permaculture

[Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>]

> There really is a balance of nature, ...

I used to think that this is just a romantic idea.  Yet after more than ten 
years on this land, I come more and more to the conclusion that this is in 
fact very true and that all our endeavors will be in vain if we don’t 
understand this balance of Nature and find ways of living in harmony with 
Nature.  A few years ago, I would have cringed at writing such a sentence.

For example, when I first started gardening/farming on this land nearly 15 
years ago, there was an explosion in the slug population after a couple of 
years.  The slugs prospered magnificently on that added food from my garden.  
I resisted the impulse of using poison and went for all kinds of non-toxic 
methods instead, mostly just hand-picking, which was very cumbersome and 
still would loose me more than half of my young salad and cabbage plants in 
some years.  When I go out at night now, I usually find more toads than 
slugs.  It has taken a few years of patience and some losses, but now Nature 
has found its balance again and slug damage is held under control by the 
toads that have multiplied on the back of the slug population.

Dieter Brand
Portugal