Score One for Permaculture

When you think of organic growing, there are a lot of things that might come to mind. You might think of nasty organic pesticides such as pyrethrum or diatomaceous earth; you might think of arduous slug-patrols and endless couchgrass; you might think of sterile white insect-proof mesh covering up beautiful rows of crops. But the best method for growing organically, in my opinion (though slug patrols and insect-proof mesh certainly have their places!), is to work in harmony with nature as much as possible - the permaculture way; sustainable and low-maintenance - and we've seen a great example of this on our plot over the last month.

One important factor when it comes to growing in harmony with nature is simply to give plants the right conditions to promote great health, and that means sowing at the optimum time so that plants don't have to struggle. As much as I like the idea of sowing broad beans in autumn so I can pick them super-early the next season, experience has shown this never turns out well on my plot and the plants get absolutely ravaged by pests come April. Broad beans sown from March onwards, however, seem to grow up stronger and have almost no pest problems.

Nevertheless, sometimes the unexpected happens, and a few weeks ago we noticed the stems of just a couple of our broad bean plants were absolutely covered in blackfly. I groaned, but then I looked closer...

There were ladybirds everywhere - at least 15 on the most affected plant - and many of them were busy mating or laying eggs. Knowing that adult ladybirds eat up to 1000 aphids per day, I didn't see much point rushing to squish all the offending aphids or pinch off the tops of the plants! I just left them to it...

A week or two later there were plenty of ladybirds still around, and lots of their larvae too...

And a week or two after that - no more blackfly! Just a few corpses remain on the stems, ants picking over them rather sadly, and the bean pods are well on their way. That's 100% pest control, with no spraying, squishing or other interference from us. Hurrah!

These broad beans are close to where we'd grown some phacelia as a green manure over winter - the phacelia was flowering by this point and covered with busy bees - and since ladybirds tend to like feathery-foliaged plants I presume this is what brought so many to the area. When I finally pulled the phacelia up I certainly found plenty more ladybirds sheltering there! A pesticide-free plot, no-dig beds, and plenty of sheltered places for insects to overwinter are helping make our plot even more hospitable to predatory insects such as these, and there are plenty of other plants we can grow to encourage them too; cosmos, dill, parsley, fennel, angelica, caraway, coriander and yarrow are all good choices which should be left to flower for best effect (slugs ate all my dill - boooo!) as well as flowering herbs such as mint, lemon balm and thyme. They're trickier to photograph, but there are definitely more little parasitic wasps on the plot this year too.

I love it when a plan comes together. Score one for permaculture!

Parasitic wasp laying an egg