Garden Networks

One of the big buzzwords on the Internet has, and continues to be, all about your network. We have networks of computers and networks of friends and networks of networks and it all gets so darn complicates sometimes I just have to shake my head and go find a beer.

It’s rather like that in the garden I suspect for folks trying to figure out the basics of organic gardening. It’s one thing to support the lack of garden chemicals in theory, it’s another thing to wrap your head around it when it comes to actually doing something about it in your very own garden. Organic gardening and protecting the environment is something everybody else should do because in practice it can all be overwhelming. This short column is about trying to make the basics clear; to explain that there are networks on networks operating out in your garden and you only job is to understand the basics.

The first thing to understand is that everything is related to everything else. Just as all web pages are linked together, so are all parts of the garden. If you delete a link on the net, you can still work around it but with less efficiency. So to in the garden, delete a link between a predator and prey and you can still deal with either but it’s harder. If you delete all the links between websites, it becomes very hard to find or work with either and this too is true in the garden. If you eliminate a predator with chemicals, the prey are going to explode in population; you’ve deleted the control function so the other half of the link is out of whack too with excessive growth.

You say well, that’s all and good with insects but what about weeds? The first thing to understand is that a weed is simply the wrong plant in the wrong place. I have plants in my gardens I call noxious weedy thugs but these were deliberately planted there by previous owners. Dandelions are herbal and edible delights but in the thousands, they can be a blight of a golf-course lawn. The second thing to understand is that there are networks in the soil for weed growth just as there are for insect growth. If you decide not to sow grass seed in the fall to thicken up the lawn, then Mother Nature sees an opening and will plunk some of her dandelion, or other weed seed, into that place. Thin lawn grass networks create spaces for weed networks. Soil conditions, excess levels of nitrogen or other nutrients caused by heavy feeding create great conditions for lush growth. Lush growth is great to eat so insects love this kind of leaf. By excessive feeding, you create a network link between your garden leaves and insects. Backing off the nitrogen allows the plant to regain it’s natural chemical functioning and it makes itself less appealing to insects.

Right, a plant that makes itself less appealing to insects! The fact is that indeed plants do this. A plant that is being eaten by an insect starts to produce leaf toxins that deter that insect from eating too much. Not only that but neighboring plants that are not being eaten also start producing the same level of toxin. The plants are networked in ways we don’t yet understand. And by feeding and creating lush leaves, the signals for plant protection are overwhelmed by the rush of incoming insects. The insects can move faster and eat quicker than the plants can respond. The network between plants gets broken.

Your job as new organic gardeners is to understand that given half a chance, plants and insects will create a natural balance in the garden. Because that’s something you have to understand; just because you’re gardening using organic techniques, doesn’t mean you stand back when the hordes of Japanese beetles start carrying your prized rose across the lawn. You whack ‘em. But you whack ‘em in a way that is specific to the problem, not to all insects in general. You treat the problem surgically rather than by nuking the entire garden. You want to solve the imbalance in your garden, to repair the predator-prey network, not to destroy it further. You do want to create a weed-free lawn but you don’t nuke the lawn, the plants around it and the insects that live on it. You want to restore a network balance to the lawn that creates a thriving grass area.

The single best way to restore balance to your garden network is to practice benign neglect. I know, it sounds strange but the trick of the matter is that if you allow some garden damage to happen, and have patience while it is happening (instead of nuking the area) strangely enough, it will stop of it’s own accord. The predators, who grow more slowly than the prey, will ramp up and control the problem. This is why we don’t want to nuke everything, we want to allow the natural cycle to operate whenever possible except in extreme conditions. However, when the tomato hornworms are stripping away your plants, don’t wait for the wasps to parasitize them, just pick and stomp. When aphids are covering the rose tips, a water jet is called for.

Organic gardening isn’t doing nothing, it’s doing the right thing at the right time to have the minimal impact on the natural network.

This is the challenge you know face. Your job is to become a gardener and not just a garden-decorator. Your task is to create great natural networks in your garden, not destroy them. And it’s a learning curve to be sure. Welcome to the wonderful world of understanding garden networks.