Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

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    • *** 10 Square Meter/100 Square Foot Nutrition Gardens (10/100NG) ***

      ZeroHunger’s first challenge is exactly that—enough calories to survive. A second important challenge is good nutrition. Often it seems that all the labor or financial resources go to the staple crops such as grains and legumes that provide the calories with little left to provide the foods that round out the nutrition and promote health.

      10 Square Meter/100 Square Foot intensively and diversely planted Nutrition Gardens I10/100NG) for each person are a solution to providing the nutrition to add to the staple crop calories. This size garden can provide 195 kg/400 pounds of produce in a six month growing season. If season extension such as row cover is available or year round gardening is possible, an additional 45+kg/100 pounds of food may be grown in most months. These gardens reduce water usage and weeding with their intense planting. Gardening and harvesting can be accomplished in an average of two hours a week.

      Cities and towns are encouraged to make at least this much food gardening space available to each person as part of the land around their housing or in nearby allotments and community gardens. People on farms can put the 10/100NGs in a kitchen garden near the house. This allows the stay at home gardener to garden it between other chores and makes it easy for students to tend it before or after school.

      Gardeners are encouraged to grow a mixed selection of produce that provides nutrition and flavoring including greens, alliums, herbs, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, summer squash, Fresh peas, green beans, and fresh non-staple root vegetables such as radishes/beets/carrots. Productivity improves with succession planting and trellising. The gardening can be accomplished with as few tools as a flat bladed D-handle shovel and a bucket. A homi (triangular headed hand hoe), stakes for trellising, string, and watering can/hose add to productivity and make the job easier.

      A 10/100NG positively impacts the gardeners food in as little as three weeks when the earliest radishes and their greens are ready to eat. Photo shows a day’s harvest from a 10/100NG test garden in a temperate climate garden at the height of the summer. Other vegetables and herbs were available on other days and in other months.

      Garden organizers are encouraged to develop sample gardens along with the gardeners that will be implementing them that suit the area's preferred foods, and to provide a matching planting and harvesting plan to help increase a fast start and success. Observing how local expert gardeners implement the process can lead to additional sample designs. If space and gardeners are available at demonstration garden sites, a third type of sample garden that introduces people to new vegetables that are especially nutritious can be useful if combined with a cooking demonstration and tasting opportunity.

      ***Resources***

      How to Grow More Vegetables, Ninth Edition: (and Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops) Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land with Less Water Than You Can Imagine by John Jeavons

      One Circle: How to Grow a Complete Diet in Less Than 1,000 Square Feet by David Duhon

      ***Calculations and conversions***

      100 square feet = 9.29 square meters

      400 pounds = 181.5 kg

      10 square meters = 107.64 square feet

      1.0764 * 400 pounds = 430.56 pounds =195.3 kg

      Test gardens had 4 foot wide beds (1.2 meter), for example 4 feet by 25 feet (1.2x 7.62 meter) of garden bed space.

    • Designing Complete Nutrition Gardens and Vitamin Gardens

      For areas with adequate land near dwellings for Complete Nutrition Gardens:

      Complete nutrition gardens(CNG) provide all the calories and nutrition that a person needs while increasing soil fertility and minimizing water use.  If each country designs and tests CNG for the various regions of their country and the preferred foods of their area, families can be provided with a plan that will make it possible for them to meet their nutritional needs.  Initial research has focused on annual food plants, minimizing garden space, and the same diet year round in order to get the gardens going as quickly as possible.  This is a good place to start since it improves local nutrition as quickly as possible.  For inspiration see research by Albie Miles:

      http://www.cityfarmer.org/albie.html

      To increase the diversity and resiliency of the food system, it would be beneficial to use the same framework and add the following components to the CNG system:

      CNG plans for each growing season in the region

      Permaculture and Edible Landscaping

      A graduated plan that allows people to steadily add perennial food plants each year until they have all they need while still maintaining space and light for the annual food plants

      Edible Landscaping of public places

      Easy(hens for eggs) and more challenging livestock(goats and cows for milk, cheese)

      Double Insulated unheated greenhouses and winter harvest techniques

      Beekeeping

      Natural and Low Tech food storage and preservation techniques

      CNGs that incorporate the above techniques to spread the gardening, harvesting, and food preservation workload more evenly through the year

      For areas with small plots of land around dwellings, allotments/community garden plots,  patio or balcony container gardening, roof top gardening

      Where there is a substantial portion of land but not enough for a CNG for each family member,  families could be encouraged to grow a percentage of the CNG that fits on their land.

      Where people have very small gardening spaces, the research and garden designs could focus on crops that provide nutrition which complements the local grain and legumes diet.  Look for foods that provide flavor and nutrition, are very productive, are diverse in color, can be preserved easily with low tech methods such as drying, or which need to be consumed shortly after harvest.  Items such as garlic, sweet or hot peppers, parsley, cilantro, tomatoes, and leafy greens could be key ones with which to begin.  Where people are endangered by malnutrition, the quickest way to change their lives is through the planting of the colorful small round radishes.  The radishes and their leaves can be eaten beginning three weeks after planting.

      If people are using containers, raised beds, or Salad Tables, ensure that they are using food safe containers and untreated/nontoxic wood.

      To promote research by both the public and professional agriculturalists, consider having a contest to see what people can produce in a small Vitamin Garden such as 4 foot by 25 foot (100 square foot) or a 10 square meter(1.2m x 8.34m) plot.  To encourage accurate data collection, enter participants into the contest based on reporting data at regular intervals rather than on total yield.  For inspiration see Rosalind Creasy’s 100 square foot garden which produced over 235 pounds of produce from one summer planting season.  By including spring and fall plantings, the gardener could harvest triple the amount or more.

      http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/Square-Foot-Gardening-Food.aspx

      To reduce the amount of land used for growing cooking fuels, and so that more land is available for growing food in any size plots, promote the duel use of solar cooking and fuel efficient stoves.

      For more resources follow the link [Ed.]