The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country by Peter Bane & David Holmgren

Author:Peter Bane & David Holmgren
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781550924855
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Published: 2012-06-26T06:00:00+00:00

Fruit Tree Guild, Pattern #53 (See Chapter 6) [Credit: Jack Heimsoth]

Less often recognized in the quest to identify guilds is the role that insects, animals and fungi may play. Of course pollinators will be required with many flowering plants, especially fruit trees of the rose family, and the design of a guild to include mostly flowering plants can address this. Something should be in bloom through every part of the growing season, providing bee forage and nectar for beneficial insects at all times. (See Bee Forage lists in Appendix 2.) Species with many small flowers (such as carrot, cabbage and sunflower family plants) will meet the needs of beneficial wasps, syrphid flies and other pest predators. Birds, small rodents, amphibians and reptiles are particularly important and can play helpful roles if regulated. Insect pests of all stripes may laugh at pesticides, but have little resistance to chickens, ducks or frogs. Habitat for some snakes and toads can keep slugs under control. But should you have leopard frogs or tree frogs? Garter snakes or black snakes? There is no right answer at this stage, but after the guild partly assembles itself, the designer may be able to describe it more completely and thus help himself and others to use it again. The right pest predators will come if you provide some logs, stone piles or terraces and a little water. Fungi can be encouraged by providing a lot of woody mulch, including coarse branches and logs; some mushrooms can be cultivated. Most of these non-plant elements will come and go as they please. Your role as the gardener is to encourage the ones you prefer and scatter or repel those that may be harmful. As a designer, you must take note of what works.

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