In previous articles we have seen how to prepare the ground, build the pallets, install the irrigation system and cover the garden with mulch. But now the crop adventure really begins, plant the crops! Let’s find out which plants will grow in our synergistic garden and how to position them.
Anyone who has searched a Synergy Garden at least once knows that it can take the form of an original and chaotic garden ! you will find yourself in walk among the pallets which will welcome, seemingly confusingly, fragrant flowers and aromatic herbs among tomato and bean plants, zucchini and onions.
In synergistic agriculture, the traditional rows of vines give way to a whirlwind of plants which arise from the straw and mix, meet and lean on pallets, a spectacle that generally generates a certain uneasiness in those who are used to cultivating orchards apparently delimited by the square.
But what many will perceive at first sight as chaotic, should rather be understood as synergistic! Behind this whirlwind there are dynamic to observe and respect and, in the delicate phase of preparation and grafting, there are some important rules to contiue in my opinion at least four.
Contents [Ocultar]
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Rule 1: (bio)diversity is wealth
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Rule 2: permanent guests
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Rule 3: Think four times!
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Rule 4: Subsidiaries
Rule 1: (bio)diversity is wealth
When we transplant our crops into the synergistic garden palette, let’s remember that in Nature (and not only!) diversity and variety are always a source of exchange and wealth .
We all know the disastrous effects of intensive monoculture , large plots of land on which a single crop is grown exclusively and repeatedly, whether wheat, corn or tomato. This culture can only behave like a parasite towards the soil which will gradually become exhausted to the point of being deprived of all vitality and all nourishment. This will lead to the inevitable use of chemical fertilizers, which will go hand in hand with the necessary chemical pesticides and start the vicious cycle that makes agribusiness largely unsustainable.
The original sin is precisely monoculture, the absence of variety and diversity, which are the basis of any synergistic garden, where it is essential to ensure the presence in the same palette of plants belonging to different families In my opinion never less than four . Each, in fact, will “dialogue” with the soil in a different way, extracting different nutrients from the different soil levels thanks to the different root systems and in turn returning different substances.
It is said that in a synergistic garden, not only the plants are cultivated, but above all the fertility of the soil , avoiding all those forcings that alter the natural process of self-regeneration. I would add that we we cultivate in a broad sense a balance in the soil in the first place, but also in the relationships between the different elements of the garden: between the different plants, between the plants and the soil, between the plants and the fauna and the microfauna, etc.
I believe this is the founding principle of any synergistic garden: take care of the earth by the synergy of all the elements that contribute to its balance !