Simple Gardening

Its funny.
When I first started my gardens up here in N.Y. 
zone 5b, I had many insects. The first year Colorado 
tater beetles took out my taters en mass. Swarms of them
descended. Now no more bad buggies. 

And it was because I made the soils live again. Through 
lots of tlc, and organic compost. Manures, green sand help 
tremendously.  I get just a few leaf bites but nothing 
really damaging. Just as was foretold in the gardening classes, and books.

A healthy garden rarely needs non-organic fertilizers, 
or pesticides. After being raised with "better living through 
chemistry" it was a strange departure. An alternate reality.  
And little by little I dumped the conventional wisdom. Which 
by the way is less then 100 years old. And I went back to centuries old 
practices and they work. 

As an added plus I feel very connected to the earth. 
It is an innate, but very intimate bound. And I don’t 
feel out of place or time when I play in the garden, to 
me all work no matter how hard becomes play on some level when 
to do with touching the earth.  
frank petrie 
