“I guess we’ll see.”

In the small town where I grew up, there was a wise old natural gardener who had learned over many seasons to follow the ebbs and flows of nature. One year, a particularly dry Fall had left the region’s soils depleted of nitrogen.

“How unlucky!” Said the gardener’s neighbors. “We’ll have to buy extra nitrogen fertilizer.”

But the wise gardener trusted that her rich soil, healthy ecosystem, and deep mulch would carry the garden through, so she skipped the fertilizer. “I guess we’ll see,” she said to her neighbors.

Within a month, the lush growth caused by the abundant fertilizers predictably became a feast for aphids within the region. Many were already losing their crops to infestation. All the region’s gardeners were saying, “how unlucky! Now we’ll have to spray for aphids!”

*But the wise natural gardener had skipped the fertilizer, and while her plant growth was a little slow, there were few signs of aphids. *

“How lucky!” Her neighbors exclaimed. Again, she just said “I guess we’ll see.”

*But later in the season, when the aphids had been eradicated elsewhere, the natural gardener was still having some damage from them. Her neighbors said “how unlucky! See, you should have sprayed!” *

Still, she just said “I guess we’ll see.”

And then the beetles came. The early season spraying for aphids had killed off all the beneficial insect populations, so there were no lady bugs or wasps to keep them in check. The beetle populations boomed and they spread across the region rapidly. Most of the region’s gardeners lost most of their crops.

But our wise old natural gardener hadn’t sprayed, and her ecosystem was still alive with these natural sentinels. Yes, there was aphid damage still, and now there were beetles, but the damage was acceptable and the garden was alive and abundant.

Seeing her garden, her neighbors exclaimed “how lucky you are to have avoided the beetle infestation!”

Still, she just smiled and said, “I guess we’ll see.”