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Teaching anyone how easy it is to grow their own food
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Square Foot Gardening
Gardening for Life By Wayne & Connie Burleson
Ways to triple your food garden production
GO WILD! Ideas to Work Less and Grow More Long Box Gardens
Why Grow Your Own Food?
The E.A.R.T.H provides the answer
E = To capture free sunlight ENERGY
A = To help ALLEVIATE world hunger problems and
help improve your family’s nutrition – save lives R = To make use of you own local RESOURCES
T = To save TIME, money and less TRANSPORTATION
H = To grow your own HEALTH This method is based upon: Healthy soils produce - healthy plants - produce healthy people
All done with very little money, & with work less to grow more
Class Outline
You can do it!
• Introduction Class introduce themselves
• WHY SMALL GARDENS WORK?
• Prove it!
• Ownership, purpose
• Soils/compost (the foundation to success)
• Garden designs, location, layout, construction, shade trees, drainage
• Starting seeds, transplanting, controlling light, temperature, water
• Planting and plant spacing
• Garden care: watering ideas, weed and pest control, shade hoop houses
• Which vegetable to plant
• Small gardens are very easy to assemble and they draw crowds
• Simple. Anyone can do it. Anywhere in the world
• Requires very little water (safe to use waste water)
• Gardens are constructed without money or commercial fertilizers
• Very easy to take care of (less work, less weeds, less water, more food)
• Highly productive from very small spaces
• Can produce 45 kilos (100 pounds) of food from a 4’ X 4’ area
• Each home can construct several of these handy small kitchen gardens
• Literally help feed millions of people
• Also an evangelistic outreach – presents an opportunity to share the good news
• Empty stomachs have no ears
WHY SMALL GARDENS WORK? … Planting seeds for those in need …
These gardens are sustainable, lifetime, hand-up endeavors,
not a hand-out
Prove it!!!!!!
This one box is 4’ by 8’ (122cm by 244cm). It has 32 carrots per square foot = (32 carrots/sq (times) 32 square feet box = 1,024 carrots)
70 Days
The success has started as these boxes held together in several torrential rainfall
events (like several inches of hard rain in a matter of minutes). The miracle
happened, for soil amendment we ended up using several sacks of old chicken
manure mixed in with small wood chips that we added to each box. The native soils
are mostly hard clay, which is a poor growing environment. The wood chips became
a surface mulch and held the soil in place during the wind driven downpour. Strong
mulching is a great aid for any gardening efforts in the tropics. We thank the Lord.
The wood chip mulching protected the soil surface from rain drop impact
This is especially on sloping on hillside gardens
A Church Demonstration Garden
Small Village in Rwanda, Africa
Growth in 61 days
Success in Africa
Begin with the end in mind salsa, guacamole, chips
Economics of the Long Box
Long Box 4' by 40' = 160 sq foot
Each 40 days cut 3 bags greens
3 bags X 160 = 480 bags of
greens
Each bag sells for $3.00
$3.00 X 480 bags = $1,440.00
For a 40 day crop
Then you replant the Long Box
The potential for 4 crops/ year =
$5,760 Gross
Income in US$
Teaching with
photos helps
Step #1 Soils/compost (the foundation to success)
How to make your own Top Soil
Go On a Treasure Hunt - Searching for Hidden Resources
Step 1 Walk-about looking for then bag up the following?
•Old dry livestock dung
•Leave mold
•Black looking top soil under bushes
•Old dry chicken manure
•Anything looking like dark soil
Step 2 Dig up sod from garden plot 1.3 meter by 3 meters,
and then remove old plants and root for plot
African Cow House
= decomposed
organic matter
Mix with native soil
which makes great
topsoil
How to Make Good Compost
Ingredients needed:
Repeat all layers until
1 Meter high
Add small amount of wood ash
Add water to dry layers
Vegetable waste ------
Thin layer old manure -
Thin layer top soil-----
Green grass 30 cm ---
Dry grass 30 cm----
Bottom layer maze for air ->
Why compost? Compost is decomposed organic matter
that has turned into black colored humus that is called “black
gold.” Compost makes excellent organic plant food. Millions
of micro-organisms digest (eat) the dry grass and green grass
causing the pile to heat up. Compost does not feed the plants
directly. Instead it feeds the soil microbes which in turn
release insoluble minerals for the plants to feed upon
(fertilizers). This amazing process makes your garden a
sustainable food factory - if you keep adding compost to your
soils.
Step #2 Garden Construction; Garden location; Raised beds
2.64 Meters
1.32
Meters
Step #3 Planting/plant spacing
Why have a grid
How to Precisely Plant Your Seeds
30 Plants
Per
Square
Onion Seeds
Green
Onions
Small
Carrots 1 to 2 cm deep
Take your time and plant each seed correctly for good success
Mr Brite 16 Plants
Per
Square
9 Plants
Per
Square
4 Plants
Per
Square
1 Plant
Per
Square
Radish
Carrot
Onion Sets 2 cm deep
Pea
Beet
Bean
Spinach
2.5 cm deep
Lettuce
Swiss chard
Broccoli
Marigold 1.5 cm deep
Tomato
Pepper
Cabbage 1.5 cm deep
Cucumber
Cantaloupe 2.5 cm deep
Potato 8 cm deep
For 1 or 4 plants per square make a small dish shaped depression in the soil and place the seeds in the center. Water only where the seeds are located
These
Plants
Can also
Be started
from
Transplants
33 cm
33 cm
Mr Brite
Steps to make Crops in Small Plots
Step 1 Research which vegetables is there a demand for in your area and at what time of year Come up with a list of marketable vegetables that you could grow & sell.
Seed different block areas within a raised bed at different times for multiple harvests.
Step 2 Plan your harvest according to the market … hint: Have your crop ready before other people offer the same vegetables. Also think about adding value like cooking.
Step 3 Construct several raised beds and/or garden boxes with in your water limitations. Fill each area with your best soils & compost to at least 12 to 24 inches (30cm to 60 cm)
Step 4 Plant each raised bed with the correct plant spacing and timing for the market
Step 5 Harvest early when vegetable are young and prime. Hint: Share and/or trade for your other needs.
First planting
Third planting
Second planting
A Garden Box
Tomato
Pepper
Squash
Cucumber
Lettuce
Swiss chard
Radish
Beet
Cabbage
Spinach
Carrots
Beans
Which vegetables seeds to plant
What do you love to eat?
Step #4 Garden care:
Water, Weeds, and Ownership
Wise water use
This lady in Shone, Ethiopia, Africa is a
very good gardener as she knows how to
place valuable water on each seed zone,
which saves her much labor - hauling
hard to acquire water for her garden.
Ladies washing dishes and clothes in Malawi.
Look where the water is going!
Question:
Could you dump this waste water safely on a small
kitchen garden?
Re-cycled Water
Don’t let your soils see daylight
Mr Brite One smart farmer
Cool shaded soils = 22 deg C (72 deg F) = holds water,
Adds soil nutrients and slows weed germination
Hot bare soils - 55 deg C (130 deg F) = evaporates water fast,
Cooks and kills valuable microorganisms, no added soil nutrients and weeds can germinate
Why Add Mulch to Your Gardens
Don’t Weed Instead Cultivate
Step #6 Vegetable harvest and replanting
Add a scoop of compost and
replant harvested squares
Worms provide fertilizers
THEIR WORM CASTINGS AND they work for free
12-Day Compost To use as fertilize
Spread completed compost around the base of your plants
One Radish growing in Ethiopia
When you keep your soils healthy and look what can happen
Seeking information outside the box
Radish leaves have 3 times the nutrient
value as the roots
And taste great!
One Radish makes
a great salad
Think Holistically
from seed to stomach
Salmon River Pumpkin (A Winter Squash) From Seed to Seeds
A Life Giving Story
Seed saving techniques
Spinach Pick out the strong
plants and let them bolt
into a flower stalk and
go to seed. Pull the seed
stalks out of the ground
and let dry. Thresh the
seeds into a container.
Pumpkin
Cut ripe & mature
pumpkin open.
Remove seeds.
Wash with water.
Place on screen or
cloth to dry.
Pepper
Let ripe to full
color, no sign of
disease.
Remove seed
off core and
place on screen
or cloth to dry.
Cucumber
Let ripen past
edible stage and
turn yellow. Cut
lengthwise, scoop
seeds out seeds
and dry
Lettuce
Allow plant to bolt,
to form a seed stalk.
Cover to protect
from birds & rain.
Harvest seeds for 2
to 3 weeks. This will
require repeated
harvesting.
Onion
Let a few plants
form round
flower clusters.
When dry, pick
and thresh the
seed out.
Tomato
Pick ripe
tomatoes from
several plants.
Squeeze seed
out, wash and
spread on cloth
to dry.
Beets
Biennial as it takes
two year. Store roots
for several months,
replant to grow
seeds, harvest seeds
when dry.
Certain plant varieties will cross-pollinate with other members of their same family. If you
are raising your own pure seeds, only plant one variety within that family.
Visit www.seedsavers.org for more information
Sharing the harvest and teaching others
Gardens open the doors to teaching others & building life giving skills
Closing YOU CAN DO IT!
Planting seeds for those in need
Gardening for Life By Wayne & Connie Burleson
“Planting seeds for those in need”
A Humanitarian Effort