Best Irrigation Practice?

While our group's plans for irrigation are still in the works, we have decided that the best irrigation practice, and the route that we want to go down, is drip irrigation. Drip irrigation releases little bits of water at a time, meaning that the plants get the amount of water they need at any given time. They aren't drenched with water, then left without for the rest of the day.

Drip irrigation has gotten quite popular lately, because of all its benefits. It is cost effective, and helps the plants to grow better. We have already gotten plans underway for finding the drip irrigation equipment we are going to use.

Cheap Food

While there are certain facts in this article that scare me and get a bit of a reaction out of me, such as how we are consuming far more food than we are currently creating, I still feel as if I'm really only getting one side of this story. I feel that facts can be skewed any which way, and when only given certain numbers and incidences, it's easy to make anything look bad. While I don't doubt that this article brings up many good points, I would still like to see something a bit less biased, so I can gain a clearer view on things.

The picture that struck me the most was the picture of the woman in Bangladesh harvesting leftover grains. The picture itself wasn't too shocking, but with the backstory, it gave me more insight as to how people in some countries are affected by this situation. Apparently, there was flooding, and a cyclone, which destroyed crops, and increased the number of starving people to 35 million. When I read that, and then see her harvesting the precious few grains she has for food, it makes me sad and a bit angry at the situation.


Response to http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/06/cheap-food/bourne-text

The Plant My Partner And I Are Growing

The plant my partner are going to grow is lettuce. It does well in cold temperatures, it grows quickly, and it can be put to great use (such as in a salad).

Source: http://www.floridata.com/ref/L/lact_sat.cfm

9/11/09 - Presentation Notes

I found the presentation on waste to very interesting. While it reminded me of many things I already knew (like the things waste is comprised of), to hear that the litter, food, nuclear waste, and the many other things that we are all responsible for at once brought it all to the forefront of my mind, and made me think about the part that I play in the waste that we output. The number that really struck me was when they said that over 8 billion tons of waste is output in the U.S. each year.

Learning about water is something I've done a lot, but like waste, to be reminded of the major contributing factors to water pollution, and the ways to help, is still beneficial to me. It's always important to remind myself to take shorter showers, not dump toxic chemicals, and throw away trash.

Something else I found to be interesting was the presentation on food. This is especially important to me because this is the topic I am going to do my senior project on. It's scary for me to think about all the food that is genetically altered, and treated with chemicals known to be hazardous to my health. What I found useful from this presentation were some of the major pros and cons of imported food and non imported food. Imported, like I said, contains hazardous chemicals and can be genetically altered. Meanwhile, non imported food helps to generate jobs, is fresh, has no chemicals, is all healthy, and saves fossil fuels.

VERY FIRST ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE BLOG

The first plant I wanted to put in our garden is the pea. The pea is a fruit. It thrives the most in the fall and winter months, since it generally likes the cold. The has a life cycle of about one year. It should grow around the end of our semester. It may come in time for exhibition, but if not, it could still be a valuable asset to the future of the garden. After all, peas have many various culinary applications, so they are a great addition to our garden.

We should grow our pea from a seed, since that is the conventional way of going about it. They may require a few cubic meters to grow (but no more than that). Each seed should probably be separated by a half foot or so. Peas tend to like slightly acidic soil. They also prefer a bit of moist soil. Although there is no exact science to watering them, they prefer to be watered around once a week. One fun fact about peas is that they originate from the middle east, from places like Syria and Jordan.

The second plant I want to put in our garden is a carrot. The carrot is a vegetable. It tends to prefer the summer, but with our San Diego climate, it could still do fine in the fall and winter months. We should grow it from a seed, soaking the seeds in warm water overnight, and then planting them. We should spread the seeds out as we plant them, and plant them at different times, so as to scatter their growing times. Many carrots can be grown in a small area—a few dozen in just a few cubic feet.

Like the peas, the carrots would probably grow to full size at around the end of the semester, so this may be more of a long term commitment to the garden, even though there is a good chance we’ll get a lot of good carrots on this time around. Some of the requirements for maintaining the carrots are that they prefer light soil, which is rich in nutrients, as well as moisture. They also need sunlight. They should be watered every few days. Like peas, carrots also originate from the middle east, Afghanistan being a country of origin.