Improve family nutrition by developing your home garden
What is the purpose of these leaflets?
The purpose of the leaflets is to help farmers improve family food supplies and nutrition year round through home gardening.
This package contains 15 technology leaflets with ideas and technical recommendations on how to improve family food supplies and nutrition through home gardening.
Each leaflet provides information on a technology option or on the type of improvements farmers can make in their home garden to increase food production, to provide a greater diversity of plant foods and to add nutritional value to the family's daily diet.
Who are the leaflets for?
The leaflets are intended for use by agricultural extension workers and farmers who are able to read. The leaflets should be used in situations where a farm family wishes to:
- set up a new home garden for family food production and income;
- develop or expand an existing home garden to improve food production and diversify crops;
- improve family food supplies and nutrition.
How should the leaflets be used?
The leaflets provide basic information, ideas and suggestions on different technology options or home garden improvements. They can be used either singly or in combination with one another, depending on the type of improvements farmers wish to make. Agricultural extension workers should assist farmers in selecting the technology they want to adopt in accordance with the kind, variety and quantity of home garden crops they want to grow.
Farm families should always contact their agricultural extension worker if they need help or advice with technical farming issues such as crop management, pesticide use, water management and many other topics.
Home garden technology leaflet 1: The home garden
WHAT IS A HOME GARDEN?
This leaflet aims to help you understand the many different things that make up a typical home garden. When you know how the home garden is made up (its structure) and what it does and produces (its functions or outputs) you will be able to improve the home garden's output to suit your own family's needs.
The home garden is an integrated system which comprises different things in its small area: the family house, a living/playing area, a kitchen garden, a mixed garden, a fish pond, stores, an animal house and, of course, people. It produces a variety of foods and agricultural products, including staple crops, vegetables, fruits, medicinal plants, livestock and fish both for home consumption or use and for income.
WHAT ARE THE BASIC STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS OF THE HOME GARDEN?
The home garden compound has different areas and functions. There are three main areas within the typical home garden. Each of these provides different things for the family that lives there. The areas are shown in Figure 1, divided only by dotted lines because, in reality, the functions of the areas overlap the imaginary dotted boundaries.
Figure 1 Basic home garden map
The social area
Location: in front of the house, incorporating the clean-swept courtyard.
Use: mostly a place for social activities - meeting and talking, children's play, display gardens and also for drying grain.
The utility area
Location: around the house.
Use: mostly a place for physical objects or activities - living, washing, storage, animal house and latrine but also kitchen garden.
The production area Location: the rear part of the garden.
Use: mostly a place for growing food and cash crops and raising animals (e.g. fish, chickens, pigs).
WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE HOME GARDEN AMONG THE FAMILY'S FARMLANDS?
Most families have more than one area of land for farming. Usually a family has a home garden area and a food cropping area near to the village. Together, these areas of land make up the family's farmlands. The family divides its working time and resources between these two areas. Each area of land is used in a different way but, together, the two areas must provide all the family's needs.
The home garden has a special significance because among a family's most important basic needs are food and shelter. If developed well, the home garden can provide:
- Enough nutritious non-staple foods for all the family year round, including extra food stocks for processing and sale to obtain income and a reserve for special occasions or emergencies (e.g. sometimes a staple food crop is lost in a flood, eaten by pests or reduced because the farmer falls sick and cannot work for some time).
- Income from the sale of home garden produce. Sales of home garden produce can contribute considerably to a family's income (to buy daily essentials and farming inputs that cannot be produced on the family's farmlands as well as other goods and services).
- Farm development. The home garden has a plant nursery for growing plantation seedlings, for trying out new farming ideas and crops and for processing and storing seeds for the next planting season.
HOW TO APPRAISE YOUR HOME GARDEN
Before trying to improve your home garden, you have to find out more about it; particularly why it is not producing more food or income or providing inputs for farm development. There are many things to find out because the home garden has different functions, i.e. social, utility and economic functions. You should allow at least one hour for the appraisal.
Step 1: Get the right people to participate
Different people know different things about home gardens. The farmer and the housekeeper are the most important because they know the home garden's history and what the home garden provides for their family. The local agricultural extension agent will be able to help identify plants and to assess the soil and other technical aspects. You may want to ask other people to participate, for example your neighbours, relatives or women's farmer group members.
Step 2: Make a map of the home garden
Make a map of your home garden with the help of the others. One way of doing this is by drawing a "mud map" on the ground with a stick and using stones, leaves and other materials to represent the locations of major features such as trees and areas for food crops, vegetables, herbs, buildings and activities. Mark areas where the land is sloping or swampy. You can use Figure I, Basic home garden map, as a guide.
Step 3: Make a copy and keep it
Copy the map as clearly as possible on to paper with your notes. The map will make it much easier to think about the chances and improvements you want to make.
Figure 2 Discussing and drawing the home garden map
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