Gardening was the first evolutionary step as people went from living in the stone age as scavengers, to becoming people with civilization and buildings and such. Agriculture and gardening have affected the human race so much, yet, in this time, many people don’t even know what agriculture looks like. People just eat what they get as long as it looks good, taste good, and can be easy to find. This is why I am planning out a garden. Since I am trying to eat healthy, the best way to do it is to prepare a garden so that I can have food ready for myself and others if needed. We need to have food available to use, and not just the food that costs a dollar and uses artificial flavoring.
I decided to create a guerrilla garden, and placed it in my backyard as the perfect space. The reason I choose this is because it has a well made structure, as well as it can shine the right light onto the plants. It also has poles which could be used as poles for vines. But before I could use the space, I need to know how big the space is. Using several calculations, I have depicted the area of my porch to be about 184 feet squared.
(190 inches x 140 inches) /12= 184ft2
My plan was to get small plants, so I first had look at what small containers I had around me, and what I needed. In the end, I decided to use 4 pots, 4 buckets, 10 milk cartons (cut), two cereal containers, and two violin cases. I tried to find the volume of each container in order to find out how much soil I will need. Here are the calculations.
Violin case = 32 x Width;9 ½ x Height;3 ½ in= 1064 in 3
Bucket= pi x 52 x Height; 11 inch= 863.9 inch3
Pot= pi x 52 x Height; 7 inch= 549.7 inch 3
Cereal Container=Length;10 in x Height;6 ½ inch x Width; 6 inch = 390 inch3
Milk Carton= Length; 7 inch x Height;4 inch x Width; 6in = 1683
I then need to find the surface area in order to find out how many plants I would need to grow per foot. I got the final answer 119 feet squared as my total surface area.
(4)pots=(4) pi x 52 = (4) 78.5 inch2= 314.15 inch2
(4)buckets= (4)pi x 52 = (4) 78.5 inch2 = 314.15 inch2
(10) milk carton= (10) 7 inch x 6 inch= (10) 42 inch2 = 420 inch2
(2) violin cases=(2) 32 inch x 9.5 inch= (2) 304 inch2
(2) cereal container= (2) 7 inch x 6 inch = (2) 42 inch2= 84 inch2 +
628.3 + 420 +608+84 = 1740.3 inch2 / 122 = 12.08 ft2
There are three essential elements that are needed in the soil in order for the plant to survive and grow. These are known as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. In my soil, I was able to find that I had high amounts of both nitrogen and phosphorous. The only problem was that it needed more potassium, as its levels was about 109, which is very low. In order to increase my potassium level, I needed to find out how many pounds were needed for my surface area. Apparently, it takes about 1 pound per 200 square feet in order for the potassium levels to even out, thanks to my CEC (Cation exchange capacity) being at 6. After doing several calculations, I was able to find that in order to even out everything, I would need to add about 0.06 pounds worth of potassium. How I can do this is that I will try to spread the surface area with about 0.595 pounds of compost in order to even things out.
xpd 1pd = x X 1 pd 2oox = 12ft = x=0.06pds
12ft 200 ft 12 ft 200 = 1 pd 200x ft
The number of plants in this area are small, since we have very limited space. So far, I am planning to grow onions, garlic, strawberries, carrots, tomatoes, eggplant, chile peppers, beans, mustard seed, and cherry tomatoes. Of course, if any of the nitrogen were to fail, I would add peanuts in each container as a nitrogen fixer. I will also be using companion planting, mainly with onions and garlic. What I will do is that I will plant the onions/garlic with strawberries, and cherry tomatoes, and place them all on a pole so that the vines could be able to grow. This represents the symbiotic relationship of mutualism, since each plant works for each other. I have other companion planting, but my main criteria is with the onions and garlic, since a lot of my plants are companion plants with them. One of them is carrots and onions being commensalism since one is neutral while the other is gaining benefit.
In the book “One Straw Revolution”, there were four principles or guidelines meant for natural farming. The principles were no plowing, no chemical fertilizers, no weeding by tillage or herbicides, and no dependence on chemicals. If a farmer were to follow these guidelines, then they would be considered natural farmers. I believe that, in my case, I would be able to follow the no chemical fertilizers, no weeding by herbicides, and no dependence on chemicals. The main reason I don’t follow the no plowing is I am already changing my environment by putting soil and plants where it is not natural. But I am not really trying to create a complex farm to feed others. The garden will be about feeding my family certain type of vegetables. I don’t plan on making money from any of my vegetables, but rather focus on bringing food to my family.
This is just an idea of creating a garden. If I would actually do it, then it would be great. It could be possible, only during certain seasons. I really want to do this sort of full on project, but I would first have to put some dedication into working, and some time as well. Even if I had the dedication, I wouldn’t necessarily have the time. I could possibly do it during the summer, but I feel like it would take time out of my schedule to work on trying to stabilize this garden.
