Lessons in the Garden :Outside of the box, inside of the crate...
Just One Acre...
How much food can be grown on one acre of land?
What can we do with that food?
For that matter, how big is an acre?
We started the #Just1acre project to see if we could create, reclaim, beg, barter, whatever for one acre of land; of growable space and use it to grow lots and lots of food for people in need. One acre of land in Atlanta is hard to come by so we had to be creative. That is where the crate idea came in. We opted to cobble together one acre from various spaces around the city and adjacent towns, and engage the community in helping to make it happen. All the while using it as a STEAM educational platform.
In the last post, we established the crate as the basic unit of measurement for this project. An acre is 43560 square feet. That is about the size of a football field with the end zones cut off.
Let's do the math and see how many crates we are going to need.
The crates are 20 inches long by 12 inches wide.
Area equals length times width.
The surface area of each crate then is 20 inches times 12 inches.
20 x 12 =240
Each crate then has a surface area of 240 sq inches.
There are 144 sq. inches in a square foot (12 inches long x 12 inches wide).
240 divided by 144 gives us a repeating decimal of 1.66666666 and on and on, but we are going cap it 1.67 by rounding up.
Each crate then is a little less than 2 square feet. So how many crates do we need to form an acre?
26084!
Suffice it to say, that is a lot of crates!
So maybe we won't hit an acre this year, but it is fun to play around with the numbers.
Gardens provide a lot of opportunities to ask and answer questions and we are going to keep going! Not just these math problems but weights and measures, problem solving, and even art projects! Do you have questions? Found a problem with our math?
Questions from last post... Why Crates?
It was, a good idea, if I do say so myself. When faced with a number of problems at Pleasantdale Elementary School in Doraville, GA, I devised an elegant solution. Actually, the idea came to me a few years when we first purchased our house. We did what is most recommended in home buying and that is find the worst house in the best neighborhood. Unsure of the soil content and wanting to do something a bit different when it came to our garden, we decided to find another way to grow. That is when we came up with the crate idea.
We wanted and needed to know what our plants were growing in. We wanted a garden that had a greater purpose and that was sustainable. That is when we decided on the produce crates. Supermarkets all over the area, not to mention restaurants get produce in these crates and then toss them in the garbage. Milk crates are, by and large, recycled and/or reused (it is technically illegal to take them), but produce crates are not. They go straight to landfill.
There are several different makers and the sizes differ by a quarter inch here or there., but they are about the same size and interlock with one another. They also hold soil very well. As we made the rounds gathering crates, we also gathered compostable materials from these places and started big active compost piles to grow food in. This way we know exactly what was going into those crates.
We encountered a lot of people who were having similar problems and we were able to create similar solution without everyone "reinventing the wheel". On a regular basis, we are able to revitalize the soil with organic components and year after year, keep amazing chemical free soil.
Community involvement...
When people look at how we were able to install these set-ups so quickly, they see the end result but there is a lot that goes into it. We started a program in our community thanks to a lot of really great sponsors where people were given simple 5 gallon buckets and asked to fill them up with compostables.
We also gathered from local restaurants and coffee shops like Moonbird Coffee and Starbucks.
Composting scares a lot of people but we were able to take a lot of the mystery out of it, provide a central place in several neighborhoods where people could come and drop off their compost while picking up clean, empty buckets. We were then able to create over 8 tons of great compost over several months and use it in these gardens. It may look easy in the last fifteen minutes, but that last fifteen minutes was the end of a long process and a sustainable system that seems to be getting bigger!
With Pleasantdale Elementary school for example. We
were called upon to engage with several issues they were facing. They wanted to get a garden installed quickly but did not have an immense budget. They too, had soil issues including high lead content. With the crate system, they know exactly what is going into those crates and what makes up the growing medium.
They are having a new school built next year, but wanted to engage in the project immediately; not knowing the fate of any garden when the new school is built. This way, we can simply move the garden set up off to the side over the summer while they are building and it will continue to grow.
We have also created an Instagram and Facebook page where kids can keep track of their plants over the summer.
Soil Contamination...
The soil cannot likely be contaminated by exterior sources (drainpipes, etc) because they can be lifted and moved. The crates rest on pallets off the ground. Exploring these issues becomes another educational component.
Seeds...
Another key component to this project is to keep the seeds from the plants grown from , this project and not only use them for coming generations, but pass them on to other growers and other schools! want seeds? let us know! (contact us at life@thelifecooperative.org)
So why crates? Fast, cheap, sustainable (eco friendly), and has the potential to go on and on and on...
Want to know more about what we are doing? Visit our page, www.thelifecooperative.org
Are you interested more in how we are working with local organizations and communities to build better growing environments for everyone? Reach out to us at life@thelifecooperative.org
How much food can be grown on one acre of land?
What can we do with that food?
For that matter, how big is an acre?
We started the #Just1acre project to see if we could create, reclaim, beg, barter, whatever for one acre of land; of growable space and use it to grow lots and lots of food for people in need. One acre of land in Atlanta is hard to come by so we had to be creative. That is where the crate idea came in. We opted to cobble together one acre from various spaces around the city and adjacent towns, and engage the community in helping to make it happen. All the while using it as a STEAM educational platform.
In the last post, we established the crate as the basic unit of measurement for this project. An acre is 43560 square feet. That is about the size of a football field with the end zones cut off.
Let's do the math and see how many crates we are going to need.
The crates are 20 inches long by 12 inches wide.
Area equals length times width.
The surface area of each crate then is 20 inches times 12 inches.
20 x 12 =240
Each crate then has a surface area of 240 sq inches.
There are 144 sq. inches in a square foot (12 inches long x 12 inches wide).
240 divided by 144 gives us a repeating decimal of 1.66666666 and on and on, but we are going cap it 1.67 by rounding up.
Each crate then is a little less than 2 square feet. So how many crates do we need to form an acre?
26084!
Suffice it to say, that is a lot of crates!
So maybe we won't hit an acre this year, but it is fun to play around with the numbers.
Gardens provide a lot of opportunities to ask and answer questions and we are going to keep going! Not just these math problems but weights and measures, problem solving, and even art projects! Do you have questions? Found a problem with our math?
Questions from last post... Why Crates?
It was, a good idea, if I do say so myself. When faced with a number of problems at Pleasantdale Elementary School in Doraville, GA, I devised an elegant solution. Actually, the idea came to me a few years when we first purchased our house. We did what is most recommended in home buying and that is find the worst house in the best neighborhood. Unsure of the soil content and wanting to do something a bit different when it came to our garden, we decided to find another way to grow. That is when we came up with the crate idea.
 |
| Last year's (2017) tomatoes, grown in crates. |
There are several different makers and the sizes differ by a quarter inch here or there., but they are about the same size and interlock with one another. They also hold soil very well. As we made the rounds gathering crates, we also gathered compostable materials from these places and started big active compost piles to grow food in. This way we know exactly what was going into those crates.
 |
| a dreamy little mess! |
Community involvement...
When people look at how we were able to install these set-ups so quickly, they see the end result but there is a lot that goes into it. We started a program in our community thanks to a lot of really great sponsors where people were given simple 5 gallon buckets and asked to fill them up with compostables.
We also gathered from local restaurants and coffee shops like Moonbird Coffee and Starbucks.
Composting scares a lot of people but we were able to take a lot of the mystery out of it, provide a central place in several neighborhoods where people could come and drop off their compost while picking up clean, empty buckets. We were then able to create over 8 tons of great compost over several months and use it in these gardens. It may look easy in the last fifteen minutes, but that last fifteen minutes was the end of a long process and a sustainable system that seems to be getting bigger!
With Pleasantdale Elementary school for example. We
were called upon to engage with several issues they were facing. They wanted to get a garden installed quickly but did not have an immense budget. They too, had soil issues including high lead content. With the crate system, they know exactly what is going into those crates and what makes up the growing medium.
They are having a new school built next year, but wanted to engage in the project immediately; not knowing the fate of any garden when the new school is built. This way, we can simply move the garden set up off to the side over the summer while they are building and it will continue to grow.
We have also created an Instagram and Facebook page where kids can keep track of their plants over the summer.
 |
| We were able to build gardens in about 15 minutes. |
The soil cannot likely be contaminated by exterior sources (drainpipes, etc) because they can be lifted and moved. The crates rest on pallets off the ground. Exploring these issues becomes another educational component.
Seeds...
Another key component to this project is to keep the seeds from the plants grown from , this project and not only use them for coming generations, but pass them on to other growers and other schools! want seeds? let us know! (contact us at life@thelifecooperative.org)
So why crates? Fast, cheap, sustainable (eco friendly), and has the potential to go on and on and on...
Want to know more about what we are doing? Visit our page, www.thelifecooperative.org
Are you interested more in how we are working with local organizations and communities to build better growing environments for everyone? Reach out to us at life@thelifecooperative.org
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