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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Douglas Hinds <cedecor@gmx.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc: Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Natural hydroponics, aquatic foodweb & quality food
  • Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2013 22:13:13 -0500


On 4/8/2013 8:21 PM, sals3 wrote:

what I'm trying to say is you can set up a soil-food-web, hydroponically

No Sal, not me, not you, not Toby and not even Lawrence. You can only do here on this list, for discussion sake (and even then only if you play Flamenco guitar).

Hydroponics as it is commonly practiced is a lifeless, industrialized form of ag production and the results aren't fit to be eaten. Is anyone actually using compost tea as a growing medium?

And if so, what do they grow, Aquatic Plants? (Water Chestnuts, Edible Seaweed -algae, & / or Wild Rice, maybe along with carp or catfish), a very limited environment, for cultivating the kind of food I eat.

My idea of agriculture is more like what you, Sal Schettino grow, except that most of your trees are grafted and you are probably in much worse shape than I am.

(My 94 year old mother is in the S.F. Bay Area and if you have any seedling fruit on hand, let me know - she can use it).

Douglas

----- Original Message -----

From: "sals3" <sals3@cox.net>
To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Cc: "Toby Hemenway" <toby@patternliteracy.com>
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2013 4:56 PM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Natural hydroponics, aquatic foodweb & quality
food


Been busy since yesterday and hadn't seen this thread (with three
separate subject headers) until now. This is how it started (I wrote):

Wikipedia defines hydroponics as follows:

*Hydroponics* is a subset of hydroculture and is a method of
growing
plants<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant> using mineral nutrient
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrient> solutions, in water,
without
soil<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil>. Terrestrial plants may be
grown with their roots<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root> in the
mineral nutrient solution only or in an inert medium,


Which the way I understand hydroponics: There's no soil, no
soil-food-web, no soil biology - it's not even agriculture (much less
permaculture), which helps explain why I become distempered if I eat
even a little (something which I would not knowingly do).
Lawrence took exception (he said it wasn't true) and cited you, and
wanted me to look for your earlier posts on this subject, (which i did
not intend to do), but then he reposted them, so I read them and must
admit that water (or swamp, or compost tea) can be a (very) biologically
active medium.

In practice (however), in most cases it isn't, because most of those
that implement hydroponic systems aren't thing in biological terms. Be
that as it may, it CAN be built into the equation, if and when:

Whoever doing it wants create an artificial ag production system and use
it for growing food because THAT (dear friends) is what all this is
about (sez me)!

O lives in the Everglades or Okefenoee Swamp (on a house boat or an
island)

And are willing to forget about little things like Soil Tilth and all
that it stands for.

So it's kind of an academic issue, IMO.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AlligatorFL2007.JPG
<cid:part5.09060908.02080201@gmx.net>

An alligator lounges on a log in the Okefenokee Swamp.


Earlier Today April 07, 2013 at 01:52 PM, Toby Hemenway wrote:

... I have mixed feelings about hydroponics, like aquaponics and many
other tech-heavy forms of food production (which is most of modern ag:
How much of your food uses a tractor?)
Not a heck of a lot. This is what I ate today:

Guamuchiles Pithecellobium dulce
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pithecellobium_dulce>

Mangoes <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangifera_indica> (but not the
ones sent to the USA, which are all grafted varieties)

Mamey Sopote <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pouteria_sapota>

None of these are grafted.

Hydroponics makes sense to me in limited cases, such as where soils are
toxic and organic matter, access to land, and the other pieces of
"natural" agriculture are limited, and where tech resources are easy to
get. Cities, in other words.
I may live in a city at present (because politics and ag policy is what
I am doing) but my food (what keeps me alive) is brought in from outside
(but nearby).
Hydroponics and such can't be considered regenerative, so I can see why
anyone slightly purist would loathe them.
Don't loathe, I just don't eat them.

I would like to see us all growing food in healthy soil,
<snip>

In (narrow) terms of nutrition, soil is a delivery medium to get
minerals into plants.
IMO, soil is the result of a long term evolutionary process and an
environment in which terrestrial organisms have evolved and adapted.

Sure, there are other ways to go, but I myself have a long evolutionary
history and I accept it. I'm not adapted to swamps or cities, flying in
the sky or life in the deep blue sea.

I want to remain close to my source and artifical life support systems
are of little interest to me, personally. But to each, his (or her) own.

BTW, Coahuayana, Michoacan was a swamp before drainage canals were dug
and now it produces prodigious amounts of excellent tropical fruit .

So Lawrence, I said what I meant and I meant what I said.

I am a soil based critter myself and that's where MY food comes from.
Good luck with your water cress.

Douglas






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