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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] space for food self reliance?

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  • From: Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] space for food self reliance?
  • Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2015 09:32:39 -0500

On Fri, Nov 6, 2015 at 7:54 AM, Georg Parlow <g.parlow@gmx.at> wrote:

> And in case TSHTF we can always dig up the recreational lawns, etc.
>

I would plan on keeping a certain amount of ornamental landscaping, which
includes lawns, for its emotional, spiritual, everyday well being value.
What people see around them as they go through their day is extremely
important to them. There was an interesting discussion about that very
thing on radio yesterday.
Here it is:
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2015/11/05/boring-cityscape-psychology
"For city dwellers, keeping oneself healthy and happy may be more
complicated than exercise and good diet; it may also have a lot to do with
the design of the surrounding buildings. Environmental psychologist *Colin
Ellard* says that boring cityscapes can contribute to stress, addiction and
depression. Research conducted by Ellard and others suggests that people
faced with a long stretch of sidewalk and blank façades, tend to walk
faster, keep their heads down or aimlessly search for something of
interest. More complicated sections of cities, like those with bustling
shops and restaurants, tend to have the opposite effect; they are more
health-giving, Ellard says"* Here & Now’*s Robin Young speaks with Ellard
about his research and how urban design may have a lot to do with public
health.* Colin Ellard:* Streets With No Game
http://aeon.co/magazine/culture/why-boring-cities-make-for-stressed-citizens/

Things around them that are not boring all the time offer great
psychological benefits. Europeans always seem to be good at accomplishing
that as far as I can tell. This principle should be integral to
permaculture design.
Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie House and Surrounding Landscape:


Allotment Gardens In Denmark (top) and Switzerland (bottom):



>Another issue is, that the way we are planning it now, electricity should
be available - all our roofs (we are talking about 35.000 sq feet) >will be
dedicated to PV, maybe some hot water. For heating our tech guy talks about
deep pipes and heat with earth warmth - and we >are going to have minimum
energy houses (3 big appartment buildings plus sheds’n’shops) anyways. With
energy and water and >manpower (read: attention, love and care) available,
I would suspect to being able to go lower on land.

With extremely careful design and material and equipment choices you should
be about to get the same level of energy efficiency out of all your
buildings as you will produce out of your biointensive gardens. I assume
the "deep pipes and heat with earth warmth" would be used with an electric
heat pump unit. The output of that process would be heated non-potable
water which could be combined with water heated with a rooftop solar
thermal unit to be pumped to radiators for space heat. Along the way that
water could pass through a heat exchanger to heat or preheat potable water
for household use (DHW). DHW could also be generated with a rooftop or
South-facing wall solar thermal unit designed to be safe for use with
potable water. The heat pump would only be used when output from the solar
thermal units was not adequate for heating needs. If you have access to
wood fuel then you can add a "water stove" to the system. This is a high
efficiency wood-fired boiler that can provide space heat and DHW. This
would be ideal to use in combination with solar thermal heaters. The ground
heat-heat pump unit might be necessary for emergency use but in combination
with wood and solar might never be needed. You could also use your
greenhouse to generate space and DHW heat, indirectly by passing hot moist
air through a heat exchanger. This and the solar unit could preheat water
sent to the water stove.

--
Lawrence F. London
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/avantgeared/

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