Bio-Intensive Mini-Gardens--Recipe for Survival

[jpak]

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_3659.cfm

They're making people every day,
but they ain't makin' any more dirt."
- Will Rogers

A sustainable community involves a dynamic inter-dependent relationship between each of us and the resources that sustain our lives. Rather than shirking human labor, trying to reduce the amount of it used or to increase its productivity in unsustainable ways, we need to exalt in its proper use and the maintenance of the very muscles involved in an effective human life. Properly performed, labor is not tedious or enervating, but strengthening and rewarding.

Using resources more efficiently - doing more with less - allows us to useour personal energy more effectively. The field of electronics was recentlyminiaturized on this basis. In fact, the world is on the verge of a majornew discovery - that there are major economies of small scale, such as theminiaturization of agriculture. The sophisticated low-technology techniques and the approaches involved in this kind of food-raising will make possible truly sustainable agricultural practices globally.

Biointensive Mini-Farming

This miniaturization of agriculture is not new. Small-scale sustainable
agriculture has supported such widely dispersed civilizations as the Chinese 4,000 years ago, and the Mayans, South Americans, and Greeks 2,000 years ago.

<more>

[pitohui]

1. the trouble with this is that most of us have real jobs

i used to follow jeavon's work until i realized that he just doesn't understand that there are only so many hours in the day

by the time you raise all of your own food and bicycle all the way to work and then put in a full day of work, when you do ever look up and have a moment for love and relationships or to think your thoughts, to study, to read, to protest, to participate in society, or to have anything meaningful at all in your life except the drudgery of survival

do you really have time to grow all of your own food in your spare time? the mayans didn't have to grow all of their own food and also hold down another job on top of it

[jpak]

2. why am I not surprised by this post???

:evilgrin:

[tridim]

4. And lots of us don't have yards

I have about 25s.f. of garden space available and it's filled with tomatoes and strawberries, the two fruits I can't afford to buy at the grocery store. Obviously I wish I had more space to grow all my own produce.

[phantom power]

7. Another 20 years of climate change, and feeding ourselves will *be* our full-time job.

There's a sort of elan here. The more we need this stuff, the more of us will probably have plenty of time for it. Because we'll be out of work, and we will not have the cheap energy to run our TVs, Internets and other distractions.

[silverweb]

14. Bingo!

You just said it all, my friend.

[jpak]

3. How to Build a Cold Frame

http://groovygreen.com/groove/?p=905

<snip>

Step One: Stop and pick up old windows from the curb- the bigger the better. Plenty of people throw away old windows when they get new ones. If you’re shy about other people’s trash, try calling a window contractor and asking what he does with the old windows he replaces. Offer to trade him vegetables for them.

Step Two: Measure the glass from frame to frame

Step Three: Cut scrap wood at least 6″ wide to match your measurements. Leave an inch or so for wiggle room.

Step Four: Hammer together your frame and set the window over it.Step Five: Set it in a sunny location and you’re ready to go. In no time you’ve created a warm spot to start your veggies.

<not much more>

[pitohui]

8. hah a warm place to fry your vegetables

i garden and i certainly do not need cold frames, they will be an item that marches north and north as time goes by

as it is, if greens are not grown in the winter around here, no point in growing them at all, they'll just bolt

[jpak]

12. People up north can use them

My brother in Maine built one this year and we had a huge salad Christmas Day (2 types of lettuce, spinach, scallions, baby carrots and a couple other green things that I can't remember).

They didn't look anywhere close to bolted and saved all that fossil fuel that would have been consumed if he bought the same stuff imported from FL, AZ or CA at the local Walmart.

He's building a bigger one next year and plans to heat it with compost too.

[Mabus]

5. One of the things that I like to do

Is to plant several sunflowers and let them get a foot or so high. Then I plant pole beans around the base. The pole beans grow up around the sunflower stalks. When both the sunflowers and beans are well underway I put in squash/gourds (yellow, zuchinni, and loofahs) or other ground loving plants (like strawberries) around the bottom. The ground-loving plants help keep weeding down and moisture in the soil by spreading out and covering the surround ground. I also try to plant garlic here and there to help keep down insects.

Thanks to your links, I'll be able to start my plants a little earlier this year.

[The2ndWheel]

6. And unless we live in a small scale world

it ain't gonna happen. Last time I checked, this was is a world of, by, and for the large scale. That's not going to change voluntarily.

[pitohui]

9. yeah the big problem is you get one life to a customer

given the chance i'm going to live large, i don't get a do-over nor do i get any recognition from society or even basic health care by living small, all living small gets me is cheated of my ability to even be able to buy health insurance

i went without for 15 years, i could have died w.out access to care

until there is some perceived benefit to the individual, most people are not willing to be martyrs when there is no evidence it will do any good anyway

the car i didn't drive for six years was driven by somebody else, the health care i couldn't afford went to some rich person who no doubt uses multiples of fuel and environmental resources that i could ever dream of using, nothing was saved and i was harmed

so there's that

i actually feel a fool for wasting so much of my life and passing up so many opportunities to no one's benefit

[The2ndWheel]

11. Perfectly rational

I like the use of the word customer though. Have to buy to live.

"i don't get a do-over"

You said yourself you started over, only this time by going big.

"nor do i get any recognition from society"

Which is the ultimate goal.

"or even basic health care by living small"

Odd. Wouldn't basic be simple and small?

"i went without for 15 years, i could have died w.out access to care"

You're still going to die with it. You somehow lasted 15 years without it.

"until there is some perceived benefit to the individual, most people are not willing to be martyrs when there is no evidence it will do any good anyway"

Yeah, like a habitat to live in. Or kids in some far off country not making our shoes for 23 hours a day(I'm sure some kids or women who got paid nothing made my entire outfit today).

"the car i didn't drive for six years was driven by somebody else, the health care i couldn't afford went to some rich person who no doubt uses multiples of fuel and environmental resources that i could ever dream of using, nothing was saved and i was harmed"

So lets just keep harming the people who can't even get our lifestyle in some country half way around the world.

"i actually feel a fool for wasting so much of my life and passing up so many opportunities to no one's benefit"

Except the eco-system, or non-human life, or even human life that didn't expand militarily over the course of history to attain such lofty heights.

And let me say, I'm not perfect. I'm just as much a part of this system as anyone. Like I said, I'm sure my shoes were made by a 6 year old girl. I waste energy. I eat food that is owned by some giant agri-corporation that wants nothing more than to own the DNA of such food. So I'm not attacking you specifically. You just happened to respond. :)

We're all in this thing together, trying to figure out what to do, where to go, how to get there, why we're not there, why we're here instead, how we got here, what went wrong or right, and we have no map.

[jpak]

13. The consequences of "Living Large" are posted with regularity on this forum

and it's a myth that one cannot "Live Large" without "giving up" something.

Something to think about come hurricane season...

[Gloria]

10. I've been growing greens all winter down here in Southern

NM. Skipped putting up the "greenhouse" with plastic that become trouble when the wind blows.
Just sheltered the plants by using the same suncscreen material I use in the summer, just lying over the plants. On a cold night, cover with cheap fleece blankets I got at Walgreens, 3/$10.00. On a very, very cold night like last night, lay plastic over the material and the blankets. Nothing lost.

I've got loads of chard that I planted a year ago still thriving; kale, collards, spinach, mustard greens. Just pulled up the broccali raab after several cuttings.

[Odin2005]

15. Romanticist crap.

"Properly performed, labor is not tedious or enervating, but strengthening and rewarding."

WTF is with this luddite BS? I want robots doing all my work, I don't want to go backwards.

[phantom power]

16. Hey, you too?

I don't really want to be a farmer. I may very well end up being one out of necessity, but I don't think I'm going to find my new condition spiritually fulfilling.

[Boomer]

17. Thank god for my partner

She's fully responsible for our organic garden. I've tried to find enjoyment in working alongside her, but other than mixing up top soil and cow manure, which is pretty simple to handle, I just can't wrap my brain around how to make things grow. I'm a computer nerd and I yearn to sit at my keyboard and tap at reality. I'm NOT farmer material.

I had hoped to just skirt under a future in which growing food was a full-time activity and there wasn't enough energy to run a computer. At just over 50, it seemed like a good bet that I'd bow out before the projected "50 to 100" years it would take for global warming to remold human existence. But over the last year or two, I've come to the regretful conclusion that we're looking at a "in my lifetime" rather than a "in my children's lifestime" scenario.

It's not just the thought of deprivation and hard labor that I mind so much; it's the knowledge that I won't be able to continue doing what I do best. I'll be a liability in a Mad Max world, not an asset.