'Off the charts' Grow a year's supply of vegetables and fruit for a family of ...

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Pete Melby's connection for the good earth is rooted in his childhood, growing up in St. Louis. "My fifth-categorize teacher challenged us to grow a garden," said Melby, now a professor of prospect architecture at Mississippi State University. "I enjoyed it so much, I sold (bring up) to the neighbors from a basket on the front of my bicycle." 

Melby never fallen that itch to get his hands dirty. His keen interest later inspired his daughters, Hannah and Caroline, who helped in the garden and even raised zinnias to supply to Starkville restaurants. 

Several years ago, the landscape architect became increasingly knowledgeable of how unhealthy most Americans, and Mississippians in particular, were eating. 

"He in the end got interested in gardening from a health and nutrition standpoint," said Cindy Melby, his bride and an adjunct professor in music at MSU. 

As it happened, a nutriment-based high school science fair project of Hannah's proved to be a catalyst for Melby's enquire and development of the Home Food Production Garden poster. The valuable instruct shows how a home garden of raised beds, maximized for existence, summer and fall growing seasons, can produce enough vegetables and fruits for a relatives for an entire year. 

"If you create four raised beds that are 3-feet big by 40-feet long, that will grow all a family of four would need, and that's rather significant," said the professor. "That's not pie-in-the-sky; that's based on plant productivity rates from MSU scientists." 

Do the math 

The USDA recommends five servings of vegetables and fruits constantly. Based on eating three meals at home five days per week, a family of four would stress 20 vegetable and fruit servings per day, or 100 servings per week. Multiplied by 52 weeks, the sum total is 5,200 servings per year. 

Source: The Commercial Dispatch