← Agriculture / 2 Food Production Processes

2.1 Organic Gardening

Agriculture · Grade 9 · 14 lessons in the design

What this covers

  • Organic gardening practises in crop production.
  • Growing a short-season crop using organic gardening practises.
  • Use of organic manure, organic pesticides and organic foliar feed.
  • Mechanical weed control.
  • The importance of organic gardening in the production of healthy foods.

What you will be able to do

  • explain organic gardening practises in crop production
  • grow a crop using organic gardening practises
  • appreciate the importance of organic gardening in the production of healthy foods

Key questions

“Why should we practise organic gardening?”

“How can we produce food crops through organic gardening?”

Lessons

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  1. What organic gardening is
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Growing crops with plant and animal materials, and no agro-chemicals.
  2. Organic and conventional compared
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Slow and lasting, against fast and short-lived.
  3. Choosing the site and the crop
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Sun, water, drainage, and a crop that finishes inside a term.
  4. Preparing the seedbed
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Clear, dig, add, level — and the manure goes in the topsoil.
  5. What organic manure does
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    It feeds the crop and rebuilds the soil at the same time.
  6. Making compost
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Layers, moisture and air — the decomposers do the rest.
  7. Farmyard manure
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Collect, heap, rot, apply — and fresh dung goes nowhere near a crop.
  8. Making an organic foliar feed
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    A liquid feed sprayed onto the leaves, made from plants and animal waste.
  9. Planting the crop
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Twice as deep as the seed is wide, and spaced to suit the crop.
  10. Controlling weeds without chemicals
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Pull, cut or smother — all three beat a herbicide on a school plot.
  11. Controlling pests without chemicals
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Plant sprays, physical methods, and arranging the garden so the pest never arrives.
  12. Watering and daily care
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Deep and less often, early or late, and check the crop every few days.
  13. Harvesting and keeping records
    40 min · 1 practice tasks · quiz
    Pick at the right stage, and write down what actually happened.
  14. Presenting the project, and why it matters
    40 min · 2 practice tasks · quiz
    Safe food, low cost, better soil — and the evidence from your own plot.