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  • From: gloria@aquaponicfarm.com
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] World Hunger Best Cured by Small-Scale Agriculture
  • Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2011 08:45:13 -0600

Goats don't eat grass unless they have to. They have cleaned out all the
better weeds we have and left the coastal Bermuda.

Gloria

On Jan 15, 2011, at 8:33 AM, "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net> wrote:

>
> I'm quite familiar with coastal bermuda; as a teenager we set out 30 acres
> of plugs the wet spring of '57, the year of the Dallas tornado. It made
> great pasture and that's what you can do with it, goats perhaps? Not
> everybody can grow gardens where they are.
>
> I assume you read the part where I pointed out poor growing practices can
> waste all that water, and organic intensive, water conserving as I do uses
> far less. BTW I get one third the rainfall you do.
>
> paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>
> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
>
> On 1/15/2011 at 1:03 AM paul@oneseedling.com wrote:
>
>> Glad you quoted that article. We live in South Texas where temperatures
>> reach 105+ regularly. In that same article it stated it could easily
>> double from the 120 gallons per month. Therefore "hundreds" of gallons.
>> Here we can only grow gardens in very small plots due to super invasive
>> coastal bermuda grass. One just cannot grow without constant backbreaking
>> pulling grasses and weekly tilling. That much tilling is destructive to
>> nutrients and microorganisms alike. Local farmers use chemicals to control
>> the grass, something we will not do. Heavy mulching only encourages the
>> grasses growth. Our super hard water causes the small emitters in drip
>> irrigation to stop up.
>> The grass can send runners 3 ft in one week, so even though my grow beds
>> are 3 ft off the ground I still pull grass from the beds weekly.
>> In our situation aquaponics just make sense. For others, not so much. If I
>> had my choice, dirt farming would be it, but high temps in the summer, low
>> rainfall totals (31 in) and time make it difficult.
>> Paul the Skeptic
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Jan 14, 2011, at 8:01 PM, "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Here we go again. You say your grow beds use around 75 gallons of water
>> per month to grow intensively on 60 sqft. and dirt gardens require
>> hundreds of gallons to grow the same amount. Hundreds of gallons on just
>> 60 sq ft each month?
>>>
>>> I suppose there are those who don't know of the hundreds studies and
>> books produced by Rodale Press over the last 60 years or so, covering
>> moisture and nutrient retentive organic soil building and mulching, and
>> all the research elsewhere on intensive and drip irrigation.
>>>
>>> You're comparing your water use to the most water wasting situation
>> imaginable, outdoor gardens with wide, empty aisles, bare sandy soil and
>> high evaporation irrigation. Which of course is nothing like irrigating
>> moisture-retentive (high organic matter) intensive beds properly with
>> drip and mulch to reduce evaporation, and no water on the aisles we walk
>> on.
>>>
>>> Take a heavy feeder like tomatoes for example.
>>> from Cornell: http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/pubs/ask/irrigation.html
>>>
>>> "Tomatoes need a minimum of one inch of water per week, preferably 1.5
>> inches in the heat of the summer. The bed measures 60 square feet (3 feet
>> x 20 feet). One inch of water on one square foot is about a half gallon of
>> water. For 60 square feet, you would need at least 30 gallons (60 feet x
>> 0.5 gallons). That's a minimum amount needed in one week and you could
>> easily double this amount in the summer."
>>>
>>> So that's about 120 gallons per month for 60 sq ft of tomatoes (more in
>> high heat). BUT we know the amount varies with conditions such as wind
>> protection, temperature, humidity, mulch, and stage of growth. Mine are in
>> framed beds (we don't water the aisles) in the greenhouse (for wind and
>> frost protection) well amended with organic compost and mulched with drip
>> irrigation, and they produce heavily for months. So my conditions conserve
>> water in three ways and on average it very likely uses less than the 120
>> gal figure, even in our semi arid climate. And get $5 lb for our Italian
>> heirloom Genovese.
>>>
>>> paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>
>
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