Last weekend, I visited another farm. Unfortunately, it was not using the permaculture design and, I suppose not surprisingly, the farmer was frustrated over a lot of pest damage. Butterflies had easily found the monoculture of cabbages and were devouring some of them.
What I found interesting about this tour however was the farmer's means of combatting the butterflies.
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He recognized that the butterflies and a particular bird were enemies and the bird likes to sit on low hanging branches. Consequently, he began to attract the bird to the cabbage patch with this simple stick.
How clever I thought. I could not find other information online about this practice. However, I felt a bit dubious about whether this technique could work in this case because it was the only method he was using. I figured it would have been considerably better if he had also attracted natural pests by introducing their habitats. Needless to say, I later learned that he eventually lost the whole lot of cabbages. I think too many variables were stacked against this cabbage patch. However, natural pests and the overlooked variables must be the subject for another discussion.
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