kind of plant only. One example is a bitter melon vine climbing upon an okra plant. 

Besides being a natural extension to the trellis the okra was planted next to, this is said to confuse any bugs. But interplanting requires more planning. It isn't easy until you learn the needs of specific plants. Some don't mind a little shade growing next to bigger plants and some prefer dryer soil, so you have to be careful to group them with other plants with similar needs. Until then, crop rotation seems preferable. As for the okra, it gets very tall and needs to be bent a little to reach the crop above, which may strain the vines growing below. So far this has not been a problem. 

Another thing is that we are gradually adding more flowers. This is not only for deity worship, but also to attract beneficials, creatures that pollinate the plants and flowers such as marigolds can also repel pest that attack your crops. 

We have definitely seen a big increase in butterflies this season, but not sure if it’s always a good thing because butterflies mean caterpillars. Until more predatory creatures enter the ecosystem, they can be a challenge.

Also we  hope to add more perennials such as this rosemary because they save a lot of time having to replant something each year..                                                                   

In this case, we included plantings of fruit trees and berry bushes. There are pears, a mandarin orange, fig, avocados, loquats, a peach, curry and a camphor tree so far.

Most notable was a broadened spectrum of creatures and beneficial insects that made their presence this year in the garden. 

Birds come around at dawn looking for insects. Also on top of one of the trellises covered by leaves we found a bird nest where baby birds grew up and then flew away

A lizard is out and about looking for bugs.

Also seeing lots of spiders. Here is one spotted on a pear tree leaf. 

And there are frogs (and sometimes toads, too) that do a good job eating bugs.

Also spotted have been snakes, dragonflies, soldier flies, wasps, bees, bumblebees, ladybugs, a turtle, raccoon and an opposum.

All are designed to act in beneficial ways. The soldier flies broke down compost. The possum  helped  get rid of cut worms.