I can't even keep succulents alive let alone grow food for survival but this gives me hope. This is brilliant and I can even see myself running that thing successfully sometime in the future! Kimbal Musk, Elons brother, just blessed us with this much needed visionary container farm:
"Vertical farms are ideal for urban settings because they require less space, are able to grow soil-free crops indoors under LED lights and expend markedly less water than traditional outdoor farms. Each 320 square foot shipping container-turned-farm can yield crops that would be the equivalent of two acres of farmland."
"Vertical farms expend 80% less water than outdoor farms and require much less space, they say. Because they're indoors, Square Roots' farms can grow crops in New York City rather than upstate, so produce is fresher when it reaches grocery stores or farmer's markets. "
http://www.businessinsider.com/kimbal-musk-vertical-farms-shipping-containers-2016-8
http://www.businessinsider.com/kimbal-musk-shipping-container-farms-new-york-city-2016-12
Tee I like hydroponics, it is much easier to be manage. Also you do not have to worry about insect infestation, and if it is in shipping containers it can be move if storms comes that way as climate change gets worst. It will be a lot easier to save crops overall then the traditional way. The only thing, root vegetables are harder to grow in hydroponics, but not impossible.
See, there is so much to learn (especially for a dilettante like me) and I know there are many knowledgeable people on here! I'd love to see a discussion/ suggestions unfold over time here that will give me and others ideas on how to tackle this emerging crisis... I know there are a lot of "prepper" websites but I have a hard time filtering out their paranoiac conspiracy stuff while getting to the useful stuff. I'd be very grateful to have this a bit of a beginners guidance on how to feed not only a family, but a community with fresh food and clean water (even a bigger challenge, right?). All infused with the loving and visionary vibes of his site.
In a new area once where the local water supply seemed to be untreated swamp water or smelt like it (even with a good filter ) - someone gave me things to improve it.
Called cosmic energy stones - oh yeah I thought full of skepticism. No change to taste so used them in water for my vegetables after further online research - WOW became super plants. Seems its all to do with ormus stuff. Still using them to this day - and reaping the benefits. Dont know how they would go in hydroponics. Just a pot plant of basil on the window sill becomes super productive, huge leaves.
Everything is an experiment in this changing weather - tomatoes supposedly need full sun, now seem to need shade as well some part of the day.
I give the 'stones' away as presents for gardener friends - spread the word - everything helps - even use a mix of ormus, zeolite etc to heal pets wounds - fabulous and avoid vet fees for minor issues - stops/kills infection. A scratch is over before it develops into anything serious - even on myself.
Where can I get this healing zeolite and or ormus you speak of? I'd love to get some for healing cuts and for my garden.
Is there a specific form of it you need to take like powder or liquid?
Gosh, I've been meaning to ask about these stones, too. I looked into this but couln't find anything useful...
Hi Tee
Available in US - can be soaked in clean water and used for plants or drinking - very calming.
Super Sea Minerals Sea-cellfix Australia is what I used for scratches - Maybe similar available in Texas at Global Light - alternative products for health and pictures of the great gardens and produce as a result of all they have learned with 'magic' products. My gardening is a lot more hit and miss with the weather here - but do grow in pots in protected areas in the winter or grow the plants that are meant for the cold weather - but the white butterflies/caterpillars munch on everything. As I dont want to spray.chemicals....tried using a tennis racket to knock em out - missed most of them. There are non chemical sprays but somehow that didnt stop many of them.
Last newsletter emailed was a bit of a worry - hopefully they dont have to close. They dont have a shop site but sell online. By joining up for the newsletter which comes out each Friday I have learnt so much about alternative health -they have been around for 20 years but times are getting tough and competitive. Lots of testimonials from happy users of their products
Hope this helps - good luck -oh yes - here is an interesting tid bit - with the world's frogs in decline, I feel pretty sad - but then discovered my spinach was disappearing in little bites - had knocked out the snails naturally, so was mystified - but ?delighted to find two of the tiniest frogs I've ever seen enjoying my super ormused softer types of spinach.There were gorgeous little frogs all over this place till my wonderful neighbours took over adjoining block and turned my quiet simple life around to the opposite.
Happy gardening
2 Major court decisions regarding different garden/ farming chemicals.
The future of farming will be with one less toxic neurotoxin in 60 days.
First, Yesterday A federal appeals court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday to bar within 60 days a widely used pesticide associated with developmental disabilities and other health problems in children, dealing the industry a major blow after it had successfully lobbied the Trump administration to reject a ban.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/09/us/politics/chlorpyrifos-pesticide-ban-epa-court.html
Second, Monsanto ( now Bayer ) was just were found guilty in the US in a HUGE Roundup weed killer trial. Expect an appeal.
"Monsanto suffered a major blow with a jury ruling that the company was liable for a terminally ill man’s cancer, awarding him $289m in damages.
Dewayne Johnson, a 46-year-old former groundskeeper, won a huge victory in the landmark case on Friday, with the jury determining that Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller caused his cancer and that the corporation failed to warn him of the health hazards from exposure. The jury further found that Monsanto “acted with malice or oppression”."
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/10/monsanto-trial-cancer-dewayne-johnson-ruling
A nice article about small family farms and why they are important for biodiversity and the future.
If Prop 12 in California passes, animal farming will never be the same, for the entire nation not just California. Not only will it require California animal producing farms to go basically cage free, even meat sold in California from other states will have the same requirements.
I would think that even if this does not pass during this election, it will likely in a future one. I believe this will be leading the way to what some of our more distant farm predictions are predicting. It will be a much more humane way to raise farm animals .
Oregon State University scientists have found a resource to increase agricultural production on dry, unirrigated farmlands, it is simply solar panels or an array as a group of solar panels on farm land is called. A new kind of farming in itself ?)
In a study published Thursday in the journal PLOS One, a research team in OSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences serendipitously discovered that grasses favored by sheep and cattle thrive in the shade of a solar array installed in a pasture on the OSU campus.
The results of the OSU study indicate that locating solar panels on pasture or agricultural fields could increase crop yields, said corresponding author Chad Higgins, an associate professor in the Department of Biological and Ecological Engineering.
“There are some plants that are happier in shaded environments,” he said. “The amount of water that went into the making those plants is tremendously smaller than in the open field. You get double the yield, less water .
For a couple of years now, I've have visions of ancients teaching us how to survive climate change, on growing food in rough conditions, where to live, and underground housing to protect from heat and storm surges.
This week, I learned about a model farm in France that has made stunning advances in growing large amounts of food per square meter.
They don't use tractors, it's all by hand, and they grow different plants altogether in combinations that maximize soil moisture, humus, and biodiversity for a huge per square meter output.
It is permaculture on steroids and the founder got his ideas from pre-industrial farming.
I would like to try their techniques on my small plot.
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/permaculture-bec-hellouin-farm-france/
@jeanne-mayell Thank you for sharing this article! Very exciting! I have been experimenting for several years with companion planting in covered raised beds here in Bend, Oregon, on a very small scale and with some pretty good luck. Our climate is challenging for gardening - 3600 feet elevation, high desert, cold, short growing season. I also save seeds from what I grow, gradually working my way back toward Heritage-type crops. It’s fun to share what I grow, as well as what I learn from trying different techniques.
I am increasingly of the belief that "the future of farming" is mostly the past of farming.
My current mental health busy-work is a series of hugulkultur berms -- chopped up branches and twigs buried in leaves and pine needles, with a layer of silt from our creek, which I am slowly dredging by hand.
Our 3.5 acres of Carolina Piedmont are a weird hodgepodge of ideas culled from all sorts of influences, and while I am excited by things like seeing sheep and goats grazing beneath solar arrays, what really gets me excited is seeing stands of berries on the edge of an orchard, with alleys planted with perennial herbs and bee forage, and pockets of veggies popping up willy-nilly all over the place in unexpected locations.
I know not everyone can afford that much land, but one of the images I have seen that has impressed me most deeply over the last couple of decades is a picture of an apartment hi-rise in Nairobi where every single balcony has hanging sacks of growing potatoes, squash, etc. and the vacant lot next to it is full of amaranth, corn, and melons. We can feed the hungry and be kind to the Earth and we don't need inventions so much as we need commitment in order to do so.