HOME GARDEN TECHNOLOGY LEAFLET 4

PLANTING CROPS FOR A CONTINUOUS
FOOD SUPPLY

For rural households and communities, the best security is a home garden that provides some food all year round.

It is extremely important for a household to have reserves of food or money (or both) so household members can live through seasonal shortages of staple crops, emergencies or special occasions. For example, if a farmer is sick and cannot work, or his staple food crop fails, produce from the home garden can contribute towards meeting the household's basic food needs.

Many villages are located some distance from towns and markets. Food supplies coming from outside are often expensive and difficult to transport, especially if heavy rains have flooded or damaged the roads. Growing food at home saves money and effort, and ensures a regular supply of food if roads are cut off.

PLANNING FOR YEAR-ROUND FOOD PRODUCTION AND FOOD AVAILABILITY

Planning a home garden to provide a continuous supply of foods all year round is a process that requires managerial skills and knowledge of:

• the types of crops that grow well in the area;
• the appropriate planting dates of different crops to ensure the best yield;
• the length of the growing periods of different types of home garden crops;
• how long a crop can supply food to the household before it requires replacement;
• the crops that are more drought tolerant (if the water supply in the area is not reliable);
• the crops that are suitable for planting in wet areas (e.g. swamps or wetlands).
• This knowledge allows the home garden manager to select the types of crops to grow, and when, where, and in which mixtures to grow them. He or she must be familiar with, and take advantage of, living fences, multiple cropping, multilayer cropping, fruit-tree growing and intensive vegetable gardening techniques. These topics are discussed in Home Garden Technology Leaflets 11 through 15.
• With this knowledge in mind, a home garden manager can design planting patterns that provide for adequate quantities of fresh or preserved foods (e.g. vegetables, legumes, fruits, roots and tubers) all year round.

Fruit-trees

Some fruit-trees can provide food throughout the year, others supply food during specific seasons. It is important to select fruit-trees that produce ripe fruits at different times of the year, and include fruit-trees that bear fruit all year round (e.g. banana).

Some trees (e.g. citrus, mango, avocado) take a long time to bear fruit, but then they do so for a long time without needing replacement. The best approach is to select some trees that bear fruit quickly (e.g. papaya, banana, guava) and mix them with others that take longer to mature (see Table 1). The home garden manager can use techniques such as grafting to reduce the time between planting and fruit bearing. See Home Garden Technology Leaflet 16, "Plant propagation and nursery techniques", for details on grafting.

TABLE 1
When fruit-trees begin bearing fruit

Green leafy vegetables

Most of the green leafy vegetable crops eaten in Africa can be harvested more than once before replanting. A considerable variety of leafy vegetable crops is ready for harvest three to four weeks after planting, and continues producing for some time (see Table 2). Some green leafy vegetables grow quickly, but can be harvested only two to four times before replanting (e.g. amaranth and some varieties of rape), while other leafy vegetable types supply edible leaves all year round (e.g. bitter leaf and cassava leaves). A good mixture of fast- and slow-maturing leafy vegetables is desirable. The slow-maturing varieties provide a household with vegetables for a long time, so household members save labour replanting.

It is also important to consider that there are times when different types of leafy vegetables will not be usable. For example, cassava leaves tend to be extremely bitter during the dry winter season, so the home garden manager must make sure that there are alternative vegetables ready to be consumed.

Table 2 provides some examples of the growing times of different vegetables and how long a household can benefit from a crop before it must be replanted. Long-lasting crops, such as bitter leaf and cassava leaves, can be harvested many times during the course of a year, while amaranth is harvested only two to three times before replanting.

TABLE 2
Time from sowing or planting to first harvest, and harvest period

^* Continue harvesting the leaves (except during the dry winter season) until the tuber is harvested.

^_ Number of harvests before replanting.

Legumes

Select the legumes according to the season and to what grows well in the area. Legume crops such as cowpea, groundnut and bambara groundnut are normally intercropped with field crops such as maize. These legume crops can also be grown in the home garden, if there is access to sufficient water. Some early-maturing varieties of cowpea, for instance, can be planted at the onset of the rains. A second crop can be planted in the second half of the rainy season. If only one crop of legumes is grown per year, it will have to be stored well enough to prevent post-harvest losses, especially from weevil attacks.

Crops that provide more than one type of food

Home garden managers should select crop types that provide more than one form of food. Depending on the local eating habits, crops such as cassava, sweet potato, taro, beans, cowpea and pumpkin provide a household with both the staple or legumes, and leafy vegetables.

Ensure that seedlings and planting materials are ready

Food crops planted for a continuous food supply provide an ongoing and effective use of limited land and other resources (water, family labour, planting materials). This requires careful planning. The home garden manager prepares seedlings or planting materials for transplanting or planting at the time of the harvest of other crops, and takes crop rotation principles into account.

PRESERVATION AND STORAGE OF SEASONAL FOODS

Excess seasonal produce can be preserved and stored for later use. Root crops are living food stores that can be left in the ground until they are needed. Many root crops also provide nutritious leaves (e.g. cassava, sweet potato, amaranth). Home Garden Technology Leaflet 18 provides details on processing, preserving and storing home garden crops. See also Appendix 3.

USING HOME GARDEN INCOME TO PURCHASE ADDITIONAL FOOD

It is not always possible to produce all the types of food that meet a household's daily food requirements. Any surplus staple foods, vegetables or fruits (i.e. those not needed for current or future family consumption needs) can be sold and the money used to buy food that the household is unable to produce (e.g. oil, sugar, vegetables, fruits, additional staple crops) or to meet other essential household non-food needs (e.g. fuel, soap, medicines, school fees).