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Introduction:

One thing is to grow some vegetables when this is easy to do, with the result that at some time of the year you have a lot of vegetables, then gradually you get less and less and finally end with a long period with little or no vegetables. 
 
It is a totally different thing to plan the whole year, so that you have vegetables for the people the Garden Farm needs to feed. 
 
One way to do this is to ensure that you plant new rows on a regular basis. A measure that can be used is that each person every week needs the planting of 2.5 m of double vegetable rows (a raised bed with two rows of vegetables) to supply the food needed for a varied and healthy diet where vegetable make up a large part of the food and starchy products such as nshima, bread, rice or spaghetti are reduced drastically. 
 
If one also wants to produce a glass of nutritious vegetable juice per person per day, then the 2.5 m needs to be doubled to 5 m. 
 
A method is to make a 2-week cycle, meaning that you establish a system so that every fortnight you start again planting the same kind of rows. The task is then to calculate the proportion of the different crops to be planted. Because there is a big difference between a crop such as lettuce, where you get a crop and within a short time you will have harvested them all, because they do not last long after they are ready. Other crops, such as sweet potato, Irish potatoes or tomatoes, can be harvested for many weeks, before you need to finish the row. This means that if you eat the same amounts of the two, then in your 2-week cycle you need to plant less rows of tomatoes compared to lettuce, because the tomato rows can be harvested over longer time. So you need to plant lettuce more often. 
 
Then you need to make an estimate of how much you need of the different kinds of vegetables, and finally use the information to determine how many meters of each vegetable must be planted. 
 
You are not done yet, however. You need also to find out what time of the year you can grow the various crops. Some crops will not give any results if it is too hot and humid, and others will not produce when the nights are too cold. 
 
In many areas it pays to make two different plans. For example one 2-week cycle for the dry and colder season, and another plan for the warmer and wet season. 
 
As you will learn from the task, there is also a great advantage of determining which plants should be placed together on the rows, since such companion plants to a degree minimize or prevent a number of pests and diseases. Just as you of course need to use such basic knowledge as ensuring crop rotation, so you for example do not grow tomatoes where they have just been harvested. 
 
The able Garden Farmer takes all of this into consideration and can then make a year plan that can meet the needs for nutritious vegetables all year round.

Directive:

<ol>
	<li>Read the Garden Farming manual p. 4-10, to understand the advantages of the 2-week cycle and the advantages of companion planting.</li>
	<li>Produce a plan for a 2-week cycle that fits to the seasons and the requirements where you are, so that there is a maximum and varied assortment of vegetables available during as large a part as the year as possible, for all the people the production is intended for.</li>
	<li>Discuss your 2-week cycle with other people in your area who can help to determine if the plan is realistic and whether it can be improved for example by adding new companion plants or introducing new combinations.</li>
	<li>Read the rest of the Garden Farming manual &ndash; plus find the crops you intend to plant in one of the other files, in order to prepare yourself for how you will grow the crops in your 2-week cycle system.</li>
	<li>Present your 2-week cycle system and how you will grow the selected crops to the group of people &ndash; colleagues, other people in your project or family members &ndash; together with whom you could start this, including your arguments on the importance of having a model example of a Garden Farm that produces vegetables year round.</li>
	<li>Send your description of your planned 2-week cycle and the set-up of the model Garden Farm to your tutor.</li>
</ol>
 
Files: 
 
F1. Garden Farming manual, by&nbsp; Christian Fenger, Course Material ISET/OWU, 2010. 
&nbsp;
<div>Files to find the selected crops:</div>
F2. Crops, from People&#39;s Farming Workbook, Practical Action, Course Material ISET/OWU, 2010, p. 189-206. 
 
F3. Crop notes, Appendix 1 in &ldquo;The Market Gardener &ndash; Successful Grower&#39;s Handbook for Small-scale Organic Farming&rdquo;, Course Material ISET/OWU,2010. 
 
F4. "Various Crops in Conservation Agriculture". Translation from the book "Manual de Agricultura de Conserva&ccedil;&atilde;o para t&eacute;cnicos e agricultores", Sofala, GTZ 
&nbsp;

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