A couple of gardening tasks to do for the plants growing in the raised planter. 1. Add a trellis for the heirloom Black Prince tomatoes to train on. 2. Prune back the other Black Prince tomatoes so that the Black Beauty eggplant my have room to grow.

There are many approaches to dealing with garden pests. Those approaches are often times tied with our gardening style, circumstances, and how much time we have to work in the garden.

The approach of observing, interacting, and working with nature (parts that make up the permaculture principles) is reflective of my present ability to spend a good deal of time in the garden. As such, I am fortunate in that I have a front row seat to watch nature in action.

When presented with garden pests, we are observing their environment. We make note of what fosters the good and bad bugs. From those observations, we change our practices so as to encourage the good bugs to thrive which in turn make it more difficult for the bad ones.

Even the bad bugs, we look for their beneficial qualities. Over several videos, I have talked briefly about the beneficial qualities of caterpillars. We know that they are voracious leaf eaters. The question next is: how do we exploit that trait? In the garden, we some times prune our plants back. Can we then prune just enough and leave some for the caterpillars? How are they then beneficial? Perhaps they turn the leaves that would have otherwise been tossed aside into compost. Perhaps, they present themselves as better snacks over the fruit when the birds are near.