Why do we spend our time breaking natural cycles?
Observing a garden for several months often leads to a strange conclusion. A large part of our interventions consists of interrupting cycles that have been functioning naturally for millions of years.
We mow the grass, then we export the plant material. We trim the branches, then we dispose of the green waste. We collect the dead leaves, then we take them to the dump. We weed out spontaneous plants, then we buy mulch, compost, or fertilizers to replace what we just pulled out.
In other words: we spend a considerable amount of our energy extracting organic matter from the system, before trying to artificially reintroduce what we just removed. The action and its correction, paid for twice.
How a cycle works that we do not break
Natural ecosystems almost never work this way. A leaf falls, it decomposes, it nourishes the soil. The soil nourishes the microorganisms. The microorganisms feed the plants. The plants in turn produce biomass, and the cycle starts again. Nothing is truly lost: matter circulates, transforms, returns in another form.
In our gardens, our cities, and our public spaces, we have gradually replaced this circular logic with an extractive logic. We export continuously, then we compensate with more energy, more purchased inputs, more human interventions. A system that functioned on its own becomes a system that must be constantly fed from the outside.
A question that goes beyond gardening
This observation goes far beyond the question of the garden. It questions the way we conceive our spaces, point by point.
Why do we still consider dead leaves as waste, when they are precisely the raw material that the soil needs to regenerate? Why does bare soil seem more acceptable, more "clean," than soil covered with decomposing organic matter? Why do we systematically seek to clean biological processes that function perfectly well without us, for much longer than we have existed?
Perhaps we have, somewhere along the way, confused maintenance and artificialization. The living functions thanks to the permanent interactions between organic matter, soils, microorganisms, vegetation, insects, and decomposition cycles. Each export weakens a part of this system. Each interrupted cycle increases our dependence on future interventions, which we will have to provide, finance, and repeat indefinitely.
Relearning to let things be
At Petites Terres, we believe that part of the ecological transition simply consists of relearning to let certain cycles function without intervening at every step. Not out of laziness. But out of clarity about what these cycles already do very well on their own.