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Home Gardening
The key term for the home garden systems is: ‘Diverse, intensive growing’.
On a small space a wide range of crops is grown.
The diverse arrangement of various crops plus the
strips of ‘insectary’ plant which attract and sustain
beneficial insects will minimise pest problems.
The challenge is to avoid growing the same crop
family in the same space for a number of years to
avoid the build up of soil borne diseases such as
clubroot in brassicas, sclerotinia in lettuces, beans
and other crops and white rot in the onion family.
Where possible a pasture phase is to be encouraged. However, in intensive home garden
where space is too limiting, strategic use of green manures and intensive use of added organic
matter/compost is recommended to replace as much as possible the value of a pasture phase.
A basic intensive crop rotation may look like this:
Intercropping/Polycultures
Intercropping is the act of planting two or more
crops in combination. This is practiced extensively
in some parts of China and Latin America and has
been adopted in many other countries. Further
experimentation is being conducted in Western
countries to see how compatible the intercropping
system is with a western mechanized style of
farming. Where practiced right, intercropping can
result in a higher overall dollar yield per hectare
than simply growing one crop.
Advantages can include…
- Reduced root competition between species with different root systems
- Overall better capture of sunlight resource for photosynthesis
- Better weed control through better ground cover and varied root competition
- Less potential for epidemics and damage from pests and diseases
There are numerous other potential advantages depending on the choice of polyculture or
intercropping species.
Specific examples include the use of corn to provide shelter or crop support for example for
beans, whereas the beans – as a legume - aid the nitrogen balance of the sweet corn crop.
Corn and bean polycultures are practiced tradiotionally all over the world and yield consistently
higher than the respective monocultures. Another good growing combinations are lettuce
together with carrots, and tomatoes together with basil.
