This is my first action project for my “Food!” class. This unit was about different plants and how they interact with each other through symbiosis. For this action project we created some ideas for a garden that we could potentially grow near our houses. I made a drawing of the garden that I could grow where the plants help each other using a diagram I made with Google drawings. My favorite part of this action project was seeing all the different ways you could raise the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium level of the soil we were given. The only problem I had while making this project was that I accidentally left my computer charger at my cousin's house, so I had to use one of the school computers. It wouldn’t have been a problem if the school computers were good but the mouse button kept getting stuck therefore making my illustration harder to make.
My garden will be on a flat area of my roof. I would be able to put the bins and tank in any formation or pattern I want because the space that I can use is fairly big. The only major problem that might come up is that there are a lot of pipes up there which lowers the amount of space I could have had.
I have three different sized bins that I could plant my garden in. One is a bin that is 2.7 by 1.7 by 1.7 ft3. I think this container will grow the most vegetables because it has the largest height and the roots of the plants will be able to grow deeper. The other bin I have is a lot shorter but it has a longer width. Its dimensions are 3.8 by 1.7 by .6 ft3. I think the plants in this bin will grow the least because it has the lowest height, and the plants won’t be able to grow their roots. The final container I chose is a glass tank with the dimensions of 2.1 by 1.1 by 1.1 ft3. I have no Idea how the plants will grow in this container but it would be interesting to find out.
My original soil quality had a ph level of 5.0. This is not good because it’s too acidic for some plants. The best way to raise the acidity level would be to add limestone to the soil. The soil also had a nitrogen level of 2 which is about 20 ppm (parts per million). This is a little to low for vegetables so to raise it I would have to add 5 pounds of blood meal per 100 acres and 7 pounds per 100 square ft if I had that much soil. My original potassium level was 2 which is about 400 ppm in the soil. This means I don’t need to add any potassium to my soil because the potassium level is just high enough. My phosphorus level was 3 which is also a perfect amount because it’s just high enough so I don’t have to add anything to it.
I chose the plants I chose because they’re all plants that I like. They also happen to help each other out. When anything of the other plants fall off the mycelium that I would plant to grow the mushrooms would decompose the fallen biomaterial and turn it into nutrients for the other plants to help them grow and it would be a never ending cycle of love.
My garden is actually pretty efficient because of the symbiotic relationships that help the plants grow. In this project I was able learn how to help plants grow each other the way Masanobu Fukuoka did in his book One Straw Revolution.
MJF Garden (2016)
