Urban Agroecoloy: 6,000 lbs of food on 1/10th acre [video]

H

HowToBe

The Living Force
_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmTJkZy0rM
Video Description said:
Published on Mar 20, 2012

Over 6,000 pounds of food per year, on 1/10 acre located just 15 minutes from downtown Los Angeles. The Dervaes family grows over 400 species of plants, 4,300 pounds of vegetable food, 900 chicken and 1,000 duck eggs, 25 lbs of honey, plus seasonal fruits throughout the year.

From 1/10th of an acre, four people manage to get over 90% of their daily food and the family reports earnings of $20,000 per year (AFTER they eat from what is produced). This is done without the use of the expensive & destructive synthetic chemicals associated with industrial mono-cropping, while simultaneously improving the fertility and overall condition of the land being used to grow this food on. Scaled up to an acre, that would equal $200,000 per year!

To follow the Dervaes and their Urban Homesteading activites, you can find them at http://urbanhomestead.org

Urban and near-urban farming can be highly productive, causing whatever size of land you have to work with to produce with more abundance. It is time to solve hunger worldwide, through creating local food abundance.... Anyone can do it, once you learn how.
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While there's a vegetarian slant to it (not preachy, but that's how the family eats), there are a number of interesting elements to this video, such as: [list type=decimal]
[*]The initial inspiration was when the father bought some taco shells for dinner, but found out too late that they were GMO. All of their produce is organic.
[*]The inclusion of animals. (Potential for meat if one was so inclined.)
[*]The various things they do to make their little "farm" self-sufficient. Hand-powered kitchen appliances.
[*]A comment near the end about "global weirding"
[/list]
 
Yeah, great find! Just goes to show that with time, effort, sufficient knowledge, and a 'small group' so much can be accomplished. Of course, they are all vegetarian, but we won't hold that against 'em...haha.
 
School of Traditional Skills, Azure Standard and some other sponsors are offering a series of live video presentations on homesteading skills this week. I watched some of the presentations today, and found something of interest in each one. For example: (1) Apparently squash bugs and vine borers prefer Blue Hubbard squash over any other varieties of squash. If you plant a Blue Hubbard squash approximately 15 feet from your production squash, the bugs will [supposedly] migrate to the Blue Hubbard and leave the other squash plants alone. (2) Growing daisy-like flowers in the garden will attract wasps who, in turn, will reduce the number of leaf miners that are molesting other plants. I figure I'll give these ideas try, although I prefer eating the Blue Hubbard to sacrificing it.

Each session is rather short (about an hour) plus time allocated for Q&A. Consequently, this is not an in-depth analysis of each topic -- simply an introduction, but with some ideas that may be new. The audience ranged from one year to 30 year homesteaders. A few of the sessions contained a sales promotion of the sponsors, but not all of them.

You can sign up to see the sessions "live" here.
Past sessions will also be available for viewing for a short period of time on-line here.

Some of the presentations are: (a few have not been named yet)
  • Grow Your Own Medicine
  • Reasons for Choosing a Harder Life
  • Make Your Efforts Worth the Work
  • Understanding [deceptive] Food Labels [and the Food Pyramid]
  • Organic Gardening Made Simple
  • The Truth about Compost
  • Seedtime
  • What is True Resilience?
  • Taking Back Control of Your Food
  • Preserving Food
  • 3 Seeds You Must Save Now and Why
  • Growing a (literal) Ton of Food
  • True Food Security Start to Finish [Butchering]
  • Fresh Bread All Week Without the Stress
  • Home Herbalism
  • Three Acres to Freedom
  • The Easiest Entry Point to Preservation
  • Freedom in the Kitchen
  • A Fresh Take on Sustainable Meal Planning
 
Magnolia said:
School of Traditional Skills, Azure Standard and some other sponsors are offering a series of live video presentations on homesteading skills this week. I watched some of the presentations today, and found something of interest in each one. For example: (1) Apparently squash bugs and vine borers prefer Blue Hubbard squash over any other varieties of squash. If you plant a Blue Hubbard squash approximately 15 feet from your production squash, the bugs will [supposedly] migrate to the Blue Hubbard and leave the other squash plants alone. (2) Growing daisy-like flowers in the garden will attract wasps who, in turn, will reduce the number of leaf miners that are molesting other plants. I figure I'll give these ideas try, although I prefer eating the Blue Hubbard to sacrificing it.

Each session is rather short (about an hour) plus time allocated for Q&A. Consequently, this is not an in-depth analysis of each topic -- simply an introduction, but with some ideas that may be new. The audience ranged from one year to 30 year homesteaders. A few of the sessions contained a sales promotion of the sponsors, but not all of them.

You can sign up to see the sessions "live" here.
Past sessions will also be available for viewing for a short period of time on-line here.

Some of the presentations are: (a few have not been named yet)
  • Grow Your Own Medicine
  • Reasons for Choosing a Harder Life
  • Make Your Efforts Worth the Work
  • Understanding [deceptive] Food Labels [and the Food Pyramid]
  • Organic Gardening Made Simple
  • The Truth about Compost
  • Seedtime
  • What is True Resilience?
  • Taking Back Control of Your Food
  • Preserving Food
  • 3 Seeds You Must Save Now and Why
  • Growing a (literal) Ton of Food
  • True Food Security Start to Finish [Butchering]
  • Fresh Bread All Week Without the Stress
  • Home Herbalism
  • Three Acres to Freedom
  • The Easiest Entry Point to Preservation
  • Freedom in the Kitchen
  • A Fresh Take on Sustainable Meal Planning
Click to expand...

Looks pretty cool. It's good to see a compost talk. It's one thing to have seeds, available land, and water, but if there's no understanding of composting and the necessity refeeding the soil every year, then all those other factors won't grow anything when organic matter depletion sets in.
 
iamthatis said:
Looks pretty cool. It's good to see a compost talk. It's one thing to have seeds, available land, and water, but if there's no understanding of composting and the necessity refeeding the soil every year, then all those other factors won't grow anything when organic matter depletion sets in.
Click to expand...
According to the research discussed in this thread, plants grow well or even better without organic or chemical fertilizers if the soil is replenished with enough minerals from stones that are ground into a pulverized form.
 
Well my compost - everything is totally organic - has truly helped the healthiness of all my plants and garden soil. In fact an avocado stone self planted itself near the 2 compost containers. Plus the 2 banana plants I planted near the compost were 3 feet when planted. This year there are now 9 banana tress, with two holding at least 50 bananas. But they are the tallest and healthiest bananas I have seen on the island so far. Also because their lower parts are shaded by the fig tree. They are now taller than the roof of the two storey villa next to them, and we have to keep chopping them down because of the mains electricity nearby. However, their trunks are now over 6 inches in diameter - larger than the biggest bamboo I have seen. Next problem is they will push down my stone wall if I don't dig the nearest one's up very soon!

Thanks for the post on garden production. Exactly what I intended to do on my project, but will now relocate this project to the UK asap to start an intentional spiritual and agricultural smallholding community of about 12 people. But will have livestock as well as plant a forest, but hopefully will be able to get a forest and natural spring water/stream in an elevated position. x
 
axj said:
According to the research discussed in this thread, plants grow well or even better without organic or chemical fertilizers if the soil is replenished with enough minerals from stones that are ground into a pulverized form.
Click to expand...

Yeah, using rock dust and gypsum are both common soil amendments in farming. I use a mix called Gaia Green that makes use of both, plus bone meal, feather meal, etc.

As far as my research suggests, it's been proven beyond reasonable doubt that certain nutrients are only made bioavailable to food plants through bacteria and fungi eating the nutrients and pooping them out. These critters need organic matter to house and feed them. What's missing in unproductive soils could be any number of things, as its a complex system. The main factor, tho, is that there isn't a healthy, locally-adapted microbiome that converts nutrients into plant-soluble food, structures the soil, aerates, and retains or expels water.

A good talk on this approach by soil scientist Dr. Elaine Ingham, posted here:

cassiopaea.org

Potential Food and Energy Shortage Across the World

I live in Texas and I noticed that there are no mosquitoes. Every year, we have a vast amount of flies and mosquitoes, and I am very aware because I like sitting outside in the backyard, but at this time of the year it's almost impossible to sit out early in the morning and later in the day...
cassiopaea.org cassiopaea.org

She says that there is enough latent mineral material in all soils (including desert sand) to grow productive crops. The only thing missing is the life, the microbiome. This biological factor is what makes cool projects like the bio-swale system in Greening the Desert work - I don't think they added minerals, just basically massive mulching, aka adding organic matter. The guy is anti-goats for some reason, but seems like the project was a success:


So I'm skeptical of the Hensel material, but will see what I can find. My guess is he discovered a good soil amendment that is commonly used today in tandem with adding oragnic matter to the soil.
 
I also use copper spirals around the garden. Especially to help counteract the metal pergola sun covers and the rose arches.
I would also be interested in experimenting with Rudolph Steiners method of cow horns and other things that he used in his Biodynamic farms and Agricultural training at Emerson college, Sussex.
 
Copper helps energize the soil and helps produce healthy produce. It also helps mitigate the leeching from the soil caused by metal.
I use the copper tubing from an air conditioning supplier and spiral it around a sturdy branch. Larger ones near the trees.
I follow CultivateElevate and a few other sites on Telegram.
Plus Dr Klinghardt also said that most people nowadays are lacking much needed copper in their diets.
 
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