Ecologically speaking, water is the most important part of your farm (don’t forget sunlight). If you live in Southern California, or any hot and dry climate, either get out while you can or start planning for water scarcity. You’ll want to start collecting as much rainwater as you can during the cold winter months when it rains hard. A 1000 sq. ft roof can collect 600 gallons of water in just one inch of rain. Southern California generally receives about 5-10 in/year, which means that one could theoretically collect as much as 6,000 gallons a year with a 1000 sq ft roof (not too bad). However, Southern California is similar to the Gobi Desert, so your farming MUST use drought tolerant plants, or at least use minimal water. To prepare for a long-term water emergency, it’s crucial to have a way of
filtering rainwater or stagnant water for drinking. Rainwater harvesting is gaining a lot of attention, as is storing water in cisterns, rain barrels, or a plastic drum. When it comes to outdoor water use, edible fruit, nut, and legume trees and other perennials make the most sense for soil-based farming. Everything else (vegetables and other annuals) are best grown aquaponically or hydroponically, because they use 90% less water than growing in soil.
Think about this: Trees use a lot more water than vegetables. However, once you get a tree established, if you were to stop watering it for prolonged periods of time, you will still get some sort of harvest from it. If you stop watering vegetables, you will probably get no harvest at all. This is why relying on annual vegetables doesn't make sense. Intensively growing annuals in soil, especially in a fragile climate, is utterly dependent on irrigation.
One of the best ways of storing water is also one of the most common features of suburban homes: swimming pools. Swimming pools typically require a lot of energy, chemicals, and labor to maintain, all for the sake of recreation. 50 years ago, we lived in a very different world, and so the motivations of most people in U.S. cities were highly motivated by entertainment (and they still are). As irrigation water becomes increasingly expensive in the Western United States, so much so that watering your lawn is only affordable for the rich, will perspectives change on the role of swimming pools in suburbs? As soon as I get permission from my family, I plan to turn our swimming pool into a fresh-water pond, and have rain-gutters from the roof feed into it. I would add some fish, a few lotus flowers and duckweed to remove nitrates, plant some mulberry trees all around for shade and fish food. A portion of that stored water could be used to irrigate water gardens, fruit trees, or it could be filtered and used as drinking water. Whenever it rains, the following day I will see thousands of earthworms on the bottom of the pool (they come out of the mulches from under nearby trees). This is one way pond fish can find sustenance, besides the growth of algae and mosquito larvae.
California's Uncertain Future:
Many people in the field of agriculture are deeply concerned about what California will experience in the years to come, as record low rainfall and incredibly severe droughts continue to decrease our availability of water. With climate change, the snow pack in the Sierra Nevada's is expected to be completely gone by around 2040. Some experts warn that by this time, at least 50% of California farms will go out of business and water rationing will become a regular part of life. Nobody knows for sure what will happen to California, but another possible direction for California would be towards a humid subtropical climate (this is not going to happen overnight of course) where there is ample rainfall and almost no chill. If this were to happen, many of the temperate crops like almonds, berries, and stone fruits will be obsolete (as they need hundreds of hours of temperatures below 45 degress F in order to flower and fruit). Another likely direction is towards an arid subtropical climate, where only drought tolerant plants can grow. In order to prepare for this uncertain future, it makes sense to grow a little bit of temperate, a little bit of tropical, and a little Mediterranean. Who knows which one will reign supreme? At present, all of these will continue to be viable crops in California, assuming there is availability of water.
Irrigation:
Irrigation water should not be depended on indefinitely, but it is absolutely necessary for several years in order to establish an orchard. In fact, a one acre piece of land needs about six feet of water each year in order to get an orchard off the ground. With the use of
huegalkulture and continual soil building, that amount can be reduced over time until the orchard is converted to dry land. An established orchard, with a dense canopy of shade and years worth of amended soil, will be quite resilient in the face of drought.
The style of irrigation used should depend on what type of soil you have. If you have sandy soil, you will need to water frequently and conservatively in order to keep the tree roots from drying up. If you have clayey soil, you will need to water infrequently but liberally (wet it down for a while and then stop for several weeks) in order to prevent tree roots from rotting. Since the water-holding capacity of sand is low, trees will require daily watering. Around the perimeter of the tree’s canopy is where the smallest roots are, and that is where 90% of the roots are, which are primarily for nutrient uptake. In order for nutrients to be absorbed, this region must be moist, and so it must have thick mulches/manure added to it every few months. The leaf litter that falls from the trees must be allowed to remain on the floor. If you're having trouble getting your trees to grow, and you're on sandy soil, your trees are probably dehydrated and barely alive. Get a 1/2" poly hose and run it along every tree and shrub, have it all connected to a hose valve with a pressure regulator on it. Then for each tree, install a 0.5 gallon/hr dripper a few inches away from the base of the tree and have it turned on for ~9 hrs each day. Adding a dripper to each tree this way helps to get it established quickly, because it provides a constant drip of water which promotes rapid root growth. However, this should not be a permanent way to irrigate, because a tree's roots need to be able to spread out and find water elsewhere. This is why there should be thick mulch/manure layers all around the tree (not against the trunk) which in time will stay moist without sprinklers or hose. If you continue adding heavy layers of mulch and manure for perhaps a decade, you should be able to gradually wean your trees off irrigation until the floor is mostly shaded by a bushy canopy of perennials, and the soil remains moist because of the thick mulches below. Don’t put mulch right up against the trunk of the tree, as this can cause rotting and insect damage, so leave a small circular space around the trunk and mound up around it.
Soil:
It’s important to be able to identify what type of soil you have (sand, silt, clay or variations of these three) in order to understand how water and nutrients affect your soil. If you live in the foothills of the San Gabriel Valley, CA, you will most likely have sand soil (my soil is 95% sand) mixed with rocks and boulders. The reason the foothill communities are so sandy and rocky is because before these suburbs were built, there were rivers flowing through. A technical term for this is an alluvial floodplain (that’s right, floods). Sand does not erode much with water movement, so it gets deposited first as rivers and mudflows, which come pouring out of the canyons of the San Gabriel Mountains during the winter rains. Rocks are also tumbled along with the sand, causing them to become roundish and smooth. The reason why all of the foothill communities are able to remain here without getting washed away is because the Army Corps of Engineers built debris basins from Santa Clarita all the way to San Bernadino. The debris basins catch most of the rocks, mud, and water that would otherwise send your house into the Pacific Ocean (this happened in the 1850′s). Alluvial floodplains are actually one of the best places to grow food, but it is one of the worst places to build a house. In order to establish an ecosystem of edible trees in sand soil, it will require irrigation for several years, and ridiculous amounts of mulch/manure.
The ability of sand to hold nutrients and water is very low, because it has a low
cation-exchange-capacity (CEC) and low organic matter, so most fertilizers will be used by plants for a very short-duration and will quickly be leached beyond the root zone. The best way to improve this soil so that it can retain water and nutrients is to add as much organic matter as possible. Manure, compost, and mulches are essential, but if left in the hot sun that fertility can easily be cooked out of your soil. If there is a canopy of trees, creating full shade on as much soil as possible, this will allow mulches to stay moist, fungi will grow, and the topsoil will build. The most efficient way to build topsoil over time is to get a canopy of trees up, and the best way to encourage this is by surrounding your trees with layers of mulch and manure. You'll have some losses in organic matter at first, but it's still worth doing.
The most important thing that any city farmer must learn is that one should NEVER let a garbage truck take away green waste from your yard. The leaves, clippings, twigs, branches, logs, stumps, brush, and even weeds, are your most valuable asset! If you give those away, you’re denying the long-term fertility of your soil. Keep as much biomass in your yard as possible. It may seem like a lot of debris at first, maybe even a fire hazard, but if you water it regularly and add nitrogen rich manures to it, it will very quickly shrink into the best soil you've ever seen. If you peel back some of the layers of debris after it has been rotting for several months, you will see that below it is black, wet, and full of fungi, as well as scurrying insects for your chickens to eat. This is the way to store water for your trees in the hot summer months.
All of the woody debris will slowly be consumed by fungi, and its hyphae will spread laterally, connecting the roots of trees together. This assists with water and nutrient uptake and is absolutely necessary for the health of trees, and even small plants as well.
If you don’t have many trees to begin with, start searching for tree trimming trucks. The best way is to drive around town, going up and down residential streets in your area looking for wood chipper trucks. Talk to the workers there, let them know that you would like the mulch dumped in your driveway. This usually saves them a lot of money in transportation cost, so they almost always will give it to you. Sometimes they’ll say that you won’t want it because it has eucalyptus leaves, walnut, or palm leaves, or that it isn't mulched finely enough. Some plants do give off competitive chemicals that may harm other plants, but this is only a temporary thing that will quickly decompose. Don’t worry about this, just explain that you want it anyway. It’s all good!
Remember to add manure to the mulch to break it down faster. Mulches like wood chips and leaves represent a carbon source. Manures and green leaves represent nitrogen. There should be a ratio of carbon to nitrogen of 8:1 to create healthy, productive soil. If you have a lot of wood mulch (a very strong carbon source) and don't add any nitrogen , there is the potential for the microorganisms to use up all the nitrogen in the soil, leaving almost none for the plants to use. This usually causes mild to severe yellowing of plant leaves. Add a lot more manure in that case.
If you create a huge mound of mulch and manure, it will actually shrink down in a few years to just a few inches of topsoil. This is the key, to create and endless supply of rich topsoil that can hold onto nutrients.
What kind of manure to use?
If you have horses or know someone who has them, this is one of the best manures to use. It should ideally be composted for a while so that it doesn't burn your plants, but for trees it usually doesn't hurt to apply it raw. If you have chickens scratching around your trees, this can make a good manure, but it typically doesn't give an even distribution over your mulch. If you have trays underneath the roosting poles of your chicken coop, this can be a daily source of nitrogen to add to your mulch. It can also be applied raw around trees (the best way is to dig a hole in your mulch and then cover it up).
If you have sandy soil, you may be lacking calcium in your soil. Symptoms in plants to look for include blossom end rot with tomatoes, oranges splitting on the tree, or even diseased trees. If plants become diseased, it's often because they have nutritional deficiencies, too much or too little water or sunlight. Calcium is often overlooked in most farms, because in many productive soils it's so abundant that it's not even considered as a limiting factor. In sand, however, it is sometimes almost absent. Soil scientists will pour drops of hydrochloric acid onto soil samples to test for calcium carbonate, which results in a fizzy, bubbling reaction. I sampled my sand soil with a drop of HCl and there was no reaction at all (no CaCO3 to react). This is a tremendous problem, because the one mineral that is found the most in plants is calcium. It is immensely important for root growth and the forming of cell walls. In fact, for healthy plant growth calcium levels need to be higher than that of nitrogen.
How to remedy this problem?
The obvious answer would be to add calcium, but remember that the CEC of sand is very low, which means that if you add calcium, it will leach away very quickly (this is why calcium is not present in the first place). If you were to add calcium, gypsum (calcium sulfate) is usually the best choice because it won't change the pH of your soil. If you add lime (calcium carbonate), this will dramatically increase your pH. If your pH goes above 7, you plants will start to turn yellow because certain minerals (like iron) become insoluble (not available for root uptake). If you are adding several feet of mulch each year to your soil, then your CEC will start to increase, along with its ability to hold onto calcium.
Another approach, which is perhaps cheaper, is to use lots of horse manure. It is common practice for horse owners to throw agricultural lime onto horse manure (to reduce odor). If you add lots of this kind of horse manure to your soil, you will certainly be increasing calcium levels while at the same time increasing your ability to hold onto calcium. However, your soil pH will become alkaline (not so good) if you add lime-rich horse manure. To bring your pH back down, you would need to add acid-forming things like elemental sulphur (the strongest), pine needles, oak leaves, peat moss (expensive and unsustainable), and other acidic mulches.
One thing that I have found to be strange about my tap water and my soil is this: The water hardness of my tap water is very high (450 ppm) and alkaline (8.0), which indicates that calcium and magnesium levels are very high. I irrigate with this same tap water almost every day in my garden. However, when I add small amounts of HCl to my soil, there is no fizzing whatsoever. What I think is happening is that large amounts of calcium and magnesium are being watered into the soil, and large amounts of it are getting washed out beyond the root zone. This problem can only be remedied by serious amounts of organic matter over a period of decades, so that it can start to hold onto these ions.
How do Synthetic Fertilizers Harm the Soil?
The main reason why synthetic fertilizers should be avoided in soils is because they generally have too much salt, in the form of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Over time, this will create imbalances in the soil that will lead to pest outbreaks and disease, a decrease in the nutrients and flavor of foods grown on that soil, and it will burn away soil organic matter (the most valuable asset of soil). If someone sees a 30-30-30 bag of fertilizer (each number represents the percentage of N, P, and K), they may think it’s ideal. That same person might see another bag of fertilizer that says 2-2-2 and think it’s lousy. Why is too much salt bad? The reason is because as soil microbes use small amounts of nitrogen and carbon to create soil humus (the ultimate form of soil fertility), there is a slow-release of plant-nutrients into the soil as they live and die. As heavy additions of nitrogen and other salts are added to the soil, these microbes begin to work faster, breaking down organic matter at accelerating rates. When this happens, the nutrients in the humus quickly wash away. This is particularly damaging to the soil when it is regularly tilled and biomass is removed without any manure or plant residues being returned. The more nitrogen that is added, the faster the nutrients are released (and usually erode into rivers, streams, lakes, water table, and the ocean). By adding synthetic nutrients to the soil, that soil becomes increasingly dependent on more synthetic nutrients if it is to continue producing steady amounts of plants, because the soil’s slow-release system has been exhausted. The reason for this is because on most farmlands, the biomass that is continually removed is almost never put back. More salt is added, and more biomass is removed. It’s not that synthetic fertilizers are necessarily the culprit, but that they’re being used to compensate for decades of poor land management. One very simple way to positively manage the land is to continuously add carbon (i.e. leaves, wood chips, and other carbonaceous mulches) to the soil, or to let whatever leaves fall to the ground remain there.
Synthetic fertilizers can provide short-term benefits, but if used continuously, it diminishes soil health, especially if no carbon is being added on a regular basis. We start running into problems when people want to sell what they’re pulling out of the soil, and feel no reason to stop or give back what was taken. Most farmers choose to give back just salt, because they have so much land that they simply don’t have the time to do anything else. Desertification becomes the ultimate result, which leads to humans leaving the land and looking for work in urban areas.
The ultimate way to buffer soil fertility is to add huge amounts of carbon. If large volumes of carbon are added to the soil on a continual basis, then heavy additions of nitrogen in any form will actually be both essential and beneficial to the soil (it's all about finding a balance).
How Can the Land be Restored?
1. Decide if you want a grassland or a forest. This depends heavily on where you live, and your availability of water (rainfall, groundwater, humidity). If you have little to no rainfall, no groundwater, and greater than 2 acres of land, then a grassland with cattle/goats/sheep may be your best option. For more information on how and why, watch
Reversing Desertification by Allan Savory. If you have a small piece of land (2 acres or less), you might want to make a forest.
Food Forest Basics:
1. Never till the soil or remove organic material from the area unless it will be returned in some way.
2. Create swales, berms, and huegalkultures to prevent erosion, encourage water to drain into the soil, and fungi to proliferate
3. Start introducing
climate appropriate perennial vegetation and animals like rabbits, goats, birds, fish
, pigs, and redworms. Don't let goats have free access to everything, or else they will turn your forest into a desert. Use the manures of all these animals to feed the trees. Focus on creating as much shade as possible to prevent the sun from burning away all the carbon.
4. Constantly Add straw, logs, wood mulch, leaves, or any other carbon-rich materials to build soil, retain moisture, and grow fungi. Add animal manure or other nitrogenous fertilizers on top. Create layers of mulch and manure.
5. Apply seaweed extracts and worm teas to help restore micronutrients and feed the soil
6. Maintain a balance of biomass going out and coming back in.
7. Make sure to have plants that provide nitrogen fixation, such as perennial legume trees.
Food:
It is my opinion that farming should be mostly about trees. Before agriculture existed, people hunted animals and gathered nuts/fruits/legumes from trees. It’s not backbreaking and you can collect a lot of food from trees, which is especially useful with limited space. In addition to this, trees tend to have deep root systems so they don’t necessarily require much or any irrigation after they are established. In hot climates, the sun can wreak havoc on the soil if it is left bare. The shade that trees create is absolutely essential towards building soil fertility, leaf litter, and water retention (but thick grasslands can also do that). Selecting the right trees for your environment as well as returning all plant residues and animal waste to your soil is crucial for long-term soil fertility. Using trees as your primary food source will be a lot slower to establish than annual crops. Civilization and all of its technology was built on staple annual crops like wheat, barley, rice, potatoes, corn, as well as large mammals that could be used to work the fields and provide meat and milk. However, it inevitably led to unrestrained human population growth, environmental degradation (soil and water), giving rise to scarcity and war.
Trees and other perennials may not be as productive as annual crops, although they come close, they lend themselves to a permanent agriculture that does not rape the land.
Annual crops should have a place in every farm, but they are incredibly vulnerable to unpredictable weather, pests and disease, and less than ideal soil. For Southern California, the best time to grow annuals is in the fall/winter months, mainly because it's the only time of the year when we have the possibility of decent rain, the lower temperatures makes them taste great, and pest activity is reduced.
One of the oldest and most important things to remember about farming is that it should be dirt cheap, especially if you do things yourself. The food you’ll be producing will be priceless in terms of nutrition and nourishment, but it should cost next to nothing to do it. One of the great ironies with industrial farming is that it tends to have numerous and expensive inputs, and it tends to result in unhealthy or sub-quality food. For example, it’s expensive to operate a CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) and yet it produces unhealthy meat. It’s cheap to let a small herd of cattle free-range on grass, and the meat is very nutritious. Let frugality be your guide to healthy food!
Carbohydrates:
In trying to create a self-reliant farm on less than one acre of land, one invariably encounters the obstacle of carbohydrates. If you own chickens, this obstacle becomes even more daunting. Before raising livestock like this, (which should be seen as a luxury food source) figure out how to produce enough carbs directly for human consumption. Any surpluses or table scraps that are left over should dictate the amount of chickens you own. Without a good supply of carbs, forget owning chickens, you’re going to barely survive just feeding yourself. In fact, the body needs carbohydrates to break down proteins, and if there isn't an ample supply, the body will start to draw from its muscle tissue in order to satisfy bodily demands. Growing annual cereal grains to get seeds may be worth a try, but another method that's cheap and fast is to sprout wheatgrass from purchased red winter wheat.
Wheatgrass:
I have a friend (Zach Burkle) who taught me about growing wheatgrass indoors to feed his birds. Why indoors? Wheatgrass does well at temperatures between 70-75 degrees F, which is easily accomplished indoors, and wheatgrass also doesn't do well with direct sunlight (near a window is usually enough light). He drilled 1/8" holes on the bottom of plastic tubs, then he waters the top levels with a gallon of water 3 times daily, and the water drips all the way to the bottom, where there is a reservoir that catches the water. He buys re-cleaned red winter wheat or barley in 50 lb bags, soaks the seeds for 6-12 hrs, then spreads them evenly in a tray. No fertilizer, no media, just tap water and seeds (a tsp of bleach will help to prevent mold problems). After about 6-8 days, they are ready to be thrown to the animals, which benefit from the fresh grass and seeds to eat. It can also make a healthy juice, of course.
Carob:
This drought-tolerant legume tree (also called St. John’s Bread) is a Mediterranean staple food tree (and famine food as well) that thrives in places such as Italy, Malta, Spain, and Southern California. It can grow to 30-50 ft in height (and just as much in root depth), and is often planted near homes because of its fire-resistant properties. It bears carbohydrate rich pods that can be ground into a flour and added to breads or cakes, or fed whole to cows, pigs, goats, horses, or sheep. The seed is quite hard, but is high in protein. It can be boiled like dry beans and eaten, or ground up along with the pods (still experimenting with this). The carob tree begins to yield about 100 lbs of pods after about 12 years, and on certain cultivars 18 years of age can bear 550 lbs. Ancient carob trees in Israel are claimed to yield as much as 3,000 lbs per tree. Start propagating carob trees from seed by scarifying it with a file and placing it in a moist soil medium such as 50/50 coco and perlite. The trees are dioecious, meaning that there are male and female trees. The male gives off a strong odor and bears no pods, while the female bears pods. Don’t worry about the sex of your tree if you grow from seed, because you can eventually top work a young tree and graft in a variety such as “Santa Fe." Santa Fe Carob is hermaphroditic (both male and female), so it is self-fruitful, and the best one for California. Some nurseries that occasionally carry the Santa Fe Carob are the Exotica Nursery (Vista, CA) and Papaya Tree Nursery (Grananda Hills).
*water: Hydraulic Lift– Deep rooted plants have access to much more water in the lower regions of soil. If a deeply rooted plant is in soil that is dry in the upper regions, water will actually leak out of its roots and diffuse into those dry regions. This allows adjacent plants with shallower root systems to “piggy-back” on the hydraulic lift of deep-rooted plants.
Oak Trees:
The native oaks that adorn the foothills of southern California can provide a reliable source of carbohydrates, as their acorns are high in carbohydrates and fat. Unfortunately, an individual oak tree has inconsistent yields of acorns each year, making it difficult to rely on a particular tree. This is because of masting, which refers to the tendency for an oak tree to produce a huge amount of nuts all at once (usually once every few years), so that it overwhelms the area with more nuts than a squirrel or bird could possibly eat. This ensures that at least some seeds will germinate and grow new trees. However, if you have access to an oak forest, you can certainly collect a bounty of acorns, just make sure you save a few for the squirrels (or perhaps it's the squirrels you're after). The right time to collect acorns is in the fall just before the rain comes. When you peel back the thin shell of the nut, it should reveal a bright yellow nut-meat. It helps to have a wooden mallet or rock to crack the shell and peel it off. If you notice a tiny hole in the acorn or the nut-meat is brownish to dark in color, it’s no good. After you've separated enough of the yellow ones, you can grind them into a flour-like meal. After that, you need to leach the acorns to remove the tannic acid, which gives the acorn a bitter taste. To quickly remove, boil the acorns and pour off the dark brown liquid. A slower method involves letting it soak in cold water for a day, pouring off the dark liquid, adding more water, and repeat for about a week. Natives used to fill a basket with acorns and dunk it in a river for a week, letting the flowing water leach away the tannin.
Native Americans used to burn the floor around oak trees, removing competing vegetation, and this would allow for the oaks to become very large and produce a bounty of acorns.
Fig:
The fig tree is fairly drought-tolerant and does well in hot and dry climates. They are incredibly healthy to eat, packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber, and even omega 3′s. They are a good source of carbohydrates, as 100 g of figs provide around 19g of carbs.
Pomegranate:
The Pomegranate tree is a very drought tolerant tree that will not disappoint. Year after year, without the help of fertilizers or frequent irrigation, this tree can produce an immense amount of pomegranates filled with antioxidants, vitamins, and fiber. The pomegranates are harvested at around October-November, making them a great addition to a Thanksgiving feast (much better than cranberry, in my opinion). It contains about the same amount of carbohydrates as figs per 100g.
Prickly Pear Cactus:
This plant is a fair source of carbohydrates and it is incredibly drought tolerant. Try to find the spineless variety, which will make it much easier to harvest and consume. This may not be packed with as much nutrition as nuts or fruit, but it could save your life if you are starving. I can’t imagine sustaining livestock with this, but it is a smart addition to the diet of a hunter gatherer. Propagating prickly pear cactus is simple: Cut off a cactus pad where it grows out of a lower one, bring it inside and lean it against a wall for about a week. Once the wound scabs over, it can be planted almost anywhere in your garden. It should not be watered at all for the first few months of being planted (it can rot), as the pad has plenty of water inside its tissues to start forming roots. When planting the pad, position it so that its broad-side is facing east to west, so that the south facing side of the cactus is not exposed to intense sun. Succulents are so efficient at using water because, unlike other plants, they close their stomata (small pores in the leaf) during the day, which reduces water loss. They only let CO2 enter through their stomata at night, and they convert it into an acid that is stored in their tissues for use during the day when they need to make sugars. The pads (nopales) contain roughly 5 g carbohydrates per cup and the pears (tunas) contain about 14 g per cup.
Fats/Protein:
When it comes to fats and proteins, nuts are champions of these macronutrients. Certain people will tell you to avoid eating too many nuts because of their fat content, but I consider this to be nonsense. The real danger with fats is in eating factory meat or hydrogenated vegetable oils (generally found in processed foods). In nature, fats are one of your greatest allies in fighting hunger so that you can withstand long-term periods without food as you hunt or gather. Some of the greatest protein sources are in raw leaves of certain plants.
Almond:
Almonds are the classic Mediterranean tree that is high in protein and fat. These nuts can be stored in cold temperatures for at least 5 years, and are one of the most densely nutritious nuts in the world. Almonds generally need between 3-500 hours of chill to produce well, so this presents a dilemma in the mild Southern California winters. After being dormant in the winter, it should produce flowers first as soon as spring arrives, which is a sign that it will fruit well that year. If, however, the winter is so mild that almost no chill occurs, then leaves will appear first after it breaks dormancy, which is a clear sign that the tree is confused and will have poor fruiting for that year. Almonds are productive for about 17 years, and generally live for about 50 years.
Macadamia Nut:
Rich in fats and some protein, macadamia nut is a tropical nut tree that is a heavy water user but is considered by many to be the finest nut in the world (and also the most expensive). A 13 year old tree can produce up to 75 lbs of nuts per tree. In order to get that kind of production, it needs to have water when it fruits, which is the hottest part of the year (August). Very heavy mulching and manuring can help to increase water in the soil, though without rainfall, irrigation is necessary. If the right market can be found, these nuts can sell for $10/lb. The Beaumont Macadamia nut tree is a cultivar that is well suited to Southern California and is available online at
Sweet Trees. The nuts are known to be very difficult to crack open, although many recommend using a PVC cutter or simply roasting them in the oven to make their shell brittle.
Moringa (Tropical/Subtropical/Arid-Subtropical):
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| If given enough water and nutrients, Moringa trees will grow (from seed) 15ft in a year. |
The Moringa tree is perhaps the most useful tree on earth, providing amazing levels of protein in its leaves, including nine essential amino acids. In addition, Moringa also contains high amounts of vitamins and minerals that put most fruits and vegetables to shame. This fast growing, drought-tolerant tree is best grown from seed, and in the proper climate it will grow 15 ft in its first year. Make sure to prune Moringa back at around waist height at least once a year, because it will eventually take the shape of a drumstick, having a few leaves out of reach, and almost nothing below. In addition, it's rapid growth makes it vulnerable to wind-throw. By pruning it constantly, it will come back each spring as a multi-trunked shrub that is bushy and full of easy-to-pick leaves. It has the potential to have nitrogen fixing nodules on its roots, so if planted throughout your orchard it will enrich the soil.
In the first two years of its life, Moringa trees should be water frequently (but only if there is good drainage) and don't need to be fertilized much. Moringa trees do not grow in clay any heavy soils, as they very easily get root rot problems if they have wet feet. Moringa loves to grow in sand or sandy loam, but must be given frequent watering if it is to grow fast. To help conserve water, heavy mulching and manuring around the tree will help to keep the root zone from drying out so fast, and eventually require little to no watering.
Eat the leaves fresh and mix it into your salads, soups, or dry them to make tea or add to sauces. The flavor is somewhat like arugula or some type of mustard green.
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Lima Beans (Tropical Perennial):
Lima Beans are actually a short-lived perennial vine (living up to 7 years), as it is native to tropical and subtropical parts of Central America. However, most Lima beans are grown as annuals in cold temperate parts of the world, where it's too cold for it to survive the winter. In Southern California there is no true winter, and Lima bean roots can manage to stay alive, and even become rather thick and established over time. Madagascar Lima beans are touted as the "7-year Lima bean", although many other varieties of Lima are worth trying, such as Christmas Pole Lima Beans. Lima Beans are generally 20% protein and 77% carbohydrate, making them a useful warm season bean that can grow for many years.
Avocado (Tropical/Mediterranean):
Avocados are the standard of delicious fruit in Southern California. They are rich in fats and these fruits should be gorged on whenever available (which actually can be all year if you have Hass, Fuerte, and Reed). Avocados should be kept no taller than 15-20 feet, and pruned twice a year to maintain this height. As avocado trees grow, many people like to prune the low branches to give it an umbrella shape. In terms of fruit production, this is very wrong and will make picking the fruit increasing difficult and will reduce the yield of the tree over time. Keep avocados like a box, with fruit on top and all sides (to the ground). Low hanging branches will make for easy picking of fruit and it also shades the tree trunk and soil.
White Mulberry (Tropical/Temperate/Mediterranean):
White mulberry trees (Morus alba) grow incredibly fast, producing both edible leaves (cooked) and berries. All types of mulberries are very adaptable and drought tolerant once established, and they create a decent shade canopy within 2 years. It is the host for the silk moth, and has very tender leaves (producing up to 50 tons/acre) that are low in fiber (so you don't have to chew on them until you get tired) and up to 25% protein. The leaves should be steamed or cooked in some way to make them palatable, and the berries can be eaten fresh or dried. After 5-6 years, the tree will be able to produce 50-80 lbs of berries per year (depending on how big you let it grow, and assuming 400 hours of chill). White mulberry trees can be grown as low shrubs that are in between your orchard trees, creating an under-story canopy of shade-tolerant leaves. To keep it shrubby, it can be continually coppiced and the tender leaves and stems can be fed fresh to livestock and people.
Olive:
Olive trees are one of the best oil crops, providing at least 1 ton of oil/hectare. Fresh olives are bitter and must be processed to make them palatable. Traditionally, olives are pickled in vinegar and sea salt, and fermented for about a month before they are ready to eat. Olive trees have shallow root systems, however, they are low water users. It takes about 30 years for an olive tree to become very productive, but in half that time it can easily produce enough olives for a small family to subsist on.
Aquaponics:
Grow some fish, lettuce, and duckweed in an integrated system. I would not yet call this a sustainable food source if left to its own devices, but it is one way to produce a lot of food in a small space that is healthy and fresh. Just because something is not sustainable doesn't mean it shouldn't be used extensively. Aquaponics and other types of pond culture is capable of generating huge amounts of biomass, such as solid fish manure, greens, and fish. All of the products coming out of this system can then be used for other sustainable practices, such as soil building around an inter-cropped orchard.
In addition, it's a good way to earn an income to support your subsistence lifestyle. Be careful about what fish you decide to keep. Tilapia are the most popular, but they are illegal in CA without a
permit from the Department of Fish and Game ($800 initially and $500/year renewal fee). You can be fined up to $10,000 if you're caught selling without a permit. For this reason, raising tilapia to sell is not economically viable for backyard aquaponics, unless you're willing to sell at least 1,000 fish/year. In addition to this, heating the water is also a challenge (without spending too much on electricity) because tilapia like the water to be at 86 degrees F.
If you're looking for a good eating fish that's legal to own, try raising blue gill. They are a cold tolerant, california native fish, and they eat duckweed. Not sure about the laws about raising and selling them, but if you keep them for your own consumption in a closed system, you should be fine. Another good fish choice is koi or goldfish, but they're just ornamental. If goldfish or minnows are raised, then they could be used as feeder fish to other livestock like bigger fish or birds.
The real potential for earning an income with aquaponics is with fresh lettuce, water cress, and other salad greens that can be sold at high end restaurants and farmer's markets. These can be grown abundantly almost every month of the year (with the help of some climate control), and if the right market can be found, this can be a lucrative small business.
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| Leaf lettuce, such as Rex, Adrianna, and other heat-tolerant lettuces can be grown year-round. |
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| These are mostly 30-day salad-mixes that can be sold in bundles. Germinating the lettuce seed in rockwool cubes does add a lot of expense, but it saves hours of time that could be spent elsewhere. |
I covered my pond (roughly 6′ x 30′) with a 3/4″ PVC lean-to and covered it with greenhouse film, which I purchased from
greenhousemegastore.com. The plastic film is supposed to last 4 years, though if you cover it with shade-cloth it should last longer. To build the greenhouse, I hammered in some 3′ rebar stakes every 3 feet. I then put a 10′ PVC pipe onto the stake and bent the pipe until it could sit under the lip of the adjacent wall. If there is no lip, studs can be drilled in to create one. Each pipe under the lip of the wall has a T-fitting so that it can connect with every other pipe, and there are two 90 degree elbows on either end. This greenhouse allows for duckweed, lettuce, and fish to grow prolifically all winter. In the spring and summer, the plastic is taken off and 70% shade cloth is used to keep the plants from overheating. Lettuce becomes very challenging after April/May, so certain measures need to be taken to make sure it stays cool.
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| As the water slowly returns to the growbed, it must go through a 25 micron filter sock, which is being supported by a 4" diameter ABS pipe, which is about 15" long. The quantity of fish you have will determine how often you have to clean your filter sock. As far as polishing the water before it goes into your growbed, filter socks do quite well, as long as the water is trickling through it. |
To construct my pond I used cinder blocks and EPDM rubber pond liner. The fish pond is 3 blocks high, the lettuce growbed is 2 blocks high, and a series of duckweed ponds are 1 block high, each pond being approximately 6′ x 6′. If I were to do this again, I would make the fish pond 1 block high and dig underground for depth. I would then make the growbed 2 blocks high, pump water from the fish pond into the growbed and have it trickle back via gravity.
Aquaponics Basics:
1. The most important thing you can do with aquaponics is to regularly manage solid fish poop (sludge) because this can harm the fish if it accumulates enough, and it makes your growbed messy, which reduces oxygen in the lettuce roots. Fish are constantly excreting ammonia, which is great for the plants, but they also poop out solids that will deposit somewhere in your pond, begin to decompose, and lead to a rise in toxic nitrite. This allows for heterotrophic bacteria to grow, and they will use up oxygen in the water, making an inhospitable environment for your fish. To prevent this, you MUST remove these solids on a regular basis. Some people use clarifiers, which have baffles (walls) to allow solids to settle on the bottom. I use a 950 gallon/hour mag pump that sucks water in from a 5 gallon bucket filled with MATALA filter pads. The bucket is cleaned out with a pressurized hose about once every 2 weeks.
2. When establishing an aquaponics system for the first time, or adding new water that is lost, the use of reverse osmosis filters or rainwater must be used. Tap water contains lots of unwanted ions which can harm the fish and plants and will eventually cause the TDS (total dissolved solids) to go beyond what the plants can handle. Tap water also has the tendency to be too alkaline (ph of 8), so this makes it difficult for plants to take in nutrients and can also lead to the accumulation of ions which later become toxic. In such a case, much of the reservoir will need to be flushed and clean water will have to be put back in. With reverse osmosis water or rainwater, there are basically no ions in the water to start with, and the pH is around 6.5, which is ideal.
3. Aquaponics is not perfect, and simply feeding your fish and adding RO water to your system will not keep your plants healthy indefinitely. Calcium will gradually disappear from your system, as plants are heavy users of this ion, RO filters remove calcium, and fish waste is not loaded with calcium. To remedy this, heaping bags of oyster or egg shells in a mesh bag can help to replenish this in your system. However, calcium carbonate (shells) will slowly raise the pH of your water, which may eventually bring it above 7.0. To fix this problem, very small amounts of phosphoric acid (pH down) can help to bring your system back into the acidic range. Another issue is iron, which is difficult for plants to get from simply fish waste. To fix this, seaweed extracts can be added to your system intermittently to help replenish not just iron, but dozens of other micronutrients that your plants may need. Iron is also very pH dependent, so assuming the water is acidic, it will be very soluble.
4. In order for plants to get enough macronutrients (N,P,K) from fish waste, there needs to be enough fish pooping in the water at any given time. If you have lots of plants and a few fish, you will most likely have chlorotic plants. One should have lots of fish (although not right away) and enough bio-balls to convert ammonium to nitrate, so that there can be luxury amounts of nitrate in the water all the time. Nitrate is not really harmful to fish, and so having more nitrate than your plants are using will ensure that plants will always be growing rapidly in your system.
Having lots of ammonium in your system indicates that not enough bacteria are present, or that tap water was added (chloramines break down into chloride and ammonium).
I have a make-shift baffle (made from a tupperware container lid, secured with twine and a brick) that blocks the pipe which flows back into the growbed. This allows solids to settle to the bottom, where they will be sucked up by the filter, but its main function is to prevent duckweed (which floats on the surface as it is added to the fish tank) from getting sucked into the growbed.
What do you feed the fish?
One of the cheapest and healthiest ways to feed your fish is with duckweed:
Duckweed is the second fastest growing plant on earth, and has a full range of amino acids that your fish require (it’s also good for chickens). It is a small leafy plant that grows on the surface of the water, asexually reproducing itself every 48 hours until it completely covers a body of water. With nutrient rich water, duckweed can have a protein content as high as 50% (dry weight). Duckweed is considered a complete feed for Tilapia, though they won’t grow very fast if that’s all they get. Duckweed is high in Omega-3′s, which will concentrate in the tissues of your fish and provide you with tremendous health. Duckweed unfortunately puts your filters under a lot more stress, so cleaning and maintenance is greater when using lots of duckweed.
Where do you get duckweed?
I recommend searching for a local duckweed species in rivers, reservoirs, and lakes. During the summer, I was able to find a large amount of duckweed growing in a concrete channel next to Puddingstone Lake in San Dimas, California. I drove past the lake parking lot where they charge you to get in and half a mile down the road there’s a loosely chained gate that you can slip into. Once there, search for a concrete river basin and check for duckweed, which prefers slow-moving or stagnant water. When you see it, it looks as if the water has been sprayed with bright green paint. Scoop off as much as much of it as you can and make sure to bring a strainer and some Tupperware to carry it home.
Cinder blocks are made level, covered with cement, and given toppers. Filling the blocks with cement is not necessary, but will make it strong. Before adding the pond liner, place some old carpet underneath to prevent rocks from puncturing it.
How do you grow duckweed?
The most crucial step towards growing duckweed successfully is sunlight and water temperature. If those conditions are not ideal, then duckweed will bring you much confusion and frustration. It grows best in water temperatures between 65 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit. If the water becomes any warmer than 85 degrees Fahrenheit, then duckweed will start dying rapidly (it will turn white). This often happens when people try to grow duckweed in small containers, which can easily heat up. Sunlight will make or break your duckweed, depending on the time of year. In Southern California, duckweed can be grown year-round, but in the winter it needs to be given greenhouse film or some clear insulating cover to keep it warm. In the summer, it can continue to benefit from a greenhouse film, but it MUST be well-ventilated and given at least 50-70% shade-cloth, or else it will get scorched and the water will become too warm. Good shade-cloth can be made to custom dimensions at
greenhousemegastore.com. Since SoCal gets so much sun, it’s actually fairly easy to grow duckweed during winter.
It’s good to have multiple duckweed ponds, because sometimes certain circumstances may cause your duckweed to die off almost completely. If this happens, it can take an extremely long time for it to bounce back. If you have other ponds that are still healthy, you can remove all of your dead duckweed and replace it with a fresh new mat from a healthy pond. This can be done carefully using a window screen so that the roots do not become damaged, and is much faster than trying to bring back a partial die-off.
When duckweed is introduced to your pond for the first time, it may struggle to compete with algae, which will smother its roots. This is one indication that the pH of the water is too high, which favors algae. If the introduced duckweed does not fully blanket the surface of the water, the struggle will last much longer. For it to fully establish itself and start to multiply aggressively, it must be left alone for a long enough time so that it can completely blot out the algae and produce a thick mat on the surface.
Duckweed thrives in conditions that are considered dangerous for fish. A bog-like environment with stagnant water and solid waste accumulating on the bottom, releasing ammonium is usually ideal for duckweed. That’s why it’s best to grow duckweed in a separate pond and add the necessary fertilizers to the water, preferably from organic sources. Duckweed actually prefers ammonium ions instead of nitrate. Keeping the duckweed pond at a pH of 6.5 will help to keep the ammonium in its ionic state. If the pH goes above 7.0, then bacteria will start to denitrify the ammonium into ammonia gas, and your nitrogen will be lost to the atmosphere. Once again, by using reverse osmosis water or rainwater, the pH should stay below 7.
It’s crucial to purchase a water quality test kit to test for pH, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, so that you’re not in dark about your pond’s chemistry, which is around $30.00 dollars at PetSmart. One way to tell how much nitrogen is in the water is to examine the length of the duckweed roots. If they are short (such as 1/2 ” to 1″), this indicates high levels of ammonium and nitrate and this will produce a high protein duckweed. The longer the roots are, the less nitrogen is in water, and the lower the protein content of your duckweed.
Ammonium (toxic to fish): Raises the pH of your water and eventually turns into ammonia (gas) and is lost to the atmosphere (denitrification) if the pH gets high enough (i.e. pH 8-10).
Nitrite (more toxic to fish): Needs to be turned into nitrate, and is a symptom of anaerobic conditions in the pond, such as an accumulation of sludge or organic debris on the bottom.
Nitrate (less toxic): Most plants prefer this as their source of nitrogen, and pull this out of solution to produce leaves, which cleans up the water for the fish.
In addition, a TDS meter is a valuable tool that can be used to see how much salinity (salt) is in your water in the form of ppm (parts per million). Salinity increases slowly over time, but if you have nutrient accumulating plants like duckweed, then salinity can actually decrease over time (assuming that the rate of salt released by fish manure is less than what is taken in by duckweed). Some plants like salty water, while others cannot stand it. Lettuce, for example, usually does not like more than 600 ppm, while a mature tomato, zuchinni, or cucumber plant does well with 1000 ppm.
Other ways to feed your fish:
2. In the warm seasons, hang a bug zapper over your pond at night and watch as throngs of insects get incinerated and gulped up by hungry fish.
3. Black Soldier Fly Larvae have a lot of good protein for your fish, but also have a lot of fat. Feeding your Tilapia too much of these larvae can be injurious to their health, causing liver damage and reproductive problems.
4. Red worms are a favorite food of all fish. If you have worm bins you can periodically harvest them with your worm castings. This can work well if you have a whole garage full of worm bins that are constantly being rotated.
Chickens:
Eggs and meat: If you have a small flock of hens that you raise from chicks, you will have more eggs than you can eat for a while. However, after 2-3 years, hens slow down considerably in their laying, so at a certain point its just cheaper to eat them. Consider raising quail instead of chickens, which eat less food, only take 6 weeks to mature, and lay 300 eggs/year. Read more about looking after chickens
here. Livestock should only be a minor part of your farm, with an emphasis on quality instead of quantity. It’s easy to produce great quantities of eggs and meat by running corn and soybeans through a large flock of chickens, but this is not ecologically sustainable nor is it healthy to eat. If you produce a small amount of eggs and meat and do so without having to buy any commercial feed because your hens were able to sustain themselves on your surplus grain, table scraps, insects, and leafy greens from your garden, then you will have something truly nourishing.
Chicken manure (fertilizer): Chicken manure is one of the
richest manures. It can be fed back into your system in multiple ways,
such as being composted, mixed with mulches under trees, or fed to black
soldier fly larvae (see below).
What do you feed chickens?
A good way to think of feeding your chickens is the three G’s: Greens, Grains, and Grubs. To supply the grubs, consider this:
Black Soldier Fly Larvae:
The Black Soldier Fly is no ordinary fly which lays eggs in a special container, which is where you put a lot of organic waste to attract female flies. You can put spoiled food and/or livestock manure in here and the larvae can consume as much as 5 lbs/day. They’re self-harvesting, which means that after they’re done eating, they willingly leave the “eating area” to become a mature fly by climbing out of the container and dropping into a collection jar. Many of these won’t become flies because you can feed them directly to your hens or fish. The advantage here is in turning waste products into livestock feed, which reduces cost and increases food quality. A fair portion of the larvae should be allowed to become flies in order to replenish the population for more egg laying.
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| The PVC T on the lid is used both as a handle and an entry point for the BSF females. |
This is easily my flock’s favorite thing to eat, as they will greedily gulp these down as quickly as I empty them out of the collection jar. To learn more, check out
www.thebiopod.com to purchase one or try
building your own like me. Black residues will be left behind by the larvae (mostly cellulose) once they have consumed roughly 98% of waste, assuming the waste is low in fiber. This residue should be given to red worms to complete the breakdown process. You can then feed the worms to your chickens and fish as well as reap the benefits of worm casting fertilizer.
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| Immature larvae actively consuming organic matter |
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| Mature larvae that have collected in the jar. |
Other ways to feed the chickens:
1. Surplus milled Chestnuts/Carob:
These trees can act as your grain because they’re high in carbohydrates. I’m still experimenting with feeding these to chickens, but they look promising.
2. Duckweed:
This can give your birds a year-round supply of protein, and can be as much as 40% of their diet without affecting weight gain or egg laying.
4. Pakistan Mulberry tree:
Mullberry trees in general can produce immense amounts of berry-like fruits that chickens love. Pakistan mulberry is very delicious, more so than white mulberry. The berries are great human food, and can be eaten fresh, dried, or made into a delicious jam. They actually taste similar to an apple. The mulberry is easily one of the fastest growing trees I have ever seen, even if it isn't given much irrigation. If you want to get up a quick canopy of shade, mulberry is one of the best.
6. Table Scraps:
Chickens are just as good as pigs when it comes to eating food waste. They will eat stale bread, sour milk, pasta, cheese, greens, fruit, seeds, yogurt, fish, and much more. If any food scraps are hard (like stale bread), first soak it in water so its easy for the hens to peck at it. Things to avoid due to toxicity to chickens would be chocolate, avocado, and citrus. I have witnessed my hens eating avocados that have fallen from the trees and they suffered no ill effects, though this is probably because it represents a very small part of their diet.
Pest Control:
Spraying pesticides is expensive and poisons your ecosystem. For a subsistence farmer it’s completely unnecessary, because insect damage on fruits or leaves is generally no big deal, especially if you have a perennial garden with a healthy predator/prey relationship. If you’re looking for marketable produce, however, that’s a different story. There are several natural ways of minimizing pests, the most well known being crop rotations and planting diverse species of plants.
By installing several hummingbird feeders throughout your yard and actively refilling them, you will over the years see permanent flocks of hummingbirds swarm around the yard. Hummers get most of their protein from small insects, so in theory if you had enough hummers swarming around your orchard you could substantially reduce your pest problems. Hummers are known to eat aphids, whiteflies, ants, and many other small insects. In addition, all of those little birds will help to fertilize your plants with their droppings. If you don’t have a healthy bird population, this is an indication of an unhealthy ecosystem. In the US, domestic cats kill an estimated 500 million birds each year. Birds are one of the biggest predators of insects, and so without them one can expect a rise in pest problems.
Chickens do a great job cleaning up the floor, removing fallen fruits which will harbor pest insects. They will also continually scratch through the dirt in search of weed seeds, insect eggs, and arthropods. Wild birds and squirrels can be problematic by eating much of your harvest each year, though chickens are very territorial and will often chase birds and squirrels if they’re low enough. If animals end up eating a portion of your harvest, you can compensate for that by hunting and eating those animals with a pellet pistol or blowgun. If, however, you find that you have more than enough to eat, I see no reason to be upset when wild animals visit your farm for a bite to eat.
In general, if plants are watered too much or not enough, they become very susceptible to pest damage. For example, a drought-stressed tree will not be able to produce much sap to trap insects trying to bore into its bark, and its cambium layer could become girdled, killing the tree.
Food Waste and the Dreaded Rats:
If you compost almost everything that comes from your kitchen (meats, dairy, breads, vegetables) then you more than likely have encountered rats, which will set up residence in your compost bin and use it as their primary food source. This can very quickly turn into a rat infestation, as one female rat can give birth to as many as 1,000 rats in a single year. Unchecked rat populations will not only feast on your kitchen scraps, but will completely ravage your crops that you’ve been growing all year. Perhaps the most troubling possibility associated with rats is
bubonic plague, a fairly rare disease that has been known to appear in the Southwestern US for decades. In short, rat populations need to be kept to a minimum if you are to have a healthy, productive farm. There are many steps that can be taken to reduce rats, the preventative ones being the most effective.
To keep rat populations down, focus on reducing shelter and food. This is especially important during the warm parts of the year.
Shelter:
If your compost bin is dry for any length of time, rats will burrow under it and begin raising a family. A dry compost bin isn’t going to produce good compost anyway, so water it at least once a week for a minute or two (if you see rats fleeing after you water it, then water it every day until they don’t come back). In addition, regularly use a good long pitch-fork to turn your compost if you suspect rats are burrowing underneath to break up their dens.
Food:
The most important way to keep rats in check is to make sure they’re not eating your chicken feed, kitchen scraps, or growing crops. Keep your chicken feed in a cement-mixing tray that can be easily covered with a wooden lid and brick every night to keep rats from visiting the coop at night. Large trays or tubs that chickens get into to eat are ideal because they prevent the chickens from kicking their food into the dirt, which is not only wasteful, but an invitation to rats. It is so common for people to just scatter chicken feed on the ground for the hens to eat, and this leads to rat problems later on. If you have lots of fresh kitchen scraps, the easiest way to get rid of it instead of composting it is to run it through an animal, such as a chicken, pig, or dog (good for feeding meat scraps). Then you’re left with manure, which rats will not be so inclined to eat.
Feeding Scraps to Chickens:
If you have stale bread that’s hard as a rock, break it up and soak it in water until it’s soft. If you have sour milk, add that to the mix (the hens will not mind). Add all of the scraps that you're sure your chickens will eat into a big bowl and feed them first thing every morning. Do this before you give them their regular rations. Anything that you don't feed to your chickens (b/c it has gone rancid, is unpalatable, or is toxic) should be fermented in 5 gallon buckets (a.k.a bokashi). It’s an anaerobic method of composting that will make your kitchen scraps unappealing to rats. If you don’t have chickens, dedicate all of your kitchen scraps to your bokashi bucket.
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| Rat proof storage closet |
When the bucket fills up, cap it and put it in a rat-proof location. If you have a series of these buckets being used in rotation, all fermenting, then the oldest one should have at least a month to ferment. Each time you add a fresh bucket, you remove the oldest bucket to add to the compost. Dig a deep hole in the middle of your compost, dump the contents in, and cover it up completely with leaves, straw, or other carbonaceous material. It will not be totally decomposed at this point, but it will be blanketed with fungi and smell of alcohol, both of which is unappealing to rats. Small amounts of alcohol is very toxic to rats, and this is possibly why they stay away from it. I have found that bokashi and other fermented compost is not ideal for vermicomposting, but if it is aerobically composted for a while, it is then suitable for worms.
Composting is often met with mixed results, and it does require regular maintenance (such as watering) to get good results. Ultimately, once the compost is finished it needs to be shovelled and placed somewhere (like under a tree). A lot of time and effort is saved if fermented compost is simply placed under a tree and then covered with mulch, because the tree will provide shade for the compost and if the tree is getting watered regularly, then the compost will break down quickly and provide immediate results.
SHELTER:
Ever since people got the “American Dream” into their heads, they started believing they would be millionaire tycoons who would have a mansion, a sport’s car, a supermodel wife, and 2.5 kids. Our children grow up, leave the house, and pursue their unrealistic dreams. The truth is, in this
anthropic era, there are only a select few who live “the good life” while the rest of us submit to employment and spend our lives as slaves, holding up the blocks of the pyramid so that the elites can keep living in luxury. All of you can rage against this unfair division of wealth that exists, and you can start by becoming an independent, resourceful micro-farmer. If you were fortunate enough to grow up in a house that your parents own, then you’re almost there.
What about this idea: A man and woman meet, fall in love, buy a house, and raise a family. They have two children–their kingdom now has heirs to the throne, and when they grow up they work together to maintain and expand this kingdom. While the parents were strong, they looked after and educated their children, and when the parents grew old, the children looked after the parents until they passed away. The now grown adults inherit the house, grow food on their land, and have some friends and lovers to help them expand their kingdom. Since they don’t completely rely on corporations for their sustenance, they can live quite well with very little money. Other members of the family may work outside the home and earn money, which provides additional security to the kingdom. Because of the ease with which they live, they are able to reach out to wayward kings and queens to raise their standard of living. If families stay together for generations they are extremely stable and remain strong.
But what if the children grew up and left the house to pursue their own dreams, or were kicked out by the parents for being lazy deadbeats? In this case, the kingdom fades away, and the family becomes weak because their powers are divided. The children will most likely become economic slaves, the parents will grow old and live the remainder of their lives in a dilapidated nursing home, and someone else will enjoy the fruits of their labor.
Think of your house as a kingdom and you are the king or queen, but you have no need for peasants. How is this possible? Technology and perennial food production systems allow you to grow food with very little space. It doesn’t require much labor or time, and it’s manageable enough that you can do it yourself or with friends. Instead of an endless consumption of products that make others rich, rely on your own and start building your kingdom. “Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!” (Seriously, I'm not a communist, I just really identify with that quote because it represents the plight of most humans on this planet).
Energy:
People are always talking about going “off-the-grid,” but I've learned that this isn't necessarily a worthwhile idea, since battery technology isn't very good yet. If you get a bunch of solar panels on your roof and start storing that energy in some top-of-the-line batteries, you’ll be spending a huge amount of money on batteries that may only last 3-5 years. Forget about batteries, at least until their technology gets better. If instead you get a bunch of solar panels and start feeding the grid, you can actually make a difference in the amount of fossil fuels we burn. On top of that, you’ll not only make your house more sustainable but your neighbor’s house as well. If you can get your meter to run backwards (you produce more energy than you use), your electric company may start sending you a check in the mail, because you’re now a small-scale power plant. Now imagine if an entire city had a few solar panels on every roof feeding their grid, and how much of a difference that would make.
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