NATURAL FARMING PATTERN RECOGNITION
- Sherri Miller
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Natural Farming Pattern Recognition
The most valuable skill in farming can’t be bought, bottled, or scheduled. It isn’t proper planting, fertilizing, or pest control. It’s learning to recognize patterns and respond to them in a timely manner.
The Skill That Built Agriculture
Arguably, the single most important pattern humans ever recognized, the one that made agriculture, society, and cities possible, was the pattern of seasons.
Spring: In the spring, things just grow.
Summer: Summers tend to be hot, and plants suffer.
Fall: In the fall, plants grow easily again.
Winter: This season is the hardest. It feels like the world is ending. But then comes spring.
You don’t have to like this pattern. But you do have to learn how to use it.
It is widely hypothesized that recognizing seasonal cycles enabled humans to settle, grow and store food, and eventually build civilizations. Before that, humans were nomadic by necessity. We moved continuously, hoping food would be available wherever we landed. Once we understood that food appeared predictably, at specific times, everything changed.
That recognition didn’t eliminate hardship, but it made preparation possible.
The same rule still applies today. The right action at the wrong time has zero reward. The right action at the right time, however, can produce abundant results.
Why Pattern Recognition Matters Now More Than Ever
For most of human history, the majority of people were farmers. Today, roughly 3% of the population grows food, down from over 80% just a century ago. That disconnect matters.
At the same time, we are entering a period of rapid change. The next three to five years are likely to bring more change to human lives than any comparable period in human history. In moments like this, tools matter. And understanding patterns is perhaps the most important.
As things change, the details will be unrecognizable. But if we recognize patterns, we will not only understand what is happening, but also know how to respond. Details change. Patterns persist.
Our need for food is a pattern that is not going to change. All humans need to eat every day. We still need to grow food. Natural Farming is an efficient way to grow food that partners with Nature and yet fosters the environment, rather than degrading it. We don’t have to destroy the planet or torture plants and animals to feed the world.
If you are reading this, you are interested in growing food in ways that mimic Nature. Natural Farming is fundamentally a practice of pattern recognition and response.
The Four Skills of Pattern Recognition
All functional systems, natural or human-made, operate on the same four pattern skills:
Pattern Recognition
Pattern Utilization
Pattern Creation
Feedback Loops
Most people struggle with the first one.
1. Pattern Recognition: Seeing What’s Actually Happening
One of the hardest parts of practicing Natural Farming is learning to see patterns clearly.
Why is it important? Because Nature does not operate randomly. Growth, decline, stress, and recovery all follow observable rhythms. Just like the march of seasons.
Why is it hard? Because most of us were trained to follow instructions rather than observe systems. We’re comfortable with recipes and prescriptions. Pattern recognition requires attention, patience, and a willingness to be wrong.
But keep this in mind: There is no failure, only feedback.
This is the foundational skill. Without it, the rest don’t work. If you don’t know how, just start paying attention.
A garden or farm log can be tremendously helpful. On my farm, Moonrise Tea Garden, we called the log the “Captain’s (Moon) Log.” Everyone had fun adding their notes, and we could all see what others were doing and observing. It was fun, and sometimes included interesting stories and hand-drawn illustrations.
Your log can be set up however you want. It doesn’t need a name. But anything that makes it fun and ensures you use it will help.
Every day, record the weather conditions, rainfall, and temperatures. Note any observations. Write what you do and when important, what you don’t do. Then, start looking back at your notes.
Now you will start to see what things are affected by certain weather patterns. You will start to see the actions you took that moved things in a positive direction, and those that went south. Don’t rely on your memory. It’s fickle at best. When you write down your observations, they become data.
2. Pattern Utilization: Working With Natural Signals
In Korean Natural Farming (KNF), we use patterns to grow food efficiently by signaling plant growth.
We use hormones, enzymes, and other biochemical signals, following the Nutritive Cycle and other patterns, to tell plants what phase of growth we want to encourage. You do not need to understand the full complexity of the biochemistry. You effectively don’t need to know any of it. You do need to recognize the patterns so that you can apply the correct signal at the correct time.
These same biochemical patterns exist in human and animal health. The signals that drive growth, recovery, reproduction, and resilience are conserved across living systems. Once you start observing, you will notice how patterns cross divisions. Animals have patterns that match plant patterns, for example, so we can know how to use KNF inputs for animals, not just plants.
We also work with broader environmental patterns, the Vital Forces:
Air and wind
Water and moisture
Sunlight and heat
Plants constantly communicate whether they have too much or too little of any of these. Our job is to notice.
If plants need more air or light, we thin or prune.If moisture is scarce, we cultivate to retain it.If excess water is the problem, we focus on drainage and airflow.
Nothing here is complicated. It simply requires observation.
3. Pattern Creation: Producing Food Intentionally
We grow food for humans. While Natural Farming systems support soil life, insects, animals, and ecosystems, the goal is not passive coexistence. It is intentional production. We are trying to entice Nature to produce food that sustains us.
Eating and reproduction are the primary drives of all organisms. Humans are no exception. This is not a flaw. It is our rightful place in the system.
Every organism on Earth consumes other organisms or their parts. Even plants depend on decaying life to survive. This is the Circle of Life, and cultures across the world have recognized this truth by blessing their food. That act acknowledges that our lives are supported by countless other lives.
Natural Farming does not reject this reality. It works within it. We therefore create systems that balance the Vital Forces. We build regenerative loops so that nutrients, organic matter, and biological activity are continuously recycled within the system, largely by integrating animals, and definitely by including humans as part of the system.
4. Feedback Loops: The Skill Most People Avoid
Success in Natural Farming, and in life, depends on your ability to recognize and respond to feedback.
This is where many people abandon true Natural Farming. They adopt organic inputs or biofertilizers but keep the mindset they grew up with: plants are known to need this, and it’s my job to give it to them. Inputs are applied on a schedule, not in response to feedback.
To understand the concept of feedback loops, it will be helpful to borrow a page from Permaculture. Like KNF and other Natural Farming systems, Permaculture is based on working with Nature.
Two of David Holmgren’s 12 Design Principles of Permaculture are:
Principle 1 Observe and Interact
Principle 4 Apply Self-Regulation and Accept Feedback
Together, these principles work as a continuous loop. Observation tells you what is happening, and feedback tells you if what you’re doing is actually working.
1. Observe and Interact
This is the foundational step. Before you dig a hole or plant a seed, you "observe" to understand the natural patterns of the site.
The Goal: To work with nature rather than against it.
In Practice: Watching where the sun hits in winter versus summer, where water pools after rain, or which way the wind blows. By observing first, you avoid expensive or labor-intensive mistakes.
Proverb: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
2. Apply Self-Regulation and Accept Feedback
While Principle 1 concerns the environment, Principle 4 concerns you and the system's results. It’s the "reality check."
Accepting Feedback: Nature provides "negative feedback" to tell us we’ve overshot or done something wrong (e.g., a plant dying because it's too wet). Accepting this means being humble enough to change your plan based on those results.
Self-Regulation: This involves setting limits on your own consumption or the size of your system so it doesn't become unmanageable or destructive.
Proverb: "The sins of the fathers are visited on the children unto the seventh generation." (Reminding us that if we ignore feedback now, the consequences will last.)
How They Connect
Think of it like a conversation with the land:
Observe: You listen to what the land says.
Interact: You speak by making a small change (planting a tree).
Accept Feedback: You listen again to see how the land responded (did the tree thrive or wither?).
Self-Regulate: You adjust your next "sentence" based on that response.
This is often why permaculture advocates for "Small and Slow Solutions" (Principle 9). If you make a massive change all at once, the feedback might be catastrophic; if you go slow, you can adjust as you go.
Observation and feedback cannot be reduced to a fixed recipe. Not because it’s difficult, but because it requires attention and acceptance of what Nature tells you.
When you participate in Natural Farming, you are not managing a system from outside it. You are part of the regenerative loops you build.
And once you learn to see the patterns, the system teaches you the rest.
This is why, I believe, it is important and helpful to learn KNF as Master Cho taught it. You don’t have to follow his methodology precisely. Once you understand the patterns he developed, you understand how to change and adapt your system for the greatest success, when and where you are.
KNF is not a dogmatic system. It was designed for feedback and change.
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