OL 303 Assignment Six Homework
Online Learning: OL 303 Vegetable Gardens & Community Gardens for Family Nutrition & Food Security
Center for Sustainable Development
https://csd-i.org/vegetable-gardens-community-gardens-food/

This week’s resources:
Assignment Six Discussion
CSDi Development Community & the Family Food Security Group
Magee Example Project Assignment Six
Family Garden Bed Field guide Example

Assignment 6. Logistical planning for a garden bed planting workshop
Part One.
Food deficit list and garden crops recommended by the agriculturalist and nutritionist for community introduction.
The agriculturalist and the nutritionist should’ve had some time to think now about the presentation that you made to them last week where you shared the results of your surveys, your draft plan of the gardening project, your initial thoughts about food deficits, and your initial ideas about foods to introduce to community members.

You can either meet with the nutritionist again or correspond by e-mail to get their input into the food deficit list and their recommendations for garden crops to introduce into the community. But try to get this information from the nutritionist before you meet with the agriculturalist.

My suggestion would be to try to meet with the agriculturalist because you will have more practical hands-on things to discuss about organizing the workshop and you want to continue to encourage them to join you in presenting the workshop in two weeks.

It will also be an opportunity for you to discuss the information you received from the nutritionist and to get his or her input into the garden crop list. They might have some cultural advice about what people would prefer, and they might have some advice about what would grow well and what would not grow well. They also will undoubtedly have specific recommendations for varieties of the garden crops which will perform best and they might even be able to get you an introduction to a seed company. If your agriculturalist works for the government they might even have seed samples that you could use.

I would also ask what garden crops could be grown that would be attractive for sale if they have surplus. He might be able to recommend garden crops that aren’t already flooding the market.

The output of this meeting will be a short list of food deficits, a list of garden crops that could address those deficits, and a prioritized list of recommended seeds to purchase for the project — including quantities.

Depending on garden bed space and available time for the workshop, you might want to prioritize a shorter list for the workshop than you will actually ultimately offer to the community.

Part Two
Logistical planning for the workshop. If you established a Garden Leader contact in your community, they should be able to help you with a community based logistics of finding a workshop location where you can plant a garden bed and arranging a date with the workshop participants. They should also be able to arrange for you a place for you can store things in preparation for the workshop.

The next thing that they can do for you is to make sure that the site is ready for workshop. This would include making sure that the garden bed area is clear of brush and that there is enough room surrounding the garden bed area for workshop participants.

The Family Garden Bed Field Guide Example will give them ideas of things that they need to look out for.

The Garden Leader can also collect a pile of organic material that can be added to the soil as the garden bed is being assembled. This can be leaves, manure, corn stalks, vegetable-based kitchen scraps. These things should also be representative of free things that will be available to the community so that they can get organic material into their first beds too.

Depending on the exposure to animals walking around, your Garden Leader might also want to invest time in looking for free fencing material to surround the demonstration garden. It would be good if this material was representative of material freely available to the workshop participants for their fences too.

Part Three
Seeds and Tools. Depending on your project budget and timeframe you may be fortunate enough to purchase specialty tools the community may need for establishing a home garden. Typical things may be a watering can or perhaps a shovel.

You should also know by now whether you’re going to donate seeds to the community, whether they’re going to purchase them from you outright, or whether you’re going to sell them on time (over four to six months perhaps).

You’ll need to approach someone about seeds. This could be a local charity that might have seeds, a University whose agricultural department might have seeds, the Ministry of agriculture might have seeds, a wholesale company that provides seeds, or local supplier.

The homework to turn in will be:
1. The list of foods that you, the nutritionist and the agriculturalist feel are deficient in the community diet.
2. The list of food crops that you would like to introduce to the community.
3. The location where you will hold the workshop.
4. Whether you will provide tools to the community members.
5. Where you feel you will be able to acquire the seed and how much money you estimate it will cost.
6. How you plan to distribute seed to the community

Go to Magee’s Example Project Assignment Six to see what this could look like.

See you next week.