Polyculture vs Row Culture

Last year I was inspired by reading some permaculture books and decided to experiment with sowing a polyculture planting in part of my backyard raised bed. I based mine on the polyculture sowing described in Toby Hemenway's "Gaia's Garden."

In a broadcast fashion I sowed a couple varieties of lettuce, arugula, spinach, dill, parsnip, radish and a 'brassica mix' which included red russian kale and mizuna.

The idea behind polycultures is that the multiplicity of different plants, especially aromatic ones such as dill, helps to lower susceptibility to pests and disease.

While this may be true, I found my polyculture bed difficult to weed and harvest from. I think this partly stems from the fact that I am a person who likes order. To me, once the polyculture sowing sprouted it represented chaos, and this was difficult for me to get my head around.

The plants grew at different rates and I wasn't able to cut greens as easily as I was used to in the neat linear rows on the farms. What I read about polycultures told me to harvest whole plants instead of cutting, in order to make space for other plants to flourish. I did do this, but there's something I like more about getting 3 cuttings off of my lettuce before pulling it and letting it break down back into the top soil.

I can't help but think: what does this say about me if I didn't enjoy my polyculture experience? Polycultures mimic the diversity, chaos, and beauty of nature and of the forest. Am I dishonouring nature by growing my greens in straight lines this year? My answer is no; through companion plantings, albeit sometimes in straight lines, I maintain the pest and disease resisting characteristics of polyculture plantings. Plus I am producing more greens.

I do grow lots of other crops together; strawberries with onions & spinach, peas with carrots, tomatoes with basil, lettuce, parsley & marigolds. I view my entire backyard as a polyculture. I just choose to grow my salad greens, and some other crops, in rows.

Rows are about efficiency when harvesting, and weeding, and this appeals to the order of my mind. While I may lean towards row culture, especially for some crops, I definitely do not subscribe to monoculture.

Mossy Stonecrop

There is a prolific "weed" in my backyard, and it is Mossy Stonecrop. I've read it occurs in sandy soils with low fertility. It's growing in and around the raised wooden garden beds, especially in the strawberry patch. It can reproduce from creeping stems and stem fragments, as well as by seed. That means if I wanted to weed it out, any small fragment left in the soil could grow into a new plant.

What is a weed? An unwanted plant, a nuisance...perhaps. My experience organic farming and reading gardening books has challenged the common conception of weeds I once held. Such plants can have many benefits.

All weeds tell us something about the soil they are growing in. Plants don't grow by luck, certain conditions foster them. Weeds (and all plants) have different capacities to draw specific nutrients up from various levels of the soil. Many "weeds" are edible. If slashed or pulled they can be used as mulch, and can also form a living mulch around plants.

While I won't allow weeds to strangle out plants I'm intentionally growing for food, I do want to learn from them more this growing season. Perhaps I need to add more organic matter to my soil, since Mossy Stonecrop thrives in soils with low fertility. I don't mind it's presence bordering the outside of the bed, and creeping inbetween the patio stones. I like succulents and it produces a yellow flower in the summer. I did pull a lot of it out of the strawberry patch. I will watch to see how it grows over the season.

Mossy Stonecrop (Sedum acre)