Raised as he was in the country by people who loved nature, Alfred Vogel was a lifelong and passionate believer in the necessity of farming organically. This is a description that he wrote of the beginnings of one of his gardens.

"In my plot of land at Lake Geneva I laid out a garden and began to work it organically. I began growing medicinal plants as well as vegetables, berries and fruit. As the land was sandwiched in by woods, I could see how prolific the insect pests became. All kinds of greenfly settled in it and I sought to combat them with a tobacco extract. My apple, plum and cherry trees and particularly the blackberry bushes were all full of aphid. Since I had to travel abroad I had no alternative but to leave the garden to its own devices. How astonished I was upon returning a few weeks later to find everything cleaned up. What had happened? Ladybirds had arrived, since in an organically treated garden they can settle and begin to work, and they were able to remove the nuisance. They may be small but they are nevertheless very useful and welcome helpers!

More and more birds settled in my garden and they regularly did away with all the caterpillars. Although I kept seeing cabbage whites flying around that laid their eggs on my land, I never had to fight the caterpillars because the busy little birds relieved me of this task.

Mice came, but hedgehogs followed and sorted them out! Lizards ate the snails. So, a busy army of small creatures saw to it that I did not have to labour in vain, and the garden's natural balance was put in proper order. It is not necessary to use poison if we simply grant the settlers a home! How simple and practical nature is in its ways, as long as we do not interfere."

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