Permaculture solutions: Biodiversity

BeeKeeper Davey, TheGrowingHome.net

Suggestions on mulching remind me that a longer-term solution is to encourage biodiversity.
  
The wider the range of all kinds of insects one has living and dying in a garden or farm, the more likely there will be a dynamic balance of beneficials and non-beneficials.

Plant insect varieties choose edibles and ornamentals. Let some of the edibles go to seed. And plant trap crops, such as milkweed for aphids. Johanna Campos of the Armory Art Center's  demonstration garden knows about this kind of approach. We went through The Huntington's Urban Ecosystem Agriculture course together.

   

Classmates and I have begun writing about it at Urban-Ecosystem-Agriculture, Leonardo's site LiveEarthSystems.com, and Kathleen wrote about it at Pathway to the Garden.