Of all the farmers on planet earth, nearly 80% grow food on less than an acre. This means that without economies of scale, small holding farmers struggle to survive let alone make any kind of profit. Parts of the world where land holdings are constitutionally kept small, face an almost impossible situation where to improve food security, they must find a way to grow more food on the small farm plots they have. Added to the problem is that there little arable land suitable for agriculture due to the mountainous terrain.
Urban community garden and urban farms face a similar problem with limited space for agriculture. Farms disappeared long ago in favor of development. Even though land available for agriculture is small (typically the size of a building lot), the literally hundreds of them spread throughout a typical city. Phoenix Arizona, a major metropolis in the middle of the Sonoran Desert has more than a million acres available for agriculture. The challenge there is water use because of the drought in the Southwest, United States.
Crop Circle Market Gardens ® double production per foot acre in small agricultural settings previously challenged to earn a profit due to limited space. This is a boon to small plot farmers struggling to make a living and island governments needing to address food security. Crop Circle Market Gardens are perfect for urban farmers challenged to grow enough food to make a profit, feed people in need in their community and provide jobs.
The spiraled design of a Crop Circle Market Garden maximizes plant growth while minimizing essential resources like water, fertilizer, land and labor. A ground cover prevents weed growth, curbs ground water evaporation, and builds subterranean ecosystems beneficial for soil health. Proprietary irrigators fastened through the ground cover prevent removal or dislodgement from wind blow. Seeds or transplants grow from the center of each irrigator, which can be quickly removed, fertilized, and re-installed at the beginning of each season. After installation, irrigation and fertilization is automated set by a timer. Crops are rotated by growing different plants at the beginning of each season: a process that continues to build soil. Crop Circle Market Gardens are mono cropped to maximize yield.
Mono-cropped market gardens are designed to grow one cultivar at a time to maximize production of a particular type of vegetable, herb, or flower. Planting different varieties of the same cultivar will create variety, growing green, yellow, orange, and red bell peppers together in the same spiral, for example.
Bush Beans – A Crop Circle Market Garden configured with 200 eight-inch alternately spaced openings arranged between 80-inch loops of a spiral grows around 2,000 bean plants. With an average yield of 15 pods per plant and 3 picks throughout the season, a bush bean market garden would yield 600 pounds or 42,000 pods. Sold at a retail price of $5 per pound would generate total revenue of $3,000 each cycle. Crop Circle technology grows plants about 20% faster so doubling revenue from 2 plantings of bush beans in a single season is entirely possible.
Bell Peppers - A Crop Circle Market Garden configured with 300 five-inch alternately spaced openings arranged between 40-inch spiraled loops grows 300 pepper plants. With an average yield of 20 bell peppers per plant throughout the season, a bell pepper market garden would yield approximately 6,000 bell peppers or a total of 3,000 pounds. Sold at a retail price of $3 per pound (price paid for colored peppers), the market garden would generate revenue totaling $9,000 per season.
Swiss Chard - A market garden configured with 300 six-inch openings arranged between 40-inch spiraled loops grows 900 chard plants. With an average yield of 30 leaves per plant throughout the season, a Swiss chard market garden would yield approximately 27,000 leaves or 900 pounds. Sold at a retail price of $3 per pound would generate a revenue total of $2,700.
Kale - A market garden configured with 400 six-inch openings arranged between 36-inch spiraled loops grows 800 kale plants. With an average yield of 30 leaves per plant throughout the season, a kale market garden would yield approximately 27,000 leaves or 900 pounds. Sold at a retail price of $5 per pound would generate a revenue total of $4,500 each season.
In some instances, it may be advantageous to plant different types of plants in a market garden creating an alternative to a rowed garden plot for example. A multi-cropped market garden has plants arranged along a Fibonacci spiral that creates more space between loops from the center of the garden, which allows for the growing of spreading plants like cucumbers the further along the spiral you go.
As many as 30 different types of plants can be grown in a market garden. Growing a multi-crop market garden is advantageous if offering a varied selection of vegetables, herbs and/or flowers to customers is desired. The planting of vegetable plants can be staggered to be harvested at different times during the season, greens early and peppers late, for example. Rather than growing one type of herb (basil for example), other herbs like borage, chives, cilantro, dill, echinacea, fennel, lavender, mint, oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage, and thyme can be grown and continually harvested from the same market garden. Many types of flowers may be grown as well including aster, baby’s breath, black eyed susan, calendula, carnation, coneflower, cosmos, dahlia, daisy, delphinium, four-o-clock, foxglove, impatiens, lobelia, marigold, morning glory, nasturtium, pansy, petunia, poppy, snapdragon, verbena, and zinnia, to name just a few. A multi-crop market garden also makes a great baby-sitter; they’re just so much fun for kids to explore.
Soil from each opening is removed to a depth of 8 inches using a miniature auger attached to a power drill. Fertilizer mixed with aged plant and animal compost refills the hole before new seed or transplant. When sowing seeds, the hole is filled to the top and the seeds are spaced a distance from one another on top of the mix. Seeds are then covered with half an inch of the compost, watered, and left to germinate. A germination cloth draped over newly sown seeds will cut germination time in half and protect both seed or young seedlings from savaging birds and frost.
Join our partners Growing To Give and New Leaf Technologies to free people from hunger with Crop Circle Market Gardens across the country and around the world.
