Christy Wilhelmi - Gardening for Geeks

There are many things to consider when planning a garden. Location is everything, but not the only thing. Sure, its important to make sure your garden will get enough sun (a minimum of six hours per day), but lets talk about the other factors. Lets talk about your garden ecosystem. After all, your garden is a community of living things, and for it to flourish, theyll all have to get along together.

Wherever your garden is located, be it on a balcony, patio, or backyard, you will want to create an environment that supports your efforts. Your gardens ecosystem can provide shelter, windbreaks, and even pest control assistance if you include a few key elements. From simple to more complex, the following components all play a role in that ecosystem.

Established trees are an important part of your gardens ecosystem. Not only do they absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen for a healthier planet, but they also provide a place for birds and insects to live. Ants and other insects crawl through the trees bark, and birds take advantage of that traffic. Birds build nests and lay their young, or visit on their way to higher latitudes. Then they scavenge your garden for food, and in the process they provide pest management services for you, gobbling up bugs and worms.

You can help provide a reason for birds to congregate in your garden by hanging bird feeders and seed cakes. Birdhouses, made from gourds or wood, provide a habitat as well. Many gardeners grow sunflowers, which develop dinner-plate-sized seed heads, to attract birds. While its true that these winged creatures will enjoy your sunflowers whether you want them to or not, the benefits of having birds in the garden generally outweigh the negative effects.

Bats, if you have them in your neck of the woods, help reduce the pest population by swooping through the sky at dusk like airborne vacuum cleaners, eating bugs in mid-flight. According to Bat Conservation International, bats consume night-flying insects, including many of the most damaging agricultural pests A single little brown bat can eat up to 1,000 mosquito-sized insects in a single hour. Bats serve other purposes as well. Did you know they are pollinators? As they drink nectar from flowers, they help pollinate many cacti and fruiting plants. As a bonus, they leave behind droppings called guano, which happens to be among the best fertilizers around. Bat droppings include 1116 percent nitrogen, 812 percent phosphoric acid, and 23 percent potashall components of healthy soil. Guano can also serve as a composting starter and a fungicide.

If you are reluctant to welcome bats into your world, this is a good time to let go of creepy bat stereotypes. With bat populations in serious decline, they need all the help they can get. You can install a bat house on a wall under the eaves of a home, garage, or shed to encourage bats to take up residence. Bat houses are narrow boxes with even narrower compartments inside (about 34" deep) that allow bats a place of safe, dark shelter. In a study published in The Bat House Researcher in spring, 2004, it was revealed bats prefer larger bat houses (at least 20" wide 25" high) that are painted and mounted on a building, rather than mounted on a post or trees. You can find several free plans for building your own bat house, along with tips for attracting bats, on the Bat Conservation International website, www.Batcon.org.

Toads are another great addition, and pest consumer, for your garden. They consume slugs (yay!) and worms (like nasty cutworms that mow down your kale plants before the seedlings ever reach harvesting size). Granted, toads dont inhabit every climate zone, but where there is moisture and shelter, they often make a home. Make a toad house out of a terra-cotta pot by chipping off a wedge of the upper rim of the pot. Turn the pot over, nestle it into a grassy corner, and