Added Benefit of not using pesticides

Gardening without pesticide has many benefits: the first and foremost is you don’t slowly commit suicide as a byproduct of trying to kill insects.  You develop a wide circle of helpers in the garden since there is plenty of fresh food to consume.  So far we count over 30 different types of birds aside from varieties of insect that prey on other insects.  We can pick fresh ripe tomato or sugar snap pea and put it right in our mouths.  We can smell all the roses in the garden without worrying that we breath in a poison.

Winter is here but our yard is still filled with birds, the natives and the ones migrating down from the Canadian Tundra, kicking up leaves and picking off flower seeds.  I was out getting firewood another day and found a large family of spiders under a log.  I promptly put that particular log back on the woodpile, left mama spider and her load of kids alone.  If they survive this winter, I will have a bunch of helpers in the yard next spring.  That is far better than chemical.

Filing the photographs I took last summer, many of these little life forms are just fascinating when you look at them up close.  Mother nature never runs out of design.  Here are a few to share with you.