Dueling Organic Gardening

Dueling Organic Gardening:  The New Farming Game

Have you ever played “The Farming Game?”  It was invented in the 1970’s by a Washington farmer, and is so realistic that a lot of teachers use it to teach their students what farming is like.

I’m proposing we invent a new game to teach about organic gardening.  We could call it “Dueling Organic Gardening.”  Here’s how it works: The game utilizes a cross-shaped game board, two sets of cards, playing pieces and  a die.  Up to four people can play Dueling Organic Gardening.

Each arm of the cross on the Dueling Organic Gardening game board is a plot of land.  Each player gets one.  The first deck of cards contains the crops.  There are 24 cards in the deck, and all the cards are dealt out to the players.  The player “plants” her garden by arranging the cards on her plot of land.

Players move their pieces along a “path” that wanders around the Dueling Organic Gardening game board and through the gardens.  They move according to a roll of the dice, and follow directions when they land on a space.

The second deck of cards in Dueling Organic Gardening contains soil amendments and solutions to garden pests and diseases.  Some are organic, and some are not.  Players get a Dueling Organic Gardening card at the end of their play.  They may collect or trade cards.

Here’s how Dueling Organic Gardening plays:  the player plants his garden, and then rolls the dice.  Each space has an event on it, such as, “aphids infest your beans,” or “tomatoes get blossom-end rot,” or “trade produce for one soil amendment.”  The player must make a decision about what has happened.  If he has a “ladybug” card for the aphids, he can play that by returning it to the bottom of the deck, and all is well.  If he has a card for the problem, he must play it.

For instance, if the player hits an “aphids” square, and the only applicable card he has is a “malathion” card, he must play it.  That makes his beans non-organic, and he must remove them from his garden. 

If the player does not have an applicable card, he turns the crop sideways, and cannot sell or trade produce from it until he fixes the problem.

If he does not have the crop listed on the square, he does nothing.
Play continues until all players reach the end of the Dueling Organic Gardening game board, or harvest.  The player with the most organic crops to harvest wins.

Dueling Organic Gardening could be used like “The Farming Game,” for entertainment and education.  Maybe we could also create an “Organic Farming Game.”