Awareness lecture series conducted in Anuradhapura (31.01.2019) and Trincomalee (05.02.2019) organized by Climate Resilient Integrated Water Management Project - UNDP

1. Strategic Agriculture against Climate
Change and Natural Disasters
Part 4 – Increasing home garden
productivity
P.B. Dharmasena
0777 - 613234, 0717 - 613234
dharmasenapb@ymail.com , dharmasenapb@gmail.com
https://independent.academia.edu/PunchiBandageDharmasena
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Punchi_Bandage_Dharmasena/contributio
ns
http://www.slideshare.net/DharmasenaPb
Awareness lecture series conducted in Anuradhapura (31.01.2019) and Trincomalee
(05.02.2019) organized by Climate Resilient Integrated Water Management Project

2. What is a home garden?
• It is the daily life
environment, which
supports various social,
physical and economic
activities.
• It provides various products
and services.
• An improved home garden
is a cropping system with a
proper plan, intensive land
use and rich biodiversity.
• It is a flower garden, herbal
garden and a cool, shady
forest 2

3. Why home garden productivity is low?
• Abandoned lands are still covered with weeds and shrubs
• Land has been severely degraded due to erosion of top soil
• Roots and stumps have not yet been removed
• Soil goes dry fast due to sandy nature or compaction
• Insurgence of obnoxious weeds makes cropping difficult
• Presence of rock outcrops reduces space for cropping and makes
difficulties for development
• Vacant spaces are found with no productive plants
• Few large trees cover the land, shading other plants
• Crops/ fruit trees are not managed well
• Crop diversity is low
• Occupants have poor knowledge on crop establishment
• Home gardens are neglected due to lack of time
• No recycling process for the solid wastes
• Damage from animals (domestic and wild)
3

4. Essential components of home garden
• Live fence
• Compost unit and bio-
recycle bin
• Herbal plot
• Flower garden
• Vegetable area
• Fruit garden
• Timber trees (forest
garden)
• Rainwater harvesting
system
4

5. Why home garden development is required?
1. Harvest maximum from land, space,
labour and water
2. Collect when required wide range of
fresh and clean vegetables, fruits and
medicine without chemicals
3. Save time spent for marketing
4. Supply main and sub-meals
(medicinal and healthy meals)
5. Reduce cost for food
6. Enhance health and energy through
food diversity
7. Provide herbal plants and parts to use
as local medicine
8. Sell extra produce to obtain what
cannot be grown in the home garden
9. Spend leisure time with plants
10. Mental satisfaction of the family
11. Use as a teaching unit of
environment for children
12. Ensure the attachment of children
with nature
13. Share planting materials with
neighbours
14. Develop positive attitudes
towards happiness
15. Improve self confidence for
facing challenges
16. Obtain economic benefits to
support the family income
17. Use as a gene bank of local
germplasm
18. Create a clean environment
through waste recycling
5

6. 6

7. Home garden planning
• Home gardens are found at various
stages:
• Well developed home gardens do not
need any additional inputs.
• Some old home gardens need
improvements mostly through shade
management, filling vacancies with
suitable species to gain optimum
canopy stratification, fertility
enhancement and introduction of
moisture conservation strategies.
• There are home gardens recently
fenced but not planted except few fruit
plants. These need comprehensive
planning.
• In the planning process collection of
some information is a prerequisite. 7

8. Home garden planning
• Survey:
– Land availability –
Many home gardens
have not achieved a
matured vegetation.
It can be developed
by filling vacancies,
managing the shade
by lopping and
pruning and
maintaining balanced
canopy stratification
8

9. Home garden planning
• Land catenary position
• soil condition – soil texture,
effective soil depth, soil
structure, drainage, slope
and soil salinity
• existing vegetation –
sparse, dense, weed spread,
mixture of crops and weeds
• other physical features –
presence of rock outcrops,
additional huts, cattle sheds,
abandoned structures
• water sources – presence of
well, canal, stream etc.
9
Well
drained
shallow
Moderately
drained
moderately deep
Imperfectly
drained deep
Poorly
drained
deep
Land catenary positions

10. Home garden planning
10

11. Initial home garden improvements
• Prune existing large trees to
accommodate more plants around
them at the onset of rainy season.
• Construct master bunds using more
soils from the downstream and
preparing a shallow drain at the
upstream.
• In case of flat lowlands, it would be
sufficient to have only the drainage
system to let water out of the land.
Otherwise it can lead to crop
damage due to water logged
conditions during the rainy season.
11

12. Soil Conservation Bunds
12
Drain depth
Bottom width
Bund height
Drain top width

13. Dimensions for Conservation
Bunds in RBE
13
Land
slope
(%)
Spacin
g
(m)
Runoff
(m3/hr)
Bund
height
(cm)
Bund
bottom
width
(cm)
Drain
Depth
(cm)
Top
width
(cm)
< 2 15 165 30 80 15 70
2 – 4 10 100 25 65 10 50
4 – 6 7 75 25 65 10 50
6 – 8 6 60 20 50 10 40
8 - 10 5 50 20 50 10 40

14. Dimensions for Conservation
Bunds in NCB
14
Land
slope
(%)
Spacing
(m)
Runoff
(m3/hr)
Bund
height
(cm)
Bund
bottom
width
(cm)
Drain
Depth
(cm)
Top
width
(cm)
< 2 15 35 30 80 15 40
2 – 4 10 20 25 65 15 40
4 – 6 8 15 20 50 10 35
6 – 8 6 10 20 50 10 35
8 - 10 5 10 20 50 10 30

15. Dimensions for Conservation
Bunds in RYL
15
Land
slope
(%)
Spacing
(m)
Runoff
(m3/hr)
Bund
height
(cm)
Bund
bottom
width
(cm)
Drain
Depth
(cm)
Top width
(cm)
< 2 50 50 30 80 15 40
2 – 4 25 30 30 80 15 40
4 – 6 20 20 25 65 10 35
6 – 8 15 15 20 50 10 35
8 - 10 10 12 20 50 10 30

16. Dimensions for Conservation
Bunds in RBL
16
Land
slope
(%)
Spacing
(m)
Runoff
(m3/hr)
Bund
height
(cm)
Bund
bottom
width
(cm)
Drain
Depth
(cm)
Top width
(cm)
< 2 20 165 30 80 15 60
2 – 4 15 100 25 65 15 50
4 – 6 07 70 20 50 10 45
6 – 8 06 60 20 50 08 40
8 - 10 05 50 15 40 07 35

17. Initial home garden improvements
• In order to prevent damage or collapse of the bund, grass species such as
savandara (vetiveriazizanioides), citronella (Cymbopogonnardus) etc. on either
side of the bund
• Gliricidia or bush type plants such as adathoda (Adhatoda vasica) can be
planted on the bund. These can be periodically pruned and used as mulch or
green manure.
• Plant gliricidia along the bund at 0.5 m distance apart.
17

18. Gliricidia
Adathoda
Citronella

19. Initial home garden improvements
• Form soil ridges at 5m interval
without disturbing the existing
vegetation. There can be
discontinuity of these ridges.
• Plant citronella along soil ridges
at 20 cm distance apart.
• Cover surrounding of the young
plants with crop residue mulch
and place a coconut husk ring
around it.
• Prune trees if any along the fence
19

20. Establishment of new plants
• Excavate a pit of a size 3ft. x 3ft. x
3ft.
• Use sub-soil to prepare the eye-
brow shape bund in downstream.
This can be avoided if a master
bund is in the immediate
downstream
• Bury a clay pitcher made in
cylindrical shape with a capacity of
15 litres keeping the pitcher mouth
at the soil surface. Pitcher will be
half painted with water sealed
lacquer. Place the painted side of
the pitcher at the downstream side.
20

21. Establishment of new plants
– Plant the nursery raised potted
plant next to pitcher in the
upstream side.
– Fill the soil pit with porous
materials of a mixture of top
soil, compost, crop and weed
residue etc.
– Plant 4 gliricidia sticks about
one metre away from the plant.
– Plant citronella at the
downstream of the eye-brow
shaped bund at 20 cm distance a
part
– Place a coconut shell with a hole
at the bottom and filled with
sand on the mouth of the pitcher 21

22. 22

24. Soil fertility enhancement
• Plant residues - Crop residues
and green manure;
• Animal wastes - Animal
manure and slaughter house
wastes;
• Compost - Consists of both
plant and animal materials,
which are wastes of various
origins.
24

25. Soil fertility enhancement
• Preparation of Bio-recycle Bin
25

26. Establishment of live fence around the home garden
• Recommended tree
species
– Gliricidia,
erithrina,
gansooriya,
adathoda,
drumstick,
kathuru
murunga, neem,
teak,
26

27. Importance of the live fence
• It makes protection from cattle, wild animals and thieves
• Legume trees planted along the fence provide large amount of green
manure
• The tree belt of the fence acts as a wind barrier
• Fence trees such as drumstick (murunga), Sesbania grandiflora
(Kathurumurunga) etc. provide nutritional vegetables
• Some fence trees such can provide fuel wood, timber and fencing poles
• Fence trees such as neem, adathoda vasica etc. provide medicine
• Fence environment is favourable for some predators
• Many vegetable plants such as winged bean, bean, bitter gourd, ribbed
gourd, snake gourd, yard long bean etc. can be supported without any trellis
• The live fence increases the bio-diversity
27

28. Live fence – trees and creepers

29. Live fence – trees and creepers

30. Live fence – trees and creepers

31. Live fence – trees and creepers

32. Live fence – trees and creepers

34. Mulching
Importance
• Minimizes soil erosion
• Retains soil moisture
• Reduces heat stress to plants
• Minimizes weed problem
• Contributes to soil fertility
• Reduces soil compaction
• Controls soil temperature
• Develops healthy root systems
• Reduces the number of irrigation or watering
• Improves the soil microbial population
• Needs minimum or zero tillage for cultivation
• Reduces labour
• Increases the yield
34

35. If a crop land is to be mulched:
• Use a mixture of grass and legume as mulch. It releases
nutrients slowly while decomposes slowly
• Add a thick layer of mulch.
• Continue adding mulch
• Use dry grass mulch after keeping for 1-2 days
• Add insect repellant species such as citronella, hinguru
(Lantana camara), ginger, turmeric etc. into the mulch mixture
• Keep the mulch away from the plant at least 4-6 inches distant
apart.
35