6 ms·

It’s been intense here (SE Australia). It’s just been raining for weeks now without stopping. I think we’ve had 2 sunny days in the last 4 weeks? Crops are dyin

by sen 4y ago

It’s been intense here (SE Australia). It’s just been raining for weeks now without stopping. I think we’ve had 2 sunny days in the last 4 weeks? Crops are dying, lettuce costs $10 each (if you can find them), internet keeps dropping out cos of shittily buried lines, drains overflow and flood the streets constantly, and the kids are going up the walls. I know it’s normal for lots of areas of the world (and I’ve lived in those places) but we’re generally not equipped for it here.

steve_adams_86 4y ago
I follow an Australian hydroponic gardener and general tinkerer on YouTube named Hoocho and he has documented a bit of the mess the weather has caused lately. It’s extremely disheartening. One thing he noticed is that the water has pushed ants to find new places to live (including his growing enclosure, where they’ve made a home in his electrical box), and they’ve brought aphids to farm along with them. Obviously this along with extremely wet weather is terrible for his crops. He has mentioned the $10 lettuce (initially $4, then $6, then…) and somehow it seemed so unlikely still, like there must be somewhere you can still buy normally priced lettuce. But I guess not. It’s wild how quickly food supplies can get gutted by climate fluctuations. Suffice to say, I’ve begun hydro gardening for fast turn around essentials with the idea that in a time of crisis, perhaps I can avoid buying $10 lettuce. Thanks Hoocho, you’ve made my 3D printer far more useful and made hydroponics way more fun.
- ggm 4y ago
  The supply chain logistics which let asparagus importers get stock from Peru in the off season are the same ones which means they can't just ring up on a whim and ask for some more, in the "on" season. Australian Quarantine and Customs Inspection service is pretty strong on vegitative matter, especially live vegitative matter: You need a LOT of paperwork, to be able to bring fresh produce into Australia. And this local supply disaster noted, we kinda like it that way.
  - Andaith 4y ago
    What's wild to me is that apparently there's only one place on this continent that grows lettuce. It seems like a bit of an all-your-eggs-in-one-basket thing to have one valley in QLD(I think) that does lettuce for the nation, and they have some bad weather and suddenly we're all sans-lettuce.
    - 10u152 4y ago
      Yes....and no. Lettuce likes some pretty specific conditions. If there's one area that's perfectly suited to growing lettuce with the minimum resources (fertiliser/water etc) then grow it there. Better than trying to grow it in the desert or somewhere much too cold. If Australians go without lettuce for a month or so nobody is going to die. Eat rocket, spinach and cabbage instead.
      - twicetwice 4y ago
        For Americans (and others?) who are OOTL, rocket == arugula. It has a bunch of other names too, apparently.
        distances 4y ago
        For continental Europeans: they mean rucola
        BoiledCabbage 4y ago
        Interesting - arugula and rucola are very similar phonetically.
    - rootw0rm 4y ago
      Get some spinach, arugula, cabbage, or any other leafy green?
      - paranoidrobot 4y ago
- prawn 4y ago
  I'd seen a decent modular 3d printed tower for growing things like lettuce and it turns out Hoocho is using a newer and more advanced style of the same idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak4sb-nRAcE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak4sb-nRAcE
- jillekuipers 4y ago
  very nice to read that you are exploring something new, how is it going for you? and are you using growlights?
  - steve_adams_86 4y ago
    It’s actually going great! I do have it under lights, though I hope to get the hang of it and eventually set up some vertical systems outdoors to make them more cost effective. Maybe next spring. Right now my lights, air pump, and fan cost around $25/month to run. Nutrients are remarkably inexpensive (perhaps pennies per head of lettuce assuming they mature on schedule). All said it’s maybe a $30-35 per month hobby which might generate far more than that value in real, edible food. It’s surprising how many plants you can fit in a 1m x 1m grow tent when you use hydroponics. I’m sure I’ll mess up several times before I get it working smoothly, but I’ve loved the learning process so far. Before this I got kind of hooked on growing micro greens. It’s such a great gateway to indoor gardening, the results are awesome and it’s very low effort. Edit: I hadn’t worked out the math yet, but my “break even” would be growing just a few bundles of herbs and 3 or 4 lettuces per month. The system has 24 plant sites so by all means, if I don’t totally blow it, I should be plant-profitable pretty soon! And that’s excluding the micros which develop under the same lights. The cost of micro greens is wild.
    - jillekuipers 4y ago
      That's amazing to read. Thank you for sharing. The economics that you describe are really good! And I can see it is a rewarding experience to grow your own. Keep growing!
- cinntaile 4y ago
  Are those 3D printed plastics food-grade?
  - steve_adams_86 4y ago
    People consider PLA filament food grade, but the only plastics touching nutrients or plants are explicitly rated as food grade. I don’t worry as much about the exposure to PLA so much as I worry about the layer adhesion being poor and causing build ups of bacteria or disease that I can’t clean out of my system.
- sen 4y ago
  Thanks for the mention of Hoocho, hadn't heard of him and binging his videos right now as I've started building an aquaponics setup and a greenhouse to grow more of my own food. The ants thing is very random and very real too. My paint cupboard in the shed (where I keep all my spraypaints/chemicals) became an ants nest a few weeks ago thanks to the rain. I opened it up and every single surface was crawling with a full blanket of ants. I'd never seen anything like it in my life. Things we're going to see more and more of I guess.
  - steve_adams_86 4y ago
    I hope you enjoy his channel as much as I do! He really motivates me to be more engaged and creative with the skills I have. I’m good about certain things, like I’ll go out in my shop and build things with wood, but I’ve been very slow to get into CNC and printing work despite my interest. I think the stuff he does made it click. He’s just making little clips, plant pots, and other small utilities, but he’s using them to create new and interesting solutions. In other words he uses a little to do a lot. It’s really cool. Such a great way to lower that barrier and make 3D printing fun and useful. Good luck with your projects, too. I added a small greenhouse years ago and it was so worth it, and it’s become a major part of how I plan my garden and think about growing.
quickthrower2 4y ago
Anecdotally, including us, anyone you talk to here is dealing with mold issues, and it is often a very expensive problem to fix. Having no let up period from I think Dec -> May where the property can dry out, in addition to rain bombs causing roof leaks. Many roofers have automated messages saying "we're too busy, no point". There is backlog in getting mold tested. Also affects general trades who don't give dates, they just come when the whether is good enough.
- doctor_eval 4y ago
  Yes, I'm in the sunshine coast and have experienced all of the above. We were cut off from school by flooding for about a week, a drive that usually took 15 minutes was taking at least an hour because of the long detour. And our roof has leaked. At least we didn't need to put water in the pool ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But the mould ... that was the worst. I'm going to smell of vinegar and clove oil for the rest of my life.
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    Good old apple cider vinegar! Good for battling those annoying pantry moths, and good for salads.
    - AlbertCory 4y ago
      Pantry moths! See, Nextdoor really is good for something. Someone there put me on to these. I got some, and they work like a champ. [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U1SMPBS https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U1SMPBS
  - bogomipz 4y ago
    >"But the mould ... that was the worst. I'm going to smell of vinegar and clove oil for the rest of my life." Whats the connection between mold, vinegar and clove oil? Are those used to treat or prevent surface mold?
    - paranoidrobot 4y ago
stareatgoats 4y ago
Seems to me like Australia either has catastrophic droughts or catastrophic rains. The engineer in me wants to create massive reservoirs during the wet spells to carry over the dry spells. But I guess it's not that easy?
- wffurr 4y ago
  I believe those are called aquifers aka geologic water reservoirs. There's a lot that can happen, especially in urban areas with lots of hard scaped surfaces, to encourage rain water to enter aquifers instead of run off into the water shed or sewer/storm drain system.

by sen 4y ago

steve_adams_86 4y ago

I follow an Australian hydroponic gardener and general tinkerer on YouTube named Hoocho and he has documented a bit of the mess the weather has caused lately. It’s extremely disheartening. One thing he noticed is that the water has pushed ants to find new places to live (including his growing enclosure, where they’ve made a home in his electrical box), and they’ve brought aphids to farm along with them. Obviously this along with extremely wet weather is terrible for his crops. He has mentioned the $10 lettuce (initially $4, then $6, then…) and somehow it seemed so unlikely still, like there must be somewhere you can still buy normally priced lettuce. But I guess not. It’s wild how quickly food supplies can get gutted by climate fluctuations. Suffice to say, I’ve begun hydro gardening for fast turn around essentials with the idea that in a time of crisis, perhaps I can avoid buying $10 lettuce. Thanks Hoocho, you’ve made my 3D printer far more useful and made hydroponics way more fun.

ggm 4y ago
The supply chain logistics which let asparagus importers get stock from Peru in the off season are the same ones which means they can't just ring up on a whim and ask for some more, in the "on" season. Australian Quarantine and Customs Inspection service is pretty strong on vegitative matter, especially live vegitative matter: You need a LOT of paperwork, to be able to bring fresh produce into Australia. And this local supply disaster noted, we kinda like it that way.
- Andaith 4y ago
  What's wild to me is that apparently there's only one place on this continent that grows lettuce. It seems like a bit of an all-your-eggs-in-one-basket thing to have one valley in QLD(I think) that does lettuce for the nation, and they have some bad weather and suddenly we're all sans-lettuce.
  - 10u152 4y ago
    Yes....and no. Lettuce likes some pretty specific conditions. If there's one area that's perfectly suited to growing lettuce with the minimum resources (fertiliser/water etc) then grow it there. Better than trying to grow it in the desert or somewhere much too cold. If Australians go without lettuce for a month or so nobody is going to die. Eat rocket, spinach and cabbage instead.
    - twicetwice 4y ago
      For Americans (and others?) who are OOTL, rocket == arugula. It has a bunch of other names too, apparently.
      - distances 4y ago
        For continental Europeans: they mean rucola
        BoiledCabbage 4y ago
        Interesting - arugula and rucola are very similar phonetically.
  - rootw0rm 4y ago
    Get some spinach, arugula, cabbage, or any other leafy green?
    - paranoidrobot 4y ago
prawn 4y ago
I'd seen a decent modular 3d printed tower for growing things like lettuce and it turns out Hoocho is using a newer and more advanced style of the same idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak4sb-nRAcE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak4sb-nRAcE
jillekuipers 4y ago
very nice to read that you are exploring something new, how is it going for you? and are you using growlights?
- steve_adams_86 4y ago
  It’s actually going great! I do have it under lights, though I hope to get the hang of it and eventually set up some vertical systems outdoors to make them more cost effective. Maybe next spring. Right now my lights, air pump, and fan cost around $25/month to run. Nutrients are remarkably inexpensive (perhaps pennies per head of lettuce assuming they mature on schedule). All said it’s maybe a $30-35 per month hobby which might generate far more than that value in real, edible food. It’s surprising how many plants you can fit in a 1m x 1m grow tent when you use hydroponics. I’m sure I’ll mess up several times before I get it working smoothly, but I’ve loved the learning process so far. Before this I got kind of hooked on growing micro greens. It’s such a great gateway to indoor gardening, the results are awesome and it’s very low effort. Edit: I hadn’t worked out the math yet, but my “break even” would be growing just a few bundles of herbs and 3 or 4 lettuces per month. The system has 24 plant sites so by all means, if I don’t totally blow it, I should be plant-profitable pretty soon! And that’s excluding the micros which develop under the same lights. The cost of micro greens is wild.
  - jillekuipers 4y ago
    That's amazing to read. Thank you for sharing. The economics that you describe are really good! And I can see it is a rewarding experience to grow your own. Keep growing!
cinntaile 4y ago
Are those 3D printed plastics food-grade?
- steve_adams_86 4y ago
  People consider PLA filament food grade, but the only plastics touching nutrients or plants are explicitly rated as food grade. I don’t worry as much about the exposure to PLA so much as I worry about the layer adhesion being poor and causing build ups of bacteria or disease that I can’t clean out of my system.
sen 4y ago
Thanks for the mention of Hoocho, hadn't heard of him and binging his videos right now as I've started building an aquaponics setup and a greenhouse to grow more of my own food. The ants thing is very random and very real too. My paint cupboard in the shed (where I keep all my spraypaints/chemicals) became an ants nest a few weeks ago thanks to the rain. I opened it up and every single surface was crawling with a full blanket of ants. I'd never seen anything like it in my life. Things we're going to see more and more of I guess.
- steve_adams_86 4y ago
  I hope you enjoy his channel as much as I do! He really motivates me to be more engaged and creative with the skills I have. I’m good about certain things, like I’ll go out in my shop and build things with wood, but I’ve been very slow to get into CNC and printing work despite my interest. I think the stuff he does made it click. He’s just making little clips, plant pots, and other small utilities, but he’s using them to create new and interesting solutions. In other words he uses a little to do a lot. It’s really cool. Such a great way to lower that barrier and make 3D printing fun and useful. Good luck with your projects, too. I added a small greenhouse years ago and it was so worth it, and it’s become a major part of how I plan my garden and think about growing.

quickthrower2 4y ago

Anecdotally, including us, anyone you talk to here is dealing with mold issues, and it is often a very expensive problem to fix. Having no let up period from I think Dec -> May where the property can dry out, in addition to rain bombs causing roof leaks. Many roofers have automated messages saying "we're too busy, no point". There is backlog in getting mold tested. Also affects general trades who don't give dates, they just come when the whether is good enough.

doctor_eval 4y ago
Yes, I'm in the sunshine coast and have experienced all of the above. We were cut off from school by flooding for about a week, a drive that usually took 15 minutes was taking at least an hour because of the long detour. And our roof has leaked. At least we didn't need to put water in the pool ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But the mould ... that was the worst. I'm going to smell of vinegar and clove oil for the rest of my life.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Good old apple cider vinegar! Good for battling those annoying pantry moths, and good for salads.
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    Pantry moths! See, Nextdoor really is good for something. Someone there put me on to these. I got some, and they work like a champ. [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U1SMPBS https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U1SMPBS
- bogomipz 4y ago
  >"But the mould ... that was the worst. I'm going to smell of vinegar and clove oil for the rest of my life." Whats the connection between mold, vinegar and clove oil? Are those used to treat or prevent surface mold?
  - paranoidrobot 4y ago

stareatgoats 4y ago

Seems to me like Australia either has catastrophic droughts or catastrophic rains. The engineer in me wants to create massive reservoirs during the wet spells to carry over the dry spells. But I guess it's not that easy?

wffurr 4y ago
I believe those are called aquifers aka geologic water reservoirs. There's a lot that can happen, especially in urban areas with lots of hard scaped surfaces, to encourage rain water to enter aquifers instead of run off into the water shed or sewer/storm drain system.