Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#181
|
|||
|
|||
Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
|
#183
|
|||
|
|||
Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
|
#184
|
|||
|
|||
Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
In article , "Fran"
wrote: "paghat" wrote in message In article "Fran" wrote: [clips] I've grown spuds in tyres and I live in a house that friends who live in the city think is quite posh. So how often do you encounter this sort of thing? Or more to the point, why do you live in an area with such slummy places or go to such slummy places? Hey, YOU'RE the one who lives where it's "posh" to stack used tires in your front yard. You aren't reading what I wrote. I don't live where it is "posh" to grow spuds in tyres. I live in a house which others have described as "posh". I also happen to have grown potatoes in tyre stacks. I don't put these tyre stacks in my front yard. The previous poster did not mention growing spuds in tyres in his front yard either. You are the one that assumes that anyone who DOES grow spuds in tyres is a "trashoid". And you've reinforced the truth of it. When you said you "hide" the tires with other plants (such as rubarb, I'm sure that's a year-round disguise of a wondrous sort) you pretty much admitted even you can tell that a stack of tires in the yard still looks like garbage & needs to be hidden. So you lack sufficient aesthetic to care; I'm not saying people SHOULDN'T live like that, I'm just saying it takes trashoids to do so. But when I make a planter, or a trellis, or any garden ornamentation, it doesn't need to be hidden; if it slowly does vanish behind vines or shrubs, it wasn't because it was butt-ugly & needed hiding. As you said "spuds don't care where they grow" -- they certainly don't grow better because someone put them inside some trashy tires. Get the trash out of the yard & the plants will do just as well. Did you know old tires can leech enough zinc to kill some plants? Used tires are an enormous hazard to the environment -- but stacking them up in the gardens is not the answer to that problem. Spuds don't care where they grow The garbage dump wouldn't mind a few spuds either, or even some toxic waste for that matter! That comment is simply adding hysteria to stereotyping. Just in case you aren't aware of it, many tips (or dumps) around the world are now becoming very well cared for and have permananet tip attendants. These tip attendants often shred garden waste dumped in the tip and then compost it and either resell it to keen gardeners who know the value of recycling green waste or reuse it on beautification schemes in the dump. I know a great deal about recycling, but if you think keeping piles of tires in the yard is comparable to municiple composts, then there's just no easy communication between the earth I'm living on & your Tireland residence on Alpha Centauri. No one is compelling you to recycle anything but there is simply no call to leap to the worst possible scenario simply because someone does try to make use of discarded items. Keeping garbage in your yard is NOT recycling -- no more than tossing whiskey & beer bottles out your back window means they're "recycled" into a lovely pile that bindweed can "hide" for a couple months out of the year. Our household uses as little as possible of anything that even needs to be thrown out or recycled by any means other than our own compost -- so in our case we don't have the city cart off very much (our weekly garbage pick-up is rarely more than a third full can, sometimes entirely empty, & it's mildly annoying that those of us who DO NOT GENERATE much garbage have to pay the same rates as people who cram their cans full every week, most of it for a landfill). If you care about the environment, give up your car & whatever else generates huge amounts of difficult-to-recycle waste, but don't convince yourself that leaving parts of your car in the garden & trying to hide it with rhubarb is ecofriendly. Eco is not spelled u-g-l-y. They do not become your "trashoids" simply because they have discovered a good method to use for growing something in a tight space. The trashoids are in your mind. A couple things are just not rationally deniable, such as anyone who lines up "fancy" whiskey bottles of colored water in their window sills as "decorations," or uses tires for planters in their garden, really are going to be trash, even if most won't be able to know they're trash (or they wouldn't've mistaken old tires for a garden decorations to begin with). Some few are proud to be trash & good for them; if one's life is a living satire & that person knows it, that's just about admirable. But for most, the only question about the matter would be whether or not they are even MORE pathetic by having painted their garbagy tires white to "improve" the look. As well to stick little cocktail umbrellas in the dog's turds never cleaned out of the lawn, to make those nice yard decorations too. The only possible exception would be a garden intentionally automobile oriented. I visited a garden decorated with vintage gasoline pumps with lovely winding paths amidst beautiful shrubs. Being aesethetic people they did NOT include tire planters nor even rusty cars up on blocks -- but I could imagine how tires MIGHT have been used in that context (in a satiric manner at least) given their collection of gas-station kitsch & the gorgeous old gasoline pumps. -paggers -- "Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher. "Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature. -from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers" See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/ |
#186
|
|||
|
|||
Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
|
#187
|
|||
|
|||
Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
(dstvns) wrote in message ...
On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 04:26:33 GMT, (Richard Lewis) wrote: You have looked at the calorie levels of that garlic and those tomatoes, right? What you grew on 400 square feet will do nothing but slow your starvation by a slight bit. Oh I forgot...15 pounds of potatoes on an extra 30 square feet, plus just as many Jerusalem artichokes in the same amount of space on the other side of the yard. Hows 30 pounds of starch in an extra 60 square feet? Dan Build up, not out with tire stacks. Grow potatoes, jerusalem artichokes, and other root veggies. |
#188
|
|||
|
|||
Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
(Tallgrass) wrote in message . com...
(Edgar S.) wrote in message . com...snipped Even just a dozen tire stacks with home raised potatoes would be nice to have and takes little effort. snipped again Tire stacks....what are these, adn how does one work with them? stack them up, fill with compost. As I understand it, u harvest the spuds by removing one tire at a time. The tire stack saves space and conserves water. Water evaporates off the stacks more slowly than it does off the ground. While the tires indeed would be ugly to look at out in the open, it would not be too difficult to plant something in front of them... or put them behind some kind of facade.... maybe a rammed earth wall in front with access to the tire stack from the rear. Having MULTIPLE dumped tires in my creekbed, I would love to find a use for them, once I pull them up the ravine! And a refrigerator....any suggestions, other than an aquarium? Planter? Other? My father used his old 'fridge as a tool chest. It worked very well and was handy. The shelves remained in place. The tool shop was very neat. |
#189
|
|||
|
|||
Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 19:50:33 GMT, (dstvns) wrote:
On Sun, 14 Dec 2003 01:42:22 GMT, (Richard A. Lewis) wrote: On a 3,000-4,000cal diet, you'll need to eat approximately 12 pounds of potatoes per day just to maintain your body weight. Add in the artichokes, if they're of a comparable cal level as the taters, and you got just over two days of food before you start starving. Who the hell eats 4 thousand calories a day? And of those that did, how many would try to get all of those calories from a single food source like potatos? I just pray for their sake that they don't try to raise a lone crop of Habanero peppers. I don't know how many pounds of those you would have to choke down per day but I think spontanious human combustion would be the result. :-) A thanksgiving dinner is 2000. Are you going on personal experience with calorie intake? I would hate to have you as a dependent. By the way, thanks for being a regular ray of sunshine, I didn't know there was gonna be a pop quiz on this. As I said in my first post, I DONT KNOW how many acres require self-sufficiency. Dan kb9wfk |
#191
|
|||
|
|||
Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
|
#192
|
|||
|
|||
Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
"rick etter" wrote:
Obviously not the lard butt that sits on the computer all day. There are, however, many occupations/activities that will burn off far more than 2000 calories in a days work or a few hours a day workouts. That you are too lazy to actually work/exercise doesn't mean that others are. Well-said, Rick. Too many folks think that gardening or farming is just as easy as using a can opener in the long run. It's far from it. ral |
#193
|
|||
|
|||
Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
In article ,
wrote: On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 00:58:11 -0800, (paghat) wrote: [clips\ I live in the middle of an ag area, where its far cheaper and easier to buy 100lbs of Red Russets for $5USD right off the loading dock. Gunner The reason I now grow mostly ornamental gardens is because I'm less inclined in my middle years to do a shitload of work to end up with something I can buy way too cheaply with no work at all -- yet I don't mind doing the same amount of work for the sake of unusual shade plants or flowering shrubs. But in the past when I was a veggy-gardening fiend it was because the activity itself was joyous, canning was such great fun, I loved the company of my aunty who had the space & devotion for keeping these activities on schedule, & the resultant meals were much, much, much better than ever could be store-bought. There may also have been times when a dollar saved meant something too, but mainly it was for the intense fun of it all. I do remember a year when finances were so tight that harvesting in the forest was necessary rather than merely fun -- I threw a party & fed a great many people a spectacularly good borsch made of gleanings & the only part of it that wasn't wild was the beets, & those were free at closing-time in the farmer's market. Mostly it was never from need; & today I only ever do that sort of thing because I get a charge out of having free stuff to eat even when I don't need to save mere nickles. And experimenting with stuff that is edible but not often harvested by anyone else is an inexplicable pleasure. There are many local berries people will swear are poisonous, & which sometimes do taste nasty raw, but they can be cooked, sieved & mixed with apples & spices to taste very wonderful -- though even if something comes out mediocre I had fun giving it a try. I'm sure it's in great part a biologicial "gatherer" response & there're so many attendant pleasures to doing one's gathering in the woods or in a personal garden than in grocery ailes. Not everything in life is related to the price tag, & the reward is not quite quantifiable as cash earned or saved. I can't today imagine spending the whole damned week doing nothing but cold-packing tomatos, or canning free pie-cherries, but I do some very occasional canning if my sweety & I can get it all done in one day -- it's become a "break" from the important things instead of the main thing it once was. When someone proposes the idea of doing it as a "survivalist" or to be totally self-sufficient, I think that's admirable & I don't believe it is difficult to do successfully. Lately I'd rather grow species tulips or write a monograph on an obscure Victorian author or dick around on the web or watch Japanese films on DVD, but when my aunt was still alive, a lot of that energy went into growing stuff to eat & canning as much of it as we had jars for. Life changed ten times since then, but if life had been less dynamic & I still lived on my aunt's land hoeing rows of veggies & pruning fruit trees, I can imagine many a life spent at dumber things. -paggers -- "Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher. "Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature. -from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers" See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/ |
#194
|
|||
|
|||
Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
"Fran" wrote:
Oh for Heavens sake! You are being patronising and heading off the track into pure fantasy. Bucket asked about a self sufficient lifestyle. Bucket did NOT ask about a vegan lifestyle or what the many froot loops at misc.survivalism go on about when they congregate for a fantasy session. Sorry, Fran. I don't know who the hell "Bucket" is nor do I really care. I was replying to Dan, Linda, Noah, Gunner etc. Snipped a bunch of useless bullshit.... I remember once asking how many gardeners there were in misc.survivalism and there were about 3 who admitted to it Ask how many gardeners in your group know how to treat a colicky mare or how to go about butchering a hog and I'd venture a guess that not many care to know. One such as yourself could argue that it's "a part of farming".... In misc.survivalism, only the absolute hardcore folks bother to plan or prep for your Doomsday....most, plan and prep for the next blizzard or thunderstorm etc. Snipped more useless garbage.... Right about now, someone on the gardening groups will be typing out an irate "but my family did it during the Depression and I grew up just fine". Nuff said. More garbage snipped.... No mention of eating only spuds or even adding the odd cauliflower or bit of corn. Fantasy can be fun at times but all you are doing is restricting the topic to one hobby horse involving a restricted set of annual vegetables. No....I was answering a fellow who made the implied claim that growing a year's worth of food in a garden was easy. Was I wrong? ral |
#195
|
|||
|
|||
Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement?
|
Reply |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement? | Edible Gardening | |||
Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement? (getting fuel) | Gardening | |||
Where is Bucket?! Was: Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement? | Edible Gardening | |||
Where is Bucket?! Was: Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement? | Gardening | |||
Where is Bucket?! Was: Self-Sufficiency Acreage Requirement? | Gardening |