Gunner wrote:
On Aug 7, 6:31 pm, "David Hare-Scott" wrote:
Gunner wrote:
On Jul 31, 9:10 pm, songbird wrote:
Billy wrote:
songbird wrote:

i wonder if they have a graywater recycling system
from the building plumbing available?

It sounds like they shunt all the gray water to one line that can
be switched to the garden, or the sewer.

Was that the question?

yes, water being scarce out there i can't
imagine it being feasible to keep a large
rooftop garden off the regular water supply.

songbird

I would say try hydroponics but it was invented more than a thousand
years ago and saves too much water!

Who invented hydroponics more than 1000 years ago?

Dr. Howard M. Resh: "The hanging gardens of Babylon, the floating
gardens of the Aztecs of Mexico and those of the Chinese are examples
of 'Hydroponic' culture. Egyptian hieroglyphic records dating back
several hundred years B.C. describe the growing of plants in water."
Hydroponics is hardly a new method of growing plants. However, giant
strides have been made over the years in this innovative area of
agriculture.


This is interesting. I would like to see the primary sources for this to
establish if (and how far) the author is stretching the definition of
"hydroponics". Two things come to mind, why did Resh put the word in
quotes, was he indicating that it was a stretch? I get the impression he
was deliberately using a broad definition by his standards to make a point
but not having read the man I can't be sure.

The second is that if you allow "growing plants in water" to be hydroponics
then anybody with pond plants is doing it and it has probably been been
carried out for much longer than 1000 years. If you define it as growing
plants in nutrient solutions then it seems hydroponics was toyed with in the
17th century but only got going in the 20th. Which makes sense as the
solutes would not have been available nor would the knowledge of chemistry.
I would be interested to know if there is any evidence of it in ancient
times by the tighter definition and how they did it.

David