The 10 Companion... Vegetables?

In Food, a math and science course, we are studying food as a science. In the other class, Food for Thought, we talked about the history of food. The Food class is a freshman class that’s integrated with the math and science of fruits and vegetables. We learned about plant ecology, how certain plants are companion plants, and how those plants assist each other. An example is when they share nutrients or give shelter. At times they will benefit one another like warding off insects.

The elements of a healthy soil environment include nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. These are 3 macronutrients that help in the growth of the garden; nitrogen assists in gathering protein and green coloring with the chlorophyll. There are also different types of dirt, alive and dead. The live dirt is rich in organisms, compost, mulch (anything like other scraps of plants), and has a darker color of brown than other types. The dead dirt is much paler and has pests that don’t benefit the ecosystem the way that the dirt or the plants may need. It may also be hard to break apart, unlike alive dirt which may be fragile and falls apart, but has many more nutrients.

This Action Project is meant for us to study the optimal situation for 10 vegetables of our choice (within the options inside a catalogue) and plan out, like a blueprint, a garden. Along with a detailed sketch, we have the option of actually growing them. My 10 products of choice are; the dragon carrot, iceberg lettuce, nutri bud broccoli (yes that’s the actual name), rudolf radish, renegade spinach, scotland leeks, yukon gold potatoes, legend tomatoes, black beans, and some maize/corn.

All these plants interconnect and share similar nutrients. Carrots grow well with lettuce and tomatoes. While tomatoes delay the growth, they assist in the flavor, by adding to it. Lettuce will grow well with radishes and beans, and beans also go with corn and spinach (if they are broad beans). Beans themselves are a nitrogen fixer which aid in the gathering of nitrogen like converting it into nitrogen compounds that plants can absorb. Some of these compounds include nitrate, nitrites, and ammonia. Plus, broccoli grows well with potatoes. Broccoli loves calcium and even though there aren’t any herbs to help with that, the potatoes add flavor similarly to the tomatoes. Then corn can also grow as a companion plant with the potatoes. They also resemble characters I like through either obscure references or mistaken identity.

I designed the garden in a circular formulation because all my plants interconnect with each other to assist one another. My backyard would already sustain these because my mother already has a garden there. However I do need to add a nitrogen and phosphorus booster. I need 1.8 lbs of blood meal, which adds nitrogen, and 0.72 lbs of soft rock phosphate, that is a phosphorus booster. I figured it out with these calculations:

Test	Result	Parts per Million Equivalency Chart
pH	pH 7 neutral	----------------
Phosphorus (P)	P2 adequate	20
Potassium (K)	k3 sufficient	600
Nitrogen (N)	N1 deficient	10

Nutrient	Product	Quantity
Nitrogen	Blood Meal	1.8 lbs
	Fish Meal
	Cottonseed Meal
	Feather Meal
Phosphorus	Soft Rock Phosphate	o.72 lbs
Potassium	Sulfate of Potash	Not needed

Nitrogen:

36% of 5

36% x 5 = 1.8

Phosphorus:

36% of  2

36% 2 = 0. 72

I obtained the 36% percent through a calculation. This was done by comparing my area of my garden compared to the recommended amount for a set area. So my garden was just 36% of that size that requires 5lbs of blood meal and the two pounds of the phosphate.

  Overall, I’ve learned much through this unit. The main reason why I did the soil test was to check if I needed any thing, like nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) boosters such as blood meal and phosphate. I might actually plant the garden after the project, but it also might take up a lot of time, so there’s no guarantee there. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed.

Some Food for Thought

Here’s some Food for Thought, I have two new classes this term and one of them is actually named Food for Thought. As for my other class, it’s called Food, but in this new Action Project, I was to create a narrative of a specific product, as if I were the ingredient itself. This unit was about how agrarian societies began and how do they influence what we eat today? We studied ancient ancestors of  modern day fruits and vegetables. This assignment specifically revolves around an ingredient we chose from a family tree that we drew (which is shown below). I chose bacon because it was my favorite which is shown on the illustration, plus it seemed to be unique so far. However, I will not only talk about bacon, but be the bacon in the next paragraph, yet before I do that I shall state one more thing. Overall, mine is quite mixed based on their favorite food. My mother prefers a simple plate of rice & black beans, while my father enjoys a steak dinner (with some fries), and my brother likes a special Brazilian treat that's dough baked and then fried in the shape of an egg which can contain anything you want inside.

Family Tree© VG 2013 >

A very Pork Memory

I am a very well-known person, some people love me, others don’t believe or approve of how I’m porkish. Either way I am still one of the oldest meat cuts in history. The Roman empire is as far back as I can remember, but anyway here’s how it all started. As the young and living lad I was, I pigged out on the fields, eating as I pleased, being an omnivore and whatnot. Usually feasting upon the grasses but sometimes I’ll eat the corn that the farmer brings me. Hey you, back in those days I was smarter than a dog! But now I’m devoured by those same dogs, incompetent humans feeding them my kind, bacon.

You know, it’s funny, me being so popular at my age. Some people idolize me, create new inventions and such, and all just for what? People have created so many methods to eat me, just to eat bacon. However, mind that there is not only one of me, if memory serves right. I believe that turkeys and apparently Canadians too are made into bacon… sounds like cannibalism in my book, my 3500 year old book, perhaps I’m getting senile, or maybe it’s the style of bacon. There was also another instance of my popularity increase 400 years ago. I kept the European peasants alive and kicking, because I was a so-called cheap meat cut, try saying that now. I am treated with the utmost respect but still, all because of how I taste, not really an optimal reason but at least it’s there, along with my cousins: the bacone, chicken-fried bacon. Honestly, I think if you want bacon, eat it, want chicken, have that, but both? Plus eating me like an ice cream cone is just plain insulting, I’m a meat, not a sweet! Well at least it all rolls back to me, bacon. I’m old, popular, and rich… kind of anyway.