Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Companion Planting


Most plants have other plants they like growing next to as well as plants they don’t like growing next to. Putting different plants together that grow well together, is known as companion planting. Companion planting helps plants with many different things. Such as pest control, pollination (授粉), providing habitat for beneficial creatures (有益な生き物) and making good use of space. One example of companion planting is tomato and basil. As the tomato grows, there is space under the tomato plants for the basil to grow: a good use of space. Also, the basil plant helps protect the tomatoes from aphid (アブラムシ) attacks: good pest control. This is an example of how two plants can help each other.

Print out the Companion Plant Table (Companion Planting Table.pdf). Then, take a walk through our Community Garden and find two to three trees or vegetables that we are growing. After that, go online and find some companion plants for the things you listed.

You can find a list of plants and their companions online at Plant Buddies (https://plantbuddies.serlo.org/)

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Introduction to Forest Gardens


When we started the KIT Community Garden, it was only a vegetable garden. But from this spring we are going to start transforming our vegetable garden into a forest garden. A forest garden is a garden that contains mostly perennial plants (多年草) that produce a variety of fruit, nuts, herbs, and other useful crops. The design of a forest garden is important. Usually, forest gardens have seven layers.
            
The first layer is the tall-tree layer. This layer has the tallest trees in the forest garden. In our garden, the tall-tree layer has loquat (びわ), apple, and pear trees.
            
Next is the low-tree layer. This layer has trees that are a little shorter than the tall-tree layer. In our garden, the low-tree layer is made up of gumi, juneberry, and mulberry trees.
            
The next layer is the shrub (低木) layer. Shrubs are plants that don’t grow very tall. In our shrub layer we planted blueberry, bill berry, raspberry, and blackberry plants.
            
After the shrub layer comes the herb layer. You can plant many useful plants in this layer that can be used for cooking, medicine, and attracting (吸い寄せる) good insects like bees and butterflies. In our herb layer we have mint, thyme, oregano, lemon balm, lavender, echinacea, and bergamot.
            
The next layer is the ground-cover layer. Ground cover plants do several important jobs. First, they can provide food for us. Second, they can prevent weeds from growing. Finally, they are a safe place for insects and other animals to live. We haven’t planted many ground cover plants in our garden yet, but we do have lots of wild strawberry and white clover.
            
Next is the vine (つる) layer. Vines are climbing plants like kiwi fruit and grape. We haven’t planted anything in the vine layer of our forest garden yet, but we will in the future.
            
The final layer in a forest garden is the root (根菜) layer. Root plants are plants that grow underground (地中). Some examples include potatoes, garlic, onions, and ginger. We haven’t planted anything in out root layer yet either, but we will soon.
             
Of course, we will still grow lots of vegetables, but we’re excited about the future of our forest garden.


CLICK HERE to download the worksheet for this article.