An A-maize-ing Garden

 Welcome as we finish up our first unit of our Food course.  A course on how food is grown scientifically and mathematically, and explored the ideas of people like Fukuoka and Charles Darwin.  We broke it down to the very micro nutrients involved in growing crops and even how they got there. One example is the nitrogen cycle, we learned how nitrogen in the air is taken in by plants during photosynthesis, which is eaten by animals that are broken down by bacteria when they die which brings it into the earth.  During the course we took trips down to the Plant Chicago where we explored some decomposers -  mushrooms and how to grow them. There we took our own cultures of blue oyster mushrooms and transferred them to a petri-dish to grow.   Spoilers the incubator was set two high and they didn't really grow that well, but i'm still trying to grow mine here at home.  Once we got back to school we tried to grow our own beans. they still need some time as they haven't propagated yet. For our Final Project we had to design our own garden using volume and area measurements.  

First step for designing the garden was to calculate the area of all the plots.   All my plots are either squares or rectangles so I used the formulas A=S x S (square) and A = L x B (rectangle).  9,241 in^2 or per each plot - 3,600 in^2 for the corn and potato plot, 25 in^2 for the grapes plot, 1,728 in^2 for the peppers plot, 144 in^2 for the herbs plot, 3,456 in^2 for the melon and sunflower plot, 288 in^2 for the blueberry bush plot.

Next we have to calculate the volume of each so we can figure out how much all the dirt will weigh. Given that plots will all be 8 inches deep I used the formula A = L x W x H for my calculations. I got 28,800 in^3 for the corn and potatoes. 200 in^3 for the grapes, 13,824 in^3 for the peppers 1,152 in^3 for the herbs, 27,648 in^3 for the melons and sunflowers, and finally 2,304 in^3 for the blueberry bushes in all 73,928 in^3

Lastly I wanted to find how much the dirt I was gonna use will weigh.  I took some dirt, put in a cup and weighed it. I found the 1 ounce of my dirt was 1.5 in^3  and divided my volume by it.  My soil will weigh 49,298 lbs. 

Next chose my plants. I wanted things i could easily just pick off the plant and eat immediately without having to cook them. I learned we need both perennials and annuals for a balanced ecosystem.  Perennials - potato, blueberry, white peach. Annuals - basil, corn, watermelon.

Initially I didn't have some of these crops, but after testing the important macro nutrients in my soil (potassium, nitrogen, and phosphorus) I learned I was deficient in all of these. the only one I had remotely any nutrients in was phosphorus which came out as K2 meaning just adequate.  This meant I had to supplement my soil with the correct crops. The sunflower was chosen to give the soil the acidity that the watermelon tends to enjoy and supplement the missing potassium. I also have the herbs which provide a small boost for nitrogen.

Below I compiled a list of when the best time to plant my crops would be.

Corn - mid May

Peppers - beginning of april

Potatoes early spring

Melons - 1-2 weeks after last frost

Grapes - after spring

Sunflowers - after last frost date

Blueberries -as early in the spring as possible

Oregano - after last frost

Chives - after all frost

That was my design and plans for a garden. I hope you enjoyed my presentation. I thought this project was interesting since i never thought to incorporate these topics in this way and by doing so I learned a lot. For instance certain plants work well together because they both like the soil a certain way and can provide the things they need from each other through the soil like how sunflowers cause the soil to be acidic and watermelons like acidic soil. Thank you so much for giving it a read!