It’s Wednesday Vignette time again! The last of September. <wistful sigh>
(Honey?) bee collecting pollen in the broccoli flowers.
I chose this photo, and the ones below, as illustrative of the Permaculture Principle “Obtain a Yield.” While it may seem to those who don’t need to justify not harvesting their plants in time that this principle suggests I should have collected and eaten the broccoli before it flowered, thereby obtaining a caloric and economic yield from the seedling I planted, I choose to believe that the principle can also apply to beings besides humans.
As Jessi Bloom and Dave Boehnlein say in Practical Permaculture, “We must … make sure that we recognize all the yields that our systems provide and take advantage of them when we can. This mean acknowledging yields that may not have a direct economic value such as carbon sequestration, aesthetics, and wildlife habitat.”
Aesthetics, check – I think these flowers and buds are dreamy; and I would add to Bloom & Boehnlein’s list: the yields of wildlife sustenance and pollination opportunities.
As Indie at Red House Garden says in a recent post: “Gardening for food’ and ‘gardening for wildlife’ are not mutually exclusive.”
In my garden, they were never meant to be.
Totally agree – one has to feed the soul as well as the tummy! 🙂
Ditto annamadeit!
The insects have loved the bolting lettuce in my garden this summer 😊.