A One-Garden Revolution

In my Food class for STEAM, we learned about gardening during this first unit. For this action project, we were asked to create our own dream, or hypothetical (we aren't actually going to plant it) garden. The garden that I will create will be in my own backyard, close to the garage out back. It will be 7 feet by 9 feet, or 63 square feet (my walking paths are 14 square feet each). The original soil quality was not the best, so I added Sulfate of Potash, Fish Meal, and Soft Rock Phosphate to control the nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus levels in the soil. For my plants, I chose beans, strawberries, comfrey, tomatoes, spinach, peas, beetroot, calendula, lettuce, rosemary, thyme, yarrow, and nasturtium. This is related to symbiosis because these plants will grow well together, because they have evolved to benefit each other. For example, nasturtium improves the taste of tomatoes, and calendula wards away tomato worms.

WH, 2018, My Garden Plan
I am going to be inspired by Fukuoka’s ideas of natural farming. I will do this because his way of farming seems to be the most natural way of farming there is, and it’s good for the plants as well as being easy to practice. His philosophy makes sense to me, and its lack of the use of chemicals makes it inexpensive and hassle-free. An inspiring quote from Ron Finley’s TED Talk that stuck out to me was “If you aint’ a gardener, you ain’t gangster! Get gangster with yo shovel.” This quote stuck out to me because it’s an intriguing phrase meant to get kids off of the streets and into gardens. This has so many interesting effects, not only lowering gun and gang violence, but also teaching young people about gardening, hard work, and how they can grow their own food. It’s a very good idea, and it somewhat inspires me to possibly want to follow my father down the path of gardening. I don’t really plan to implement the garden plan, as the fiberglass beds that I mentioned are quite expensive. Also, if we seriously wanted to grow vegetables, we could do so elsewhere in our garden.

Volume Calculations:
2 large flat beds = 14 + 21 = 35 cubic feet total
2 smaller beds (fiberglass) = 3 x 1 x 1.5 (times 2) = 9 cubic feet total
4 buckets = 12 inch diameter, 14 inch tall (times 4) = 3.64 cubic feet total
2 small flat beds (wooden planks) = 2x2x1 (times 2) = 8 cubic feet total.
TOTAL:

Surface Area Calculations:
Buckets (Individual) = 37.68 inches squared
Buckets (Total) = 150.72 inches squared
Largest flatbed = 62 inches squared
Second largest flatbed = 46 inches squared
Small flatbeds = 16 each, so 32 inches squared
Fiberglass = 18 each, so 36 inches squared
TOTAL: 364.4 inches squared, or around 30 square feet

All nutrient calculations:
Nutrient
Product / Supplement
Quantity per 100ft2
Quantity per Your Amount
Nitrogen
F1055 Fish Meal
6 pounds
About 20 pounds
Phosphorus
F2100 Soft Rock Phosphate
2 pounds
A little more than 3 pounds
Potassium
F2260 Sulfate of Potash
2 pounds
Again, a little more than 3 pounds
Supplement lbs x My garden’s total ft^2/ 100 = x lbs

    In conclusion, I learned that making a garden is not as easy as it seems. It requires a lot of planning, math, and general knowledge about gardening, the plants you want to plant, and soil. I thought it would be pretty easy at the start of the project, but it certainly was not when I actually started doing the project.

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