Last Tuesday morning, I found myself flat on my stomach in the community garden, nose practically pressed against a cluster of nasturtiums, camera in hand. You should’ve seen the looks I got. An elderly gentleman walking his corgi stopped to ask if I’d lost something. “Just watching the hoverflies,” I replied, as if that was the most normal thing in the world to be doing at 7:30 in the morning. He nodded politely in that way people do when they think you might be slightly unhinged and hurried away.
But honestly, have you ever really watched hoverflies? These little miracles—yellow and black like budget-brand bees—were darting between flowers with the precision of fighter jets, pausing in perfect stillness mid-air before zooming off again. Their larvae are voracious aphid eaters, and the adults are fantastic pollinators. Two ecological services for the price of one! I was so absorbed I didn’t notice my phone buzzing with texts from Ruth, who was waiting for me at our breakfast spot. “Are you communing with soil microbes again?” she’d written. Well, close enough.
It’s funny how my relationship with garden creatures has evolved over the years. When I first started growing things (after that infamous childhood garden destruction incident), I had this ridiculously simplistic view: insects were either “good bugs” or “bad bugs.” Ladybirds good, aphids bad. Bees good, cabbage whites bad. I’d frantically squish anything that looked remotely suspicious, then wonder why my carefully planned ecosystem wasn’t magically balancing itself out.
My dad—ever the engineer—tried to explain the concept of systems thinking to me when I was around eleven. “It’s not about individual components, Liza,” he’d say, sketching diagrams of interconnected circles that made perfect sense to him and looked like abstract art to me. “It’s about relationships.” I nodded as if I understood, then went right back to my binary bug-murdering approach. It would take me another fifteen years to really get what he meant.
The turning point came during my second year at Bristol. I was working at this tiny community garden squeezed between two apartment blocks. The garden coordinator, Mei, noticed me systematically squishing aphids on the broad beans and gently took the plant from my hands. “Come look at this,” she said, pointing to what I initially thought was just another aphid. But under her small magnifying glass, I could see it was actually a parasitic wasp, laying eggs inside the aphids. “If you kill all the aphids,” she explained, “what will the wasps eat? And if the wasps leave, what happens when the next aphid explosion comes?”
God, I felt like such an idiot. Here I was, studying ecology, banging on about interconnectedness in my essays, and still acting like some sort of garden dictator. That afternoon, Mei showed me around the garden differently—not plant by plant, but relationship by relationship. The comfrey patch wasn’t just a comfrey patch; it was habitat for ground beetles that controlled slug populations. The messy corner of brambles wasn’t untidy; it was a winter refuge for pollinators. The stinging nettles weren’t weeds; they were nurseries for butterfly larvae, which would later pollinate our squash flowers.
Since then, I’ve become slightly obsessed with garden relationships—to the point where my housemates have instituted a “bug talk limit” at dinner (apparently detailed discussions of parasitoid wasp reproduction strategies can put people off their pasta, who knew?). But I’ve learned to see my growing spaces as communities rather than collections. And communities need diversity, complexity, and yes—even conflict—to function.
Take my current plot at the Eastville allotments. When I first took it over three years ago, it was basically a rectangle of sad, compacted clay that grew more discarded beer cans than vegetables. My first instinct was to plan everything meticulously—neat rows, perfect companion planting combinations from some Pinterest-worthy garden plan. But instead, I decided to approach it as an ecological experiment. What would happen if I focused on relationships rather than just production?
The first year was, um, challenging? That’s the polite way of putting it. My neighbors with their tidy rows of perfect vegetables definitely gave me side-eye as I planted seemingly random patches of “weedy” flowers between vegetable beds and left areas deliberately unmulched. Mrs. Pemberton, with her show-worthy dahlias, actually asked if I was “planning to start gardening soon” two months after I’d been working the plot. But beneath the apparent chaos, I was trying to create habitat layers—places for the ground beetles, the hoverflies, the native bees, the predatory wasps.
By the second summer, things started getting interesting. Yes, I had aphid outbreaks—significant ones on my brassicas. But instead of reaching for spray (even organic ones), I waited. Within two weeks, the ladybird larvae appeared, followed by lacewings. The aphid population crashed so quickly I actually felt a bit sorry for them (okay, not really, but you know what I mean). The cabbage whites still found my kale, but the paper wasps nesting in the insect hotel I’d built were remarkably efficient at picking off the caterpillars.
But here’s the thing they don’t tell you in the idyllic permaculture books—this approach is MESSY. Both literally and emotionally. You have to get comfortable with a certain level of damage, with plants that look partially eaten, with moments of thinking you’ve made a terrible mistake letting nature take its course. I’ve had epic failures—like the time I thought the birds would control the cabbage moth caterpillars, only to end up with precisely zero edible Brussels sprouts. Or when I decided that my potato crop could withstand a “small” Colorado potato beetle population, only to return from a week away to find complete devastation. Balance doesn’t mean no intervention ever—it means thoughtful intervention at the right time.
My current approach involves what I call “ecological insurance policies.” I plant sacrificial crops—nasturtiums to draw aphids away from my beans, extra brassicas because something will definitely eat some of them. I build redundancy into the system. And most importantly, I’ve learned to support the predator-prey relationships throughout the season, not just when there’s a visible problem.
Early spring is when I make sure there are flowers blooming for the first hoverflies and bees. Those early pollinators are often struggling after winter, and a patch of phacelia or early-flowering herbs can make the difference between them establishing in your garden or moving on. I leave the hollow stems of last year’s plants standing until well into April, because that’s where many beneficial insects overwinter. The garden might look a bit untidy, but it’s actually full of sleeping predators waiting for the temperatures to rise.
By midsummer, my plot becomes this humming, buzzing mess of interconnected activity. The predatory insects need pollen and nectar sources between pest outbreaks, so I’ve got flowering herbs and companion plants everywhere. My tomatoes are surrounded by basil and marigolds. My carrots have spring onions growing between them. Everything is slightly crowded by design—creating microhabitats and microclimates that support different creatures.
What never ceases to amaze me is how quickly these relationships establish when you provide the right conditions. Three years ago, I wouldn’t have seen half the insect diversity I have now. It’s like they were just waiting in the wings for someone to roll out the welcome mat. And yes, I still have pest problems—I’m not living in some fairy tale food forest where everything is in perfect harmony. But the problems are smaller, shorter-lived, and increasingly handled without my intervention.
Last summer, my neighbor Tom (Mr. Perfect Vegetable Rows himself) actually asked what I was growing that attracted “all those insects.” He’d noticed his squash were setting fruit better since my plot had gone in next door. We walked around my chaotic garden as I pointed out the insect-attracting plants—the umbels of dill and fennel that parasitic wasps particularly love, the patches of native wildflowers, the diverse herb section. He looked skeptical until we counted seven different pollinator species on a single clump of oregano flowers. Two weeks later, he’d planted cosmos and alyssum between his immaculate vegetable rows. Small victories, people, small victories.
I’ve started keeping an insect journal, noting when different beneficial insects appear, what they’re feeding on, and how they interact with both pests and each other. It’s taught me so much about timing—like how the lacewings always seem to show up about ten days after the first significant aphid colony, or how paper wasps become more interested in caterpillars once their nests reach a certain size. This kind of observation has made me a better gardener than any amount of book learning (though I’ve certainly done plenty of that too).
One thing I’ve learned is that patience really is a prerequisite for this approach. The hardest lesson was not rushing in at the first sign of trouble. I remember practically sitting on my hands watching aphids multiply on my broad beans last spring, fighting every instinct to intervene. But within days, the hoverflies found them, followed by the ladybirds, and soon the bean plants were hosting this entire drama of predator and prey that resolved itself without my involvement. The beans still produced a great crop, aphids and all.
It’s not always a success story, mind you. My attempt to control slugs entirely through creating habitat for ground beetles and encouraging song birds had, um, mixed results. I lost entire rows of seedlings before reluctantly deploying some organic slug pellets in targeted areas. The ecosystem approach isn’t about never intervening—it’s about making intervention your last resort rather than your first response, and understanding when the system needs your help versus when it’s best to step back.
The most unexpected benefit has been how this approach has changed my relationship with the garden itself. I’m no longer just growing plants—I’m nurturing a community of which I’m just one member. My role has shifted from controller to collaborator. And honestly? The stress level has dropped enormously. When aphids appear, I no longer feel that panic-stricken need to immediately “solve” the problem. I watch, I wait, I see who shows up to help.
So if you spot someone lying face-down in their garden beds with a magnifying glass, peering at what looks like garden pests with a slightly manic expression of delight—could be me, could be another convert to the ecological relationship approach. Wave hello, but maybe don’t expect us for breakfast on time. We’ve got some fascinating insect drama to watch unfold, and honestly, it’s better than anything on Netflix.
