In the first unit of food class, we talked about food, where it comes from, how it gets to our table, and different ways that people across the world grow it from people like Fukuoka to Darwin. One thing that we focused on at the end of this section was different Garden types, how people grow their food, and companion planting and companion plants. For the Action Project, we had to design our own garden in any form, whether it be a raised garden to buckets, and then we had to choose the right plants to go together in the garden. Along with this, we had to figure out the different minerals and materials in the soil where we plan on planting our garden and figure out what supplements we had to use.
My garden will be in front of GCE Lab School on the sidewalk where people aren't walking. This is a great place to put a garden because it's long, wide, it has good dirt and it has lots of people that can take care of it. I chose this spot because I don't have anywhere else near my house to put a garden even on the sidewalk because there are so many things in the way. Also, the sidewalks aren't very wide at my house so this was an ideal location to put a garden.
The materials I used for this raised-bed are two by fours from the store, two by fours that are recycled and reused from anywhere and stone blocks from the store. I chose these materials because they're ideal for building a raised bed: wood is a cheap and reliable way to make it strong and sturdy, also stones are fairly cheap and make a very good and good-looking raised bed.
My soil quality was actually very good. The nitrogen level was 34, the potassium level was 245, and the phosphorus level was 11. Despite how good the quality of this dirt was I still had to add supplements. I added 11.25 pounds of blood meal to the dirt for Nitrogen. The way I figured out I needed 11.25 pounds of blood meal was by looking at a chart that showed that my nitrogen levels were high. This means that I would have to add 3 pounds per 100 square feet, so I did 3x3.75=11.25 pounds. For Potassium I do not have to add any supplements because I have the exact amount. I have 11 Phosphorus which is a decent amount but won't cut it. For the amount of phosphorus that I have, I will need to supplement it with 3 pounds of Soft Rock Phosphate per 100 square feet. I had to do the exact same equation as the nitrogen which is 3x3.75=11.25 pounds. I added these because without them the plants would not survive.
I will not be using any natural farming techniques because to be a natural farmer you need plants that aren't accustomed to being overwhelmed with pesticides and fertilizer. Unfortunately, you really cannot just buy these plants from the store. They have to become accustomed to nature and to not be supported by humans. I do not have the time or money to spend on plants that can't live by themselves. What I'm looking for is a garden that is more simple to take care of and is more average.
From this project, I have learned how to make a garden functional, how different plants can work with each other, and that Chicago does not have good soil quality. I do not plan to implement my garden only because I have 3 raised beds which are 25 feet long by 5 feet wide. All these gardens would be cool but they are not ideal things to have in Chicago since they are so large.
My raised beds are 25 feet by 5 feet by 1 & a half feet tall, each raised garden has 187.5 square feet of space. In total, I will need 562.5 square feet of dirt to fill all three gardens properly. The total surface area is 375 square feet because each garden is 25 feet by 5 feet which equal 125 which I have to multiply by three.
In conclusion, I have learned a lot about gardening, nutrients that plants need, and how they really thrive and live. Before this project, I didn't really know that plants needed so much care and work. Also after we visited the different gardens it taught me a ton about how much effort really goes into having a garden in the city. The people worked very hard on all the gardens and had everything from drainage pipes to nets over the plants. I don't think I would have enough time or drive to keep a garden running for long enough.
