Diversity

Ever since we started in 2013 we have been working on diversity. We have also learned about permaculture, biodynamics and many other positive techniques. We have concentrated on feeding the soil and we don’t dig but put compost on the plot each year. It has all worked wonders with not only our crop size growing year on year but our range of crops has grown too. In our first year we tried growing cabbages but the caterpillars reeked havoc. Now, having increased the diversity of organisms in the soil and by feeding with home made fertilisers, we find we can grow huge cabbages with no damage from caterpillars.

In our journey to learn permaculture and biodynamics we have many apparent contradictions which we are progressively exploring. For instance permaculture advocates no dig but biodynamics advises disturbing the soil through hoeing regularly. We found through practice that hoeing the surface soil does not affect the soil organisms and allows cosmic energies to enter the soil and keeps the weeds down.

The next challenge we are to take is how best to mix crops of dissimilar types. Biodynamics recommends growing all root crops together and likewise leaf crops, flower crops and fruit crops. However permaculture recommends mixing then up and when we observe nature we see that nature mixes all types up successfully.

If we combine our learning about feeding the soil and the crops to eliminate pests and diseases with our observations of nature then we might find that we can successfully put roots, leaves, flowers and fruits together. We already mix many fruits together in one bed going one step beyond the three sisters. Here we have strawberries, sweet corn, beans, squash, courgettes, tomatoes and some flowers.

So how about a bed with cabbages, leeks, broccoli,