The phrase Ecological Gardening looks like it’s gaining interest. But the facts? My exposure to Ecological Gardening started a long time ago. You see, I’ve always been a fence sitter. As a teenager I really could never make my mind up whether I wanted becoming a horticulturist or an environmental scientist. And sometimes I’m still a little unsure!

Fortunately, I’ve been capable to gain qualifications in. My specialty is growing food using ecological principles. But I’m not talking about some form of alternative hippie technique. I’m discussing sound scientific principles.

If you ask me, the research into natural ecosystems will reveal everything we have to be familiar with growing food. Natural ecosystems are usually different and there are many of intricate interdependent relationships occurring involving the living and non-living components at the same time. Put simply, each component relies and advantages from its interaction along with other components. They fuel up on the other, causing the system in order to sustain itself. If one section of the system gets ‘out of whack’, the entire system is affected.

When studying a natural ecosystem, such as a diverse pristine rainforest look for that we now have many living components co-existing inside a given area. Each of the components occupies a distinct segment space. If an important part, let’s say a plant, is slowly removed by an animal eating it, we are playing jail niche. An empty niche provides an chance for another life form to fill space. In natural ecosystems, nature won’t tolerate empty niche spaces. Once the niche welcomes in, there will be a whole host of willing opportunists able to fill that space. Dormant seeds, sometimes decades old, will spring alive and quickly make an effort to occupy it.

A similar thing occurs we’re wanting to grow food. In any agricultural practice, such as a vegetable garden, there are always empty niche spaces. And don’t forget, nature doesn’t tolerate empty niche spaces. So weeds will endeavour to fill the empty niche spaces. Weeds are very good niche space fillers. They would be the ultimate colonizing plants. So even as we are able to see there isn’t any difference in terms nature works, be it in a pristine natural ecosystem or perhaps a vegetable garden.

Ecological Gardening aims to make a system where nature works well with us, but not against us. It is really rather easy to get a weed-free vegetable garden. You simply do one of two things. Firstly, you avoid having empty niche spaces. And secondly, you are making there is something desirable to fill niche spaces, as long as they become available. That’s just one single simple example, but Ecological Gardening can certainly prevent several problems from ever arising.

My exposure to Ecological Gardening may be phenomenal. I are actually in a position to combine natural weed management, soil ecology, pest ecology and crop management into a quite easy and simple method. The truth is, I have already been capable of create a garden that requires little or no attention and produces a lot more than the usual traditional vegetable garden, merely by applying sound scientific principles. And from the incredible results i have achieved, I could say, with absolute certainty, that Ecological Gardening will be the approach we take to will probably be producing food later on.