My Garden

In the first unit of the course, Food, we studied the ecology of plants. Two philosophers that helped us understand the concept were Charles Darwin and Fukuoka. Fukuoka advocated for organic gardens because he believed that our ecosystem is balanced and resistant, and do not human interference. For our project, we made a drawing of a garden that we might want to plant outside our house. Our raised bed had to have 10 different vegetables and fruits. We had to show which plants are good to be grown next to each other. It can be a bad thing if you don't know that the plants don't get along with each other because some plants can take nutrients away from the other plant. It can be a good thing because the plants can help each other grow, give shelter, or even share nutrients. This is called companion planting.

KIS. Garden Picture. 2014

The dimentions of my gardens are 4.2 ft.in length, 16.7 ft. in width and 1.3 ft. in height.  My garden bed is pretty big, maybe even too big, but I want my plants to have enough space to grow. Also if certain plants don't get along with each other, there will be enough space to separate them. Once I got the measurement of my bed garden, I conducted a soil test. I did this because I wanted to know the quality of the soil. Then, I grabbed a handful of soil from the front garden of my house. I tested my soil for nitrogen, potassium, pH and phosphorus. The first thing I did was grab a cup, get two spoonfuls of my dirt and dump it in the cup. Then I added ten spoonful of water to make the dirt really wet. After that I mixed it, I left it alone for 3-5 minutes. I grabbed the sample, gave it a quick stir and put it in the pH test box. I added a pill that makes the water turn color and tells me the pH. My soil pH was 7.0 which is neutral. I put water into the other three containers and put a pill too. My soil’s phosphorus level was deficient, the potassium was adequate (just right) and the nitrogen was sufficient.

I already knew that my soil was alive, because there has been and still is a flower garden. There is also earthworms and microorganisms in the soil. The color of the soil is dark and the leaves of the plants are green. The plants were healthy and beautiful. The only thing that I now need to add is nitrogen and phosphorus because in parts per million these two were low. I will need to add 4.9 pounds of fish meal for nitrogen and 2.1 pounds of soft rocks phosphate for phosphorus. The reason why nitrogen and phosphorus is low is because of the weather. There aren't enough plants to participate in the nitrogen cycle and add nitrogen to the soil.

Now that I checked my soil and added fertilizers, I now need to choose 10 plants for my garden. For my garden, I will place my plants with their companions. I chose the following: Hopi Red dye (an Amaranth), Jade (beans), Early green (broccoli), Scarlet nantes (carrots), True gold (corn), Claremont (lettuce), Hale’s best (melon), Super sioux (tomatoes), Akito and Saber (both are cucumbers). The reason I chose these plants is that I like to eat most of them and others are good for my garden. Mostly all of my plants are companions. Corn is companion with beans because corn provides support beans to grow tall. Beans are nitrogen fixers, which means that they add nitrogen to the soil. Cucumbers are great next to corn and beans because they like the same conditions and they also rely on corn for support. Broccoli can share calcium with beans, cucumber, and lettuce.

In conclusion I believe that having an organic garden is better than one that has inorganic fertilizers. I learned about the four principles of natural farming from Fukuoka and they make sense because you need a little bit of everything to make your garden beautiful. I also learned about companion plants, some plants benefit each other and some don't. An example of companionship is the three sisters: corn, beans and squash. I might implement my garden because my family plants food so it would be a good way to grow food that we like. At the same time we will be eating healthy food since they don’t have any chemicals.

“Golden Harvest Organics”. Go Grow Organic! N.p. 1996. Web. 17 April.2014

“Seed And Supply Catalog”. Seed of Change.N.p. Web. 17 April.2014

The Greatest Adventure for a Cocoa Bean!

For our first project in the course Food For Thought, we made a food family tree. The reason why we made a food family tree was because we are studying food, how it looked before when it was wild and now that is domesticated by humans. So then after making a food family tree we choose an ingredient that is part of that of the tree and we made a story of the ingredient in a 3rd person. I choose the cocoa bean that is in the recipe of mole (a mexican dish). I choose this ingredient because I found it interesting that cocoa bean makes chocolate and because mole is a traditional dish. A thing I learn about the cocoa bean was that it has a long process to make chocolate and there is a cocoa tree, fruit, plant and bean. I am proud of my story, if you are interested go ahead and read my story below.

KIS. Food Family Tree. 2014

Hi there, my name is Leonardo  (a cocoa bean). I come from South America, I was born from a tree. My mother takes 5 years to have her first child after she was planted. I wasn't her first but I am hers. When I was born I was hanging for my moms arm (branch) and I stay there until I was yanked away from my her. I didn't know why I was taken away, all I knew was that I was scared but somehow not alone in a darkroom. The next thing I knew the room was shaking and I was panicking! The floor made me move side to side, then all of a sudden it stopped. I was relieved but still panicking a little on the inside because I didn't know what happened and I didn't know where I was. Then, I heard a truck. Oh no! Is the story true? Were teenagers (cocoa beans) being taken away from their families, and taken to places to die!? I started to cry and eventually I cried myself to sleep. The floor started to shake again so I immediately woke up and tried to figure out what was happening while struggling to stay in one place. 

After hours there was light. I was so happy until I saw big machines. My heart started pumping really fast. I wanted to run away, but I was in a high place to jump down. While I was finding a way to escape, I saw a big paper on the wall that had a picture of food and below it it said "Mole", a Mexican dish. I didn't know what that was until I saw a picture of someone that looked like me and next to it was the word, cocoa. I was interested in knowing why I was there so I began to read the ingredients that go into mole. I am a cocoa bean?! I am an ingredient to this dished called mole! I felt like I was having a heart attack because my whole life was basically a lie. 

Then someone grabbed me and cleaned me. The person too me into a red and orange room that was really hot. I saw others (cocoa beans) in there too, some were still alive and the rest passed away. Lucky for me, I wasn't in the room for that much time. I was really dark and some parts of my body were burned. Right away they put me in a machine, then another machine, and then another. I was in so much pain, I felt dizzy and I couldn't feel most of my body. After going through all those machines, I felt lucky to be alive but I didn't know if that was a good thing anymore. They put me in plastic bag with others and stapled it. Then I heard the truck again, and I was put into another darkroom. 

In my mind, I said, "Oh no, here we go on another painful adventure." Once, the truck stopped I was transferred to this building, it was called Cermak Produce. Another person grabbed me and put me on a hook. I was glad to finally be left alone, but now I was alert every time a person approached me. After days passed, I saw my neighbor leave and finally I was grabbed by a woman whose color was brown (Mexican women). After a long travel, I was in another building. Once I got there they opened me and man that felt good to breathe fresh air. Then I was put in another hot room and this time it felt longer.The next thing I knew, my vision was blurry and I couldn't breathe. I was being moved a lot to a point where I lost my self.

"What is the origin of the cocoa tree?". International Cocoa Organization. N.p. Web. 18 April. 2014.

"History of cocoa". Inaforesta. N.p. Web. 18 April. 2014.

"The cocoa tree - facts about theobroma cocoa". Chocolate.org. N.p. Web. 18 April. 2014.