Going Organic

If you look closely at the bottom left hand corner of this view of the Laguna garden looking down from the deck, you will see a little plastic saucer on a tall pole sticking out. This is a left over relic from when I first changed my garden over to an all organic garden about fifteen years ago. I was frustrated with how horrible my garden looked from all the insect damage when I first went all  organic. I used to laugh and tell people that you could tell it was an organic garden because it looked so bad. But I knew that this was not typical and that there were many people with lovely organic gardens, but somehow I was missing something. With research I learned that I needed to attract insect-eating birds to my garden, but I was not sure how. I went to a wild bird seed store and asked the clerk there and he sold me that contraption in the picture along with a container of live mealy worms to keep in my refrigerator.  Every few days I would squeamishly add those horrible worms to that bird feeder and wait. Eventually it worked and after all these years I challenge anyone to find more than a few traces here and there of any insect damage. All the plants are fed with compost from the garden only and are strong and resilient. The garden is filled with life, bees, butterflies, birds and even bugs and insects as would any lovely garden. It took about three years after cutting out all pesticides and chemical fertilizers for the garden to stabilize and become what it is today - beautiful, thriving and naturally alive!