On food/heat production/conservation

[tangent4ronpaul]

On the growing space issue - this can be thought of differently.

For potato's - TMEN had a method that works well where you fill a trash can in layers with soil - a foot of soil, 3-4 potato's, a foot of soil, etc. pole maybe 1" holes around the sides for drainage and the vines to come out of - at the end of the season you will have a container full of potato's.

The use of greenhouses and hot sheds can extend if not double the growing season. We had a passive solar greenhouse where we could grow year round.

Deep beds take time and energy to put in, but let you plant closer.

You can push bed use by having a plant with high leaves sharing space with something like carrots or radishes. Alternately, put in the next crop as the previous one nears harvest.

sprouts are a low space and quick way to provide greens.

I know I've mentioned it before, but Solar Algae Ponds are wonderful! - here you have a cylinder of fiberglass glassing on a base of the same material. You fill it with water, tilapia and a seed of algae (that will probably volunteer anyway), then put a reflector behind it. Algae eats fish wastes, fish eat algae and you can grow plants hydroponically on the top. This also provides deep storage of thermal energy with a slow release. As the sides let sunlight in you produce a lot of algae and can stock fish in much higher concentrations than normal aquaculture would allow. Dead algae and fish dropping on the bottom can be drawn off and used as nitrogen rich fertilizer.

A variation of this is adding something called the NFT or Nutrient Film Technique which is something NASA was playing with for growing crops in space. You take a pump and draw water off the bottom of the tank and pump it to the top of the greenhouse - starting there you have suspended boards at a slight angle cascading back and forth with a tube of black plastic suspended on each. - they are a sheet of plastic formed into a tube and raised slightly with clothespins. water goes down one, falls off the end into the next and so on back and forth. Aside from a slight misting system for the greenhouse, this will act as a hydroponics system growing a large number of plants in un-used vertical space. It will also oxygenate the water allowing even higher fish stocking densities. Yes, the final waterfall returns to the SAP.

This is a semi-closed system - needing sunlight and additional water from time to time. It stores and releases heat, produces heat, fish, vegetables and fertilizer. If tied into a hydo-ponics system you also have a biological water filter and in different configurations could use it to purify water.

Making a greenhouse part of a home (knock out a wall) aids heating the home (passive) and simplifies supplemental heat for the greenhouse when it's really cold.

-t

[Dieseler]

I heard about growing potatoes in drums and I can't remember where but recently I read the idea of growing them in tires. Used tires can be picked up for nothing and stacked as you add the dirt over the potato plants and I don't see a reason to poke any holes for drainage either so sounds like a good idea to try that.
I still have my house on the market and hope it sells but if it doesn't I'll be covering the liner of my 15 x 30 pool with black plastic and trying my hand at tilapia farming as well.
I don't see any need of running that big pump all summer in this economy without getting something out of it.
As a matter of fact I probably won't use that big pump except for vacuuming the bottom waste off into barrels or directly into the garden for watering and fertilizer. The rest of the time I'll just keep a few aerators running in it.

Now that I think about it, I believe it was you tangent who supplied me with the link that got me thinking about doing this.
http://www.nature.my.cape.com/greencenter/home.htm
Thanks.

[rancher89]

yeah, the tire deal will work well for potatoes.

I've seen people growing tomatoes in old washing machine tubs.

While in the Linen & Things scoping out their liqudation going out of business sale, I had my eye on a cool tower, that would have been perfect for a strawberry tower....

reuse stuff....tilapia do well in confined quarters--that makes them a good choice, plus they are a "neutral" tasting meat, you can do almost anything with it.

[raystone]

We had a passive solar greenhouse where we could grow year round.

Want to do this...is there a link to a pic of this, or a description available ?

[Bruno]

Want to do this...is there a link to a pic of this, or a description available ?

love your new avatar!

[tangent4ronpaul]

Want to do this...is there a link to a pic of this, or a description available ?

hmmm... I'll see if I can find some pics, or a scale drawing, but for now a description. It was perhaps 80' long, 40' wide and 30' tall. the front was 2 layers of glazing separated by a wood spacer and both caulked into place - this for each cell that lived between structural beams. The angle of them was calculated to be an average of 90 to the sun at our latitude. the top was flat, and at one time had water fed solar panels (homemade). On the right side was a vestibule (small room with an entrance and exit door giving access to the greenhouse so that minimal heat was lost coming and going. just inside you would find 2 levels - the lower one separated tron the upper by a row of water filled 55 gallon barrels that acted as a retaining barrier and as heat storage. we also used the top of them to hold pots and starter trays. The front was basically growing bed - not much to say here. the back had a path just past the barrels and on the right half we had a loft type area - the larger section to the left of the stairs was lower to the ground and covered a 10' diameter x perhaps 50' deep water tank made of cement pipe that acted as long term, slow release heat storage. There was a trap door in this platform for access. the higher platform was smaller but big enough for a couple of ppl to sleep on. between the supports for the higher loft were, going from left to right: stairs, path, and potting bench with a growing bed under the bench. at the end of the path was a door leading to a storrage room that ran the length of the width of the larger and lower platform to the right most outer wall. There was a wall in the middle separating the right side of this upper level from the left side. The left side was deeper, as it didn't have the storage area taking up room, and had a wrap around, potting bench on 2 sides - IIRC. and a growing area in the middle. All walls were heavily insulated and there was a door a door on the left side that we never used excepting in the middle of summer to help vent heat. oh - yeah - there was a tree growing in the middle.

On the huge water tank - it was really overkill and never filled when I was there. Still would have been nice to have as it got really gold up in the mountains sometimes. Overall, it kept growing temperatures or at least plant survival temperatures year round without it. Nice place! and the kind of thing you could build. umm - yeah, the vestibule had greenhouse glazing too so it would heat up between used and not let cold air just sit there between passages. In the summer we used the front of it for additional starter space. - and there were outside beds and a 3 stage compost bin too (outside).

As to cost for such a project - the most expensive part would be the glazing followed by the optional huge piping/excavator/crane rental then wood and insulation and 55 gal barrels. I'd guess it would cost $5-10,000 to build today if you did most of the work yourself and I'd be building one yesterday if I had better suitable land to build it on.

-t

ps: I'm really guesstimating on dimensions.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Forgot a few things - there was a exhaust fan at the top right wall (air tight shutters) that we could turn on to vent heat on really hot days. We were looking into building a thermal curtain to help with heat retention at night - that's basically a thick mylar curtain you can let down or at night or when it's cloudy. either of these could be operated by sensors, in an ideal world.

If you are serious about doing this I highly suggest you track down a copy of the very out of print book: "The Food and Heat Producing Solar Greenhouse" - it's available via Amazon or used.addall.com starting at about $4 + shipping and among other things has some of the most lucid explanations on using sun charts as well as everything you want to know about designing and building a solar greenhouse. A companion book in the same style and size/shape is: "The Bountiful Solar Greenhouse" that is available from the same sources starting at about $10. I also highly recommend this book. These 2 books and "The Self Sufficient Gardener" - used starting at $6.50 - were the 3 we used - our "bibles" and we got outstanding results! I highly recommend you pick up all 3. Also, get a good soil test kit - they can be hard to find in the first place, but get one that will do many, many tests and custom mix your soil for each bed to be optimum for the crop you're growing. You won't believe the results.

I should note that the author of The Bountiful Solar Greenhouse added an Amazon review stating:

"I am the author and this book was written back in the 1980s. A lot has changed since then. If you want instructions for more plants, more in-depth detail, and more information about ornamental plants for the greenhouse please check the copyright 2000 edition of Greenhouse Gardener's Companion." (it's the 2nd edition)

I have not seen the book he refers to but he also wrote it and it's twice the size. Thanks for asking the question - think I'm going to have to order myself a Christmas present! :) and what is this? "The *NEW* Self Sufficient Gardener" is a highlighted book - looks like John Seymour revised one of my recommendations above - and wrote 2 more books: "The New Complete Book of Self Sufficiency" and "The Self Sufficient life and How to Live it". And lets see - customers that bought this book also bought... we've got a book on natural cold storage and another on saving seeds, and.... WHOA! - my wallet just just jumped out of my pocket and is hiding, quivering behind a chair... I hate when that happens - BAD AMAZON!, BAD BAD WEB SITE! - LOL

The SAP was placed in the middle of the lower area - basically because that's where we had space ofr it at the time and not because it would have been the best position.

Considering your latitude - I'd suggest looking into super insulation. in a nutshell a design style that completely seals a structure. Framing is done normally insulated, then a vapor barrier is added, then a second layer of framing is added horizontally to support the inner walls. That means that conductive heat loss is minimized to a 1"x1" area through the framing. Yes, it's more expensive - but you will really like your heating bills ;) a really well done house this way can be heated by body heat alone. For a greenhouse, your main problem will be venting heat. There is more to it that I just told you, but do the research.

If you want to build a SAP, order the technical bulletin: 2. How To Construct a Solar Algae Pond. 4 pp. $1.50 from NAI:
http://www.nature.my.cape.com/greencenter/publbymail.htm

they have some things online too:
http://www.nature.my.cape.com/greencenter/pubonline.html
http://www.nature.my.cape.com/greencenter/pdf/solaraqua.pdf
http://www.nature.my.cape.com/greencenter/pdf/naibiosh.pdf
http://www.nature.my.cape.com/greencenter/naibioshelter.html

The New Alchemy Quarterly is also very interesting - well, most of their stuff is, though some is technical reports that order on being boring with research results in excruciating detail as opposed to the more useful "How To" type stuff they publish. One I remember that was great was the one on biological pest control - both companion planting and beneficial insects. Look up your local botanical gardens and inquire about a part of them almost nobody uses - their library. They ask the librarian about a resource most library users have never heard of called "vertical files" - these are filing cabinets with things like reports, handouts and newsletters - if they subscribed to the New Alchemy Quarterly, they would Live here and may or may not be listed in the card catalog or known to exist by the librarian. You will find other good stuff you will want to copy or books you will want to track down and buy here too.

-t

[tmosley]

You can spread out newspaper, place potatoes down on them, then cover them with a few inches of straw, and they will grow like that. You can just pick them up out of the straw when you want to eat them, no muss, no fuss.

A friend of the family (big time farmer and PhD horticulturist) told me about it. I'm probably going to give it a whirl next year.

[raystone]

Forgot a few things - there was a exhaust fan at the top right wall (air tight shutters) that we could turn on to vent heat on really hot days. We were looking into building a thermal curtain to help with heat retention at night - that's basically a thick mylar curtain you can let down or at night or when it's cloudy. either of these could be operated by sensors, in an ideal world.

If you are serious about doing this I highly suggest you track down a copy of the very out of print book: "The Food and Heat Producing Solar Greenhouse" - it's available via Amazon or used.addall.com starting at about $4 + shipping and among other things has some of the most lucid explanations on using sun charts as well as everything you want to know about designing and building a solar greenhouse. A companion book in the same style and size/shape is: "The Bountiful Solar Greenhouse" that is available from the same sources starting at about $10. I also highly recommend this book. These 2 books and "The Self Sufficient Gardener" - used starting at $6.50 - were the 3 we used - our "bibles" and we got outstanding results! I highly recommend you pick up all 3. Also, get a good soil test kit - they can be hard to find in the first place, but get one that will do many, many tests and custom mix your soil for each bed to be optimum for the crop you're growing. You won't believe the results.

I should note that the author of The Bountiful Solar Greenhouse added an Amazon review stating:

"I am the author and this book was written back in the 1980s. A lot has changed since then. If you want instructions for more plants, more in-depth detail, and more information about ornamental plants for the greenhouse please check the copyright 2000 edition of Greenhouse Gardener's Companion." (it's the 2nd edition)

I have not seen the book he refers to but he also wrote it and it's twice the size. Thanks for asking the question - think I'm going to have to order myself a Christmas present! :) and what is this? "The *NEW* Self Sufficient Gardener" is a highlighted book - looks like John Seymour revised one of my recommendations above - and wrote 2 more books: "The New Complete Book of Self Sufficiency" and "The Self Sufficient life and How to Live it". And lets see - customers that bought this book also bought... we've got a book on natural cold storage and another on saving seeds, and.... WHOA! - my wallet just just jumped out of my pocket and is hiding, quivering behind a chair... I hate when that happens - BAD AMAZON!, BAD BAD WEB SITE! - LOL

The SAP was placed in the middle of the lower area - basically because that's where we had space ofr it at the time and not because it would have been the best position.

Considering your latitude - I'd suggest looking into super insulation. in a nutshell a design style that completely seals a structure. Framing is done normally insulated, then a vapor barrier is added, then a second layer of framing is added horizontally to support the inner walls. That means that conductive heat loss is minimized to a 1"x1" area through the framing. Yes, it's more expensive - but you will really like your heating bills ;) a really well done house this way can be heated by body heat alone. For a greenhouse, your main problem will be venting heat. There is more to it that I just told you, but do the research.

If you want to build a SAP, order the technical bulletin: 2. How To Construct a Solar Algae Pond. 4 pp. $1.50 from NAI:
http://www.nature.my.cape.com/greencenter/publbymail.htm

they have some things online too:
http://www.nature.my.cape.com/greencenter/pubonline.html
http://www.nature.my.cape.com/greencenter/pdf/solaraqua.pdf
http://www.nature.my.cape.com/greencenter/pdf/naibiosh.pdf
http://www.nature.my.cape.com/greencenter/naibioshelter.html

The New Alchemy Quarterly is also very interesting - well, most of their stuff is, though some is technical reports that order on being boring with research results in excruciating detail as opposed to the more useful "How To" type stuff they publish. One I remember that was great was the one on biological pest control - both companion planting and beneficial insects. Look up your local botanical gardens and inquire about a part of them almost nobody uses - their library. They ask the librarian about a resource most library users have never heard of called "vertical files" - these are filing cabinets with things like reports, handouts and newsletters - if they subscribed to the New Alchemy Quarterly, they would Live here and may or may not be listed in the card catalog or known to exist by the librarian. You will find other good stuff you will want to copy or books you will want to track down and buy here too.

-t

Thank you ! Amazing info