Le Potager du Sloth: Gardening without fatigue more than Bio

[calousorb]

Good in contrast in the greenhouse that I copiously watered all winter (about 4000l) for 18m2, the earth is rather flexible and works very well. I had left in October, the decaying tomato plants, the BRF, and over the hay about 15 to 20 cm. I conclude that when the earth has not had time to dry up (I speak of my land) I can not plant anything without adding soil to replace the portion of land that I remove. For that I use of course potted plants that I realized in early spring in my small greenhouse. FYI I use a bulbous plant that removes a piece of land based on the sink realized, then I deposit my plant and I complete with a little soil.

I also confirm that the warming and therefore the restart of my plants is only effective since 10 days, as regards subculture.
So much for my experience. If I also plant the shallots and onions as Didier does through the hay and for now the result is rather successful.

Another info for those like me who accuse slugs of being voracious cabbage (even if it's very real anyway) we have an "enemy" that I caught grazing my cabbages, and well this are the wood pigeons !! It will peel you a slug cabbage in the blink of an eye! Result all my cabbages are defoliated and I do not know if they will restart !! Looks like jagged slug bites but they are not slugs!
So much for my contribution to this forum! I'm going back to reading !!

[Did67]

I no longer know where we discussed "self-sufficiency".

I like to switch the speeches to a "macroeconomic radiography with consistency filter".

For the energetic need of a family, no mystery is normal: a male adult is 2 800 kcal / day; for the 2 200 woman and children, it's 1 600 kcal. A family of 2 adults / 2 children needs about 8 200 kcal / day. Let 2,99 millions of kcal / year (by multiplying by 365), that one will smoothly round to 3 millions of kcal / year (well yes, there is at least one greedy in the band).

To find out what the realistic "collection" of solar calories by crops can be, I took one of the "easy" plants, the potato. It produces about 45 t / ha per year (in intensive cultivation), which corresponds to 9 t of Dry Matter / ha and per year. Similar to starch with a calorie content of 340 kcal / 100 g (it is in the tables of nutritionists). So 1 kg of DM is 3 kcal.

So for 10 m² (1 000 times less than one ha, which is 10 000 m²), that makes, if one rounds generously to 10 t of MS per ha, 10 kg of MS for these 10 m². Let 34 000 kcal.

Of course, we can, in our climates, pick up some kcal in winter / spring with lettuce, lambs, spinach, some cabbages. But a lot of water! The days being short, the temperatures low, how ??? I do not think it reaches 30% ...

Of course, by combining cultures, we can slightly increase the overall yield of photosynthesis. I doubt we get more than 20%. Those who promise significantly greater "synergies" tell you stories. Because if "above", the corn is luxuriant, below the light will fail the beans ... And if they are tied up there, they share the incident energy ...

All in all, let's say we can hope to "harvest" 150% of what the potato alone produces. Roughly: 50 kcal per year over 000 m².

Reconcile the 2 digits:

- caloric need of a family: 3 millions of kcal / year

- production on 10 m²: 50 000 kcal / year.

Before I fall for the saddle, I remind you that water does not provide calories. That makes pounds, of course. But a tomato is 93 to 94% of the fleet. And the share of "biomass" collected is much lower than on potatoes: we "throw" leaves and stems and roots ... And this is the case for many vegetables! A variable part of the biomass produced is not collected (at least the roots and the mycorrhizae they fed remain in the soil!).

[Size = 150]Let 1,6% !!![/ size]

This is the degree of caloric self-sufficiency possible, on 10 m². We can generously round to 2%. And even double, to take a margin, hoping to make 2 crops per year (in our climate): 3% ...

The question seems to me decided (even if the chipoteurs will quibble): we can be self-sufficient in radish, garlic or rutabagas. As long as we accept a dependency of more than 90% for the rest of our needs: other vegetables, starchy foods, flours, pasta, bread, rice, quinoa, soya, lentils, chick peas, sugar, oils ... I do not speak no meat, which would otherwise plague the balance sheet! So apart from claiming it, getting dishonest from advertising, (and deceiving people), what's the point of what ????? To be proud to produce 100% of its radishes (which do not feed) being dependent on the market for 95% of our energy needs, those who feed? And those who are the subject of speculation in Chicago? (I do not think that the radish is quoted, wheat, rice, sugar, soy, yes!) You speak of a revolution! What people can be credulous and cons!

In theory, with the "rounded" upwards, if you never miss a crop, if you are strictly vegetarian, you could become energy self-sufficient around 400 m² ... And yet, I am far from it! Especially because I cultivate a lot of pleasant things, but which feed little: strawberries, raspberries, salads, radishes, green beans ... Because obviously, I only calculated "calories". Not "pleasure" (taste), not "vitamins", not "anti-oxidants", not "trace elements", etc ...

[Adrien (ex-nico239)]

Good in contrast in the greenhouse that I copiously watered all winter (about 4000l) for 18m2, the earth is rather flexible and works very well.

We did not do it and we were wrong.

We thought we should change that next winter ...

Not easy however when you have to cut the water outside ... the winter ...

But you're right I think it's useful to maintain and improve this place not watered by definition.

Hence my choice to drop the purchase of a second tunnel for the benefit of chassis ... much easier to use.

But then it's "summer" and I pushed back their production in the fall

To be continued...

[Did67]

It is for this reason that I wanted to "perfect" my greenhouse: collect the water on the sides, in two gutters, "pump" it back into a 1 m cubitainer.³ placed in height, from where, by simple gravity, and via drip pipes (or porous pipes - I still hesitate; I will have to do flow tests according to the pressure), it would be reinjected in "live" in the greenhouse ... Everything would happen as if it were raining in my greenhouse, without however wetting the foliage to control fungal diseases (those caused by fungi - including downy mildew) ...

NB: This is not sufficient in summer, because a greenhouse is first and foremost a dryer, as the heat rises there; evaporation of water follows, even if the ground is covered; and as we are forced to open, the water vapor goes away ... The water re-injection system is therefore seen more as a "minimum wage" than as a real water supply ...

NBNB: Well me too, I'm late in my work; I get out of my weekends [this "bridge", 3 visits to the garden and 2 conferences; every day on the bridge!] and on Mondays I'm a little chewing gum ... The ideas are there. But not carried out.

NBNBNB: In conventional gardening, we water the vegetables. We are first given to drink to soil organisms. And we avoid that glus harden (as would glue tapestry!) And that the ground does not become hard. And, incidentally, we give to drink vegetables ...

[Adrien (ex-nico239)]

It is for this reason that I wanted to "perfect" my greenhouse

In my opinion there is an idea to dig and a patent to file

Last week at the market gardener who has sophisticated and diversified watering systems (drip, from above ... etc) in her greenhouses I asked her if she had a way to recover rainwater for the reuse in his greenhouses ...

Well, no ...

Something is wrong here ... I go back immediately as Boris Vian would say

[Did67]

1) Fortunately, there are horticulturists who recover the water ...

Without ads, for example: https://richel.fr/produits/recuperation-eaux-pluviales/

https://richel.fr/produits/stockage/

2) But even because of what I wrote, the amount of water that falls on a greenhouse is small compared to the needs of the greenhouse, at least over a good part of the summer (and late spring and early fall). So we need another source and more! Some installations are made with boreholes ...

[Julienmos]

Especially because I grow a lot of nice things, but which feed little: strawberries, raspberries, salads, radishes, green beans ... Because obviously, I only calculated "calories". Not "pleasure" (taste), not "vitamins", not "anti-oxidants", not "trace elements", etc ...

pleasant things, but also and above all good for health! also because it is "more than organic"

but what good is it, with all the junk in the trade that we have to eat elsewhere to "feed"?

[Did67]

Yes. It was just to say that you can not be self-sufficient and eat a balanced diet on the 400 m² theoretical that I calculated (taking compote only for calories, and taking as a benchmark one of the most "productive" plants).

The calorie yield of my strawberries and raspberries, it must be a few kcal per m² and per year! Negligible in my calculation.

But we agree, indispensable, for the reasons given ...

[Moindreffor]

a remark that will appreciate Didier
last year it was a big hassle to plant the tomato stakes, so much so that I only planted pickets the first day and the tomatoes the next day, this year, they went back into the ground like in butter, while last year some were not even completely buried, there all nickel, 5 min, so I was able to transplant tomatoes as a result

So I'm taking a break and maybe I'll put my celeriac in the stride.

1) I am indeed quite happy when I did not lead people into some things that would ultimately disappoint them !!! I no longer have any doubts about the "strength" of the phenomenon of aggregation, as the testimonies converge. Often with each other, a mark of astonishment, which shows that we often believed in it but without really believing it! I prefer people to watch. Not that they believe!

2) But I especially hope that it is you who appreciates !!!!

yes you can not know how to plant these stakes was a real chore, so I'll put some more
when you do not have health, and that you can again be autonomous and active, you appreciate, and that it is thanks to the phenoculture

[Moindreffor]

good, well the coffee grounds, it just allowed the slugs to throw a little black in addition to my cabbage leaves, it must also be said that just after its establishment, it fell a good shower of hail, fortunately no damage
I will continue testing

today transplanting 2 feet of pumpkin, and 2 feet of eggplant, the garden fills gradually, the beans in buckets point their nose, I will sow other just after the transplanting of these as it will make me a good ride

if not for self-sufficiency, I agree with Didier except that we can do the "welding" as my father said with a lot of things, in the middle of the century my grandfather succeeded, but his vegetable garden was 1 m²So self-sufficient yes, but not with a vegetable patch and canning and adding to that an orchard of 600 m² for canned fruit and jam
in my memory, he passed itinerant merchants to sell apricots, the only fruit that my grandmother bought to make jams, she would also harvest wild blackberries, mushrooms from pastures, the grass of the orchard gave hay for rabbits and the kitchen waste partly fed the chickens, they bought some wheat on the farm opposite