it happens here all the time (no pesticides).
in this case glyphosate isn't a pesticide anyways
it is a herbicide.

There are many different kinds of pesticides. Herbicides kill
plants. Fungicides kill fungus. Insecticides kill insects. There are
also rodenticides, biocides and others. Anyway, these are all pesticides.


this season i have several examples of pests doing
some damage, but not "complete failure" level damage.
i've left them alone and most of the plants have easily
outgrown the damage.

I have previously had a fungus get so out of control that it
completely wiped out my gourds. This was despite applying garden
sulphur to the leaves. I have also had other vine crops utterly
destroyed by squash vine borer. This last one is very aggravating,
because you can even have large fruits on the vine, and be expecting a
harvest when it happens.


i'm glad. it seems that much of
what people do when they put in lawns
and gardens is try to outdo the neighbors

I never use fertilizer or anything on my lawn. What's the point?
You just have to mow more often, and it kills off fireflies and
diversity. Why pay for something you don't need, just to force yourself
to spend more time mowing and buying more gasoline, which pollutes the
air further? Anyway, I have more clover and variety out in the yard
than just about anybody else nearby. The 'Trugreen' trucks like to
target our house as one of the lone standouts in the neighborhood when
they go around trying to drum up business. I know it probably sounds
strange, but I'll put chemicals on my food way before I'll spray it all
around the yard. My plants have to look like they're dying or
something, though, and I do tend to try to manually pick off the
offending critters first, if possible.

The only way I'm interested in "outdoing" the neighbors is perhaps by
installing a cistern to capture some of the rainwater to water plants
with, or maybe in converting more of my lawn into a productive garden.
If we had enough room, I would also have a small wetland area in the
back. This year I planted some garden crops out in the front yard,
around the mailbox. (kohlrabi and kale) I may expand this slowly. I
would like almost my whole front yard to be a garden, but I'm a bit
worried about how the neighbors in this area would react to something
that unusual. We are fairly new to the place, and I'm already putting
out an urban chicken coop in the back yard.