A Delicate Balance: Wildlife Promotion while Growing Food

The main purpose of my garden design is to maximise food production while simultaneously maximising its utility for wildlife. This is a fascinating challenge, as these two aims do not exist in perfect harmony. I enjoy the endlessly entertaining balancing act between the two and identifying the delicate necessary compromises along the way.

To emphasis this point, that compromise is the key to balance, let's examine the extremes for a few minutes, each in turn.

A purely wildlife friendly garden cannot produce food for us. Think about it, if we harvested anything from it, this would deny resident wildlife valuable resources. The garden would not be purely for wildlife. Do you see how this logic works?

Now let's flip this thought experiment around. Let's imagine a site designed purely for food production. One could hardly describe it as a garden. Such a place would possess optimal growing conditions for the food crops cultivated: optimal light, water, nutrients, ventilation, and substrate devoid of pests and disease. The closest environment I can imagine to this is something along the lines of a hydroponic system lit with artificial grow lights in a highly monitored, highly managed, sealed building. A system such as this would exclude, ban, eradicate pesky wildlife at every turn. Such a place sends shudders down my spine...

So where, oh where, is the happy medium of optimal balance? Let me say that again, optimal balance, where wildlife is encouraged but held in check by the need to feed ourselves, and food production is promoted but held in check by the need to nurture nature. 

How do we achieve such a holy grail? Ah, um, hmmm... There is no easy answer to that other than to say perpetual fettling. I'm only at the very start of this journey, which has no end. The one thing I do know is I'm monitoring my progress along the way. I'm recording my harvests, noting the wildlife that visits, and probably most importantly monitoring the health of my soil. Through this blog, I'll keep you posted on all this. Together, we can travel this meandering path of finding, then losing, then refinding, and so on, and so on that elusive balanced sweet spot.