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There is also a slightly different way to grow food using a less intense fertilizer called "square foot gardening". https://squarefootgardening.org/ https://sq

by SEJeff 5y ago

There is also a slightly different way to grow food using a less intense fertilizer called "square foot gardening". https://squarefootgardening.org/ https://squarefootgardening.org/ There is a best selling book about it and it works surprisingly well. The secret fertilizer for this, affectionately known as "Mel's Mix" recipe is available for anyone to make their own. It's not even terribly hard if you're willing to do a bit of composting outside on your own.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago
Efficiency arguments aside, the best thing about home gardening is the buffer it provides for supply uncertainty, since we don't warehouse anything anymore or plan for disruption.
wombat-man 5y ago
The US food system at least is designed to generate a lot of food efficiently. This could definitely work, and the food is probably better. But being able to generate cheap calories on demand is a major priority.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
fennecfoxen 5y ago
How actionable do you think this is to a farmer growing staple crops in sub-Saharan africa?
Turing_Machine 5y ago
Edit: "wheat" -> "corn" "Square foot gardening" with hand labor isn't going to replace the 772 million metric tons of wheat and 1 billion metric tons of corn produced annually. Sorry, it just isn't. Given that it's January, why not try the experiment of producing all the food you personally consume this year using the techniques in this book? Growing a few tomatoes and a bit of lettuce is pretty easy, and is a fun and rewarding hobby. Producing every single calorie you consume using only hand labor and no chemical fertilizer is an entirely different kettle of fish. We actually ran that experiment for several millennia. It produced societies in which 90+% of the population were slaves, serfs, or other unfree agricultural laborers. I'd rather we not go back to that, personally.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  Growing by hand for calories is a negative return activity. Industrial is just more energy efficient and who cares about artisanal sugar or cooking oil. Hand-Grow some herbs and tomatoes on the other hand and now you’re making dough.
  - ramblenode 5y ago
    > Growing by hand for calories is a negative return activity. Could you explain what this means? Does this imply animal husbandry was necessary for agriculture?
  - freeflight 5y ago
    > Growing by hand for calories is a negative return activity. Industrial agriculture, with the help of chemical fertilizers, has only been a thing since the early 19th century. I find it hard to believe that agriculture, in all the centuries before that, was negative in return. How did sedentary humans feed themselves for these thousands of years before that if not with manual agriculture?
    - Atriptothesea 5y ago
      //wiki/Claviceps_purpurea //wiki/Ignis_sacer hope this may help... (-:
    - Turing_Machine 5y ago
      I don't think it's negative, but it's quite marginal. As noted above, in most traditional civilizations, upwards of 90% of the population was engaged just in growing food, generally as unfree labor. The remaining 10% were priests, nobles, and soldiers to keep the peasants in line and working hard. Such societies typically also had famines every few years. We don't have famines in developed countries any more.
      - Scoundreller 5y ago
        They also supplemented their growing with animals.
dehrmann 5y ago
Most things grown in home gardens don't have a significant number of calories. Here's a planting schedule from that site: https://squarefootgardening.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Screen-Shot-2020-05-04-at-6.15.52-PM.png https://squarefootgardening.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/S... None of those are significant sources of fat or protein, and a few are at best moderate sources of carbs.
- _0w8t 5y ago
  Potato and sweet potato can be produced in a local garden and provide enough calories and nutrients. For example, if one eats enough potatoes to get 2500 kilocalories (about 6 pounds), one get more than enough protein.
  - Turing_Machine 5y ago
    6 pounds? I'm skeptical that anyone can sit down and eat 6 pounds of potatoes. You should probably check your arithmetic here. And no, you're not going to produce enough potatoes in a "local garden" to feed our cities, much less all of the people in the rest of the world who are fed by our croplands.
    - notreallyserio 5y ago
      I'm picturing a 5 pound bag of potatoes one might find at a grocery store. I think it might be larger than my torso.
    - alar44 5y ago
      I checked the math, they are correct.
    - _0w8t 5y ago
      For one serving sure it is not trivial to eat that, but spread it over 3 meals and it is very OK My grandmother told me that during WWII in Belarus many people in villages for 3 years eat pretty much only potatoes plus few berries/mushrooms and little fish. It was pointless to keep any animals as those would be taken either by Germans, local police folks or partisans. And all potatoes were grown with pure manual labor as the were no horses and petrol for any kind of machinery was simply not available. Despite such diet people were not malnourished or underweight and even sold potato to get money for other stuff.

by SEJeff 5y ago

AtlasBarfed 5y ago

Efficiency arguments aside, the best thing about home gardening is the buffer it provides for supply uncertainty, since we don't warehouse anything anymore or plan for disruption.

wombat-man 5y ago

The US food system at least is designed to generate a lot of food efficiently. This could definitely work, and the food is probably better. But being able to generate cheap calories on demand is a major priority.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

fennecfoxen 5y ago

How actionable do you think this is to a farmer growing staple crops in sub-Saharan africa?

Turing_Machine 5y ago

Edit: "wheat" -> "corn" "Square foot gardening" with hand labor isn't going to replace the 772 million metric tons of wheat and 1 billion metric tons of corn produced annually. Sorry, it just isn't. Given that it's January, why not try the experiment of producing all the food you personally consume this year using the techniques in this book? Growing a few tomatoes and a bit of lettuce is pretty easy, and is a fun and rewarding hobby. Producing every single calorie you consume using only hand labor and no chemical fertilizer is an entirely different kettle of fish. We actually ran that experiment for several millennia. It produced societies in which 90+% of the population were slaves, serfs, or other unfree agricultural laborers. I'd rather we not go back to that, personally.

Scoundreller 5y ago
Growing by hand for calories is a negative return activity. Industrial is just more energy efficient and who cares about artisanal sugar or cooking oil. Hand-Grow some herbs and tomatoes on the other hand and now you’re making dough.
- ramblenode 5y ago
  > Growing by hand for calories is a negative return activity. Could you explain what this means? Does this imply animal husbandry was necessary for agriculture?
- freeflight 5y ago
  > Growing by hand for calories is a negative return activity. Industrial agriculture, with the help of chemical fertilizers, has only been a thing since the early 19th century. I find it hard to believe that agriculture, in all the centuries before that, was negative in return. How did sedentary humans feed themselves for these thousands of years before that if not with manual agriculture?
  - Atriptothesea 5y ago
    //wiki/Claviceps_purpurea //wiki/Ignis_sacer hope this may help... (-:
  - Turing_Machine 5y ago
    I don't think it's negative, but it's quite marginal. As noted above, in most traditional civilizations, upwards of 90% of the population was engaged just in growing food, generally as unfree labor. The remaining 10% were priests, nobles, and soldiers to keep the peasants in line and working hard. Such societies typically also had famines every few years. We don't have famines in developed countries any more.
    - Scoundreller 5y ago
      They also supplemented their growing with animals.

dehrmann 5y ago

Most things grown in home gardens don't have a significant number of calories. Here's a planting schedule from that site: https://squarefootgardening.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Screen-Shot-2020-05-04-at-6.15.52-PM.png https://squarefootgardening.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/S... None of those are significant sources of fat or protein, and a few are at best moderate sources of carbs.

_0w8t 5y ago
Potato and sweet potato can be produced in a local garden and provide enough calories and nutrients. For example, if one eats enough potatoes to get 2500 kilocalories (about 6 pounds), one get more than enough protein.
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  6 pounds? I'm skeptical that anyone can sit down and eat 6 pounds of potatoes. You should probably check your arithmetic here. And no, you're not going to produce enough potatoes in a "local garden" to feed our cities, much less all of the people in the rest of the world who are fed by our croplands.
  - notreallyserio 5y ago
    I'm picturing a 5 pound bag of potatoes one might find at a grocery store. I think it might be larger than my torso.
  - alar44 5y ago
    I checked the math, they are correct.
  - _0w8t 5y ago
    For one serving sure it is not trivial to eat that, but spread it over 3 meals and it is very OK My grandmother told me that during WWII in Belarus many people in villages for 3 years eat pretty much only potatoes plus few berries/mushrooms and little fish. It was pointless to keep any animals as those would be taken either by Germans, local police folks or partisans. And all potatoes were grown with pure manual labor as the were no horses and petrol for any kind of machinery was simply not available. Despite such diet people were not malnourished or underweight and even sold potato to get money for other stuff.