A healthy garden has insect pests like any garden, but the difference is that stronger plants can withstand their assault better and if you play your cards right, you attract the natural enemies of the pests. Having praying mantis, ladybugs, lacewings, etc, takes care of a lot of pests. Compost if it is active has a lot of insect larva in there along with the microorganisms that the birds can suss out.

I don't need to leave any of the yard fallow intentionally because it is a very large yard and I garden on a few hundred square feet of it. I live on a creek with a riparian zone, and the woods across the road extend on for miles along urban and rural creeks, so we have lots of birds and wildlife.

When I go into the garden I examine the plants closely, and I wear gloves so the easiest way to deal with a lot of pests is to simply pick them off or pinch them dead right there. This is preferable to simply spraying insecticides the moment an insect is detected.

My yard has a lot of wildlife, and I try to do the gardening in a way that doesn't disturb the things that have burrowed in and not emerged yet. I have a tarantula colony in the turf (the spider holes are distinctive) and I have lots of snakes and lizards and toads that live around the house. An organic approach has not only allowed them to thrive, it may have created more healthy zones for them than simply through benign neglect or leaving an area fallow.

If WAV is going to keep yanking chains and you're going to keep responding to him, then this is going to be one boring thread. I hope we'll be able to get back to simply discussing our gardens without feeling the need to justify our existence and methods to this FLAKE who would like to dictate to all his screwy ideas about the natural world.

SRS