The first presentation was on Chapter 6 in Organic Methods for Vegetable Gardening in Florida by Stibolt. The group did this presentation on Harvesting, handling, and seed saving. In the presentation, they talked about the pride that a gardener has when they harvest their own food and have that delight of being able to skip going to the grocery store. When harvesting, you need three main tools to harvest your crops; a sharp knife, shears or pruners, and a lightweight portable container. You want to make sure that you don't pull on the vine to remove your crop from the plant. This can cause damage to the fruit/vegetable or the plant. You will use the knife the most to cut the heads of the crops (broccoli & cauliflower) and to remove the fruit or vegetable like lettuce heads, leaf lettuce, arugula, and french surreal. The shears will be used for snipping herbs and cutting kale and collard greens. the container is important because that is want you will use to hold what you harvest. It is really important to handle your crops in the cleanest manor possible. One, you always need to have clean water. A clean garden starts from the water because it's the water that irrigates the garden and contaminated water can kill/infect your crops and can infect you too if you eat infected crops. When handling the newly harvested crop, make sure you wash your hands with clean water and soap and rinse of the crop with clean water. After you harvest and properly handle your crops, it is a good idea to save the seeds from the crops so that you can choose to grow more plants if you want to. Even if you don't want to grow more plants, saving the seeds is a good idea because you can give them or sell them to people who may want to grow the plant and get started. It ensures that we always have the resource to plant that crop.
Chapter 7 was the chapter that our group presented on. In this chapter, we talked about weeds, crop rotation, and cover crops. In the presentation, we talked about what a weed actually is and what type of different weeds there are. Weeds are essentially plants that are growing in inappropriate places. Weeds are pests because they take soil, nutrients from the soil, and crowd crops in your garden. If you use a combination of garden soil, compost, and compost manures, expect to deal with weeds. The roots of the weeds are the important factor among the different types of weeds. Strong rooted weeds have roots that are deeper than four inches in the soil and are harder to remove because of how deep they are in the soil. It is important to remove all traces of the root so the weed doesn't grow back. Crop rotation is important because it reduces the amount of bug infestation. Rotating your crops will confuse bugs and reduce the amount of bugs in your garden. It is important to plan out the rotation of your crops ahead of time so you aren't constantly growing in the same place. Keep a record of the rotation in a gardeners log book. Assign numbers or letters to each crop and area in your garden to keep track and have a rotatable method. Label each section with a small sign. It is also important to rotate within the crop families (Tomato group, Squash group, Mustard group, and the Carrot group). The next really important thing to do is to always have mulch and surround mulch around your crops. Mulch do a really good job of maintaining weed problems, except tough weeds because they are stronger due to their strong and deeply planted roots. Sifting mulch keeps soil from mixing in with it and makes it less attractive for weeds to grow. Weeds can harm your garden and mulch is the best way to prevent that.
The next presentation was on chapter 8, irrigation. Irrigation is important because the two main components needed for growing plants and crops is sunlight and water. The most efficient irrigation system, that we learned from other chapters, is the drip method or the overhead sprinkler system because they reduce the amount of water being used and wasted water that becomes evaporated. The process of irrigation is a pretty basic concept. The water seeps into the the soil and then gets absorbed by the roots hairs of the plant. The water absorbs the nutrients from the soil and the water takes the nutrients with it into the root hairs to bring the nutrients into the plant. The water gets absorbed in the roots tissue and travels from the root of the plant to the tip of the leaves and then gets evaporated into the air. Most gardeners recommend gardening in the morning so the plant has all day to dry out from the sunlight before the sun sets, making them less vulnerable to fungi attacks and reducing the amount of water lost through evaporation. Gardeners need to watch out for wilting so permanent damage doesn't come to the plant. Wilting is the symptom when a plant has too much water or too little water moisture. Too much water creates a lack of oxygen to photosynthesize and will rot the root. It is more efficient to create an automatic irrigation system as opposed to a manual system. A manuel water system works for very small garden, but it is easier to set timers and to control how much water the plants are receiving through an automatic system. Make sure you treat each section of your garden differently cause certain landscapes and certains plants may need more or less water than other sections or plants.
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