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Fruit Trenches: Cultivating Subtropical Plants in Freezing Temperatures

lowtechmagazine.com

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Re: Fruit Trenches: Cultivating Subtropical Plants in Freezing Temperatures

#91

Post by hutzlibu »

koheripbal wrote: post #78
floatrock wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average car in the US has a 120 horsepower engine, less if it's a compact, more if it's a truck or SUV. Think about that for a second -- your garage is housing the equivalent of 120 horses. How much "labor" is that? Now, we don't really notice that when everything is working well and the gasoline keeps flowing. There are calculations that figure a gallon of oil has something like two weeks of 8-hour/day manual la…

...except that you can go to a store where you can simply BUY for CHEAP far far more and more diverse foods than you could ever dream of growing. No one who does this thinks it's efficient. It's just a fun hobby.

"No one who does this thinks it's efficient"

Erm ... clearly you have not met true believers of the movement ..

Re: Fruit Trenches: Cultivating Subtropical Plants in Freezing Temperatures

#92

Post by hutzlibu »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #89
floatrock wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average car in the US has a 120 horsepower engine, less if it's a compact, more if it's a truck or SUV. Think about that for a second -- your garage is housing the equivalent of 120 horses. How much "labor" is that? Now, we don't really notice that when everything is working well and the gasoline keeps flowing. There are calculations that figure a gallon of oil has something like two weeks of 8-hour/day manual la…

Not sure if you've come come across it but Gabe Brown has done some interesting stuff in farm scale low input farming. https://youtu.be/uUmIdq0D6-A That said, I think there is a lot of interesting stuff in permaculture design. But in a lot of cases it is a bit of a pyramid scheme / agile consultancy feel going on.

"But in a lot of cases it is a bit of a pyramid scheme / agile consultancy feel going on."

Definitely, Sepp Holzer is sadly a prominent example of this as well. There was a case of a new project, where a naive women, a true believer of permaculture, invested all her money in a permaculture school project under the guidance of Holzer, where all the ordinary farmers could learn how much more efficient permaculture is. And it failed spectacular and ended in court. [german wikipedia for more, english version is very small]

Re: Fruit Trenches: Cultivating Subtropical Plants in Freezing Temperatures

#93

Post by dharma1 »

Shivetya wrote: post #58
dharma1 wrote: post #13

I grow a few things in a (relatively small) suburban garden in London. My experience so far with fruit normally associated with warmer climates: Grapes - grow very well outside, lots of tasty fruit, sensitive to mildew Figs - grow well outside, fast, but not much fruit yet Citrus (lemon, lime and kafir lime) - Any frost is damaging, can only grow in pots and bring in during winter. Grows slowly and doesn't produce mu…

with regards to the olives, are you using water or brine to treat them?

neither - the two trees I have don’t produce more than a handful of fruit, so they are mainly ornamental. I don’t think the growing season is long enough for the olives to grow to a reasonable size

Re: Fruit Trenches: Cultivating Subtropical Plants in Freezing Temperatures

#94

Post by yesbabyyes »

loeg wrote: post #65
jfk13 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a specially trained valuable first world labourer -- at least, my employer seems to think I'm worth a salary -- I find growing my own potatoes (and a few other things) a welcome break from my desk and screen. I'm sure my garden is nowhere near as efficient as a real farmer could make it, but that's hardly the point. And a few rows of potatoes (even with my inefficient management), are a much more productive use of…

Do it if you enjoy it, but that isn't the point GP was making or responding to. (I also maintain a small garden, FWIW.)

In fact, it is in part the point I want to make. It is a giving pursuit, in more ways than one.

Re: Fruit Trenches: Cultivating Subtropical Plants in Freezing Temperatures

#95

Post by loeg »

yesbabyyes wrote: post #94
loeg wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do it if you enjoy it, but that isn't the point GP was making or responding to. (I also maintain a small garden, FWIW.)

In fact, it is in part the point I want to make. It is a giving pursuit, in more ways than one.

In my comment, GP is pjc50; not you. You literally said that everyone should plant potatoes, which I, and pjc50, disagree with. As I said before, do it if you enjoy it; it's not a great use of everyone's time.

Re: Fruit Trenches: Cultivating Subtropical Plants in Freezing Temperatures

#96

Post by toomuchtodo »

netjiro wrote: post #88
toomuchtodo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see the math of geothermal greenhouses powered by renewables versus the carbon footprint of air freight of food. As renewables drive down the cost of electricity, the economics continually shift towards local production versus import. Outside of Alberta, most of Canada's electrical generation is very low carbon (nuclear and hydro) per electricitymap.org.

Check out Iceland. https://usgreenchamber.com/how-iceland-is-revolutionizing-gr... Slowly developing insulated indoor aquacultures, led lighting, robotic harvesting, perfect climate control, gas mixture, mineral and nutrients. With near future robotics we'll see near zero carbon footprint production with near zero human work load for a fairly wide range of healthy foods.

This is very helpful, thank you for sharing!

Re: Fruit Trenches: Cultivating Subtropical Plants in Freezing Temperatures

#97

Post by dharma1 »

jjgreen wrote: post #20
dharma1 wrote: post #13

I grow a few things in a (relatively small) suburban garden in London. My experience so far with fruit normally associated with warmer climates: Grapes - grow very well outside, lots of tasty fruit, sensitive to mildew Figs - grow well outside, fast, but not much fruit yet Citrus (lemon, lime and kafir lime) - Any frost is damaging, can only grow in pots and bring in during winter. Grows slowly and doesn't produce mu…

I am jealous of your garden

All you need is a bit of outside space, and time. Takes a few years for fruit trees to grow

Re: Fruit Trenches: Cultivating Subtropical Plants in Freezing Temperatures

#98

Post by chris1993 »

gdubs wrote: post #18

Wow, this is amazing. The trenches are super cool, but there’s a wealth of info in the article, especially around how they arrived at creeping varieties, and how they cold-hardened lemons by painstakingly moving each successive generation’s seeds further and further north. Really interesting piece.

Very interesting reliance on epigenetics to get cold adapted varieties

Re: Fruit Trenches: Cultivating Subtropical Plants in Freezing Temperatures

#99

Post by pvaldes »

dharma1 wrote: post #13

I grow a few things in a (relatively small) suburban garden in London. My experience so far with fruit normally associated with warmer climates: Grapes - grow very well outside, lots of tasty fruit, sensitive to mildew Figs - grow well outside, fast, but not much fruit yet Citrus (lemon, lime and kafir lime) - Any frost is damaging, can only grow in pots and bring in during winter. Grows slowly and doesn't produce mu…

> Citrus (lemon, lime and kafir lime) - Any frost is damaging, can only grow in pots and bring in during winter. Grows slowly and doesn't produce much fruit

Lime and kafir lime are very tender. If lemons do not work, I would suggest you to choose hardy rootstocks (Poncirus can stand -40C for a short time) and try Yuzu instead. They are seedy, spiny (as lemons or limes), and less interesting as fruit but more hardy. Tangerine is also a relatively hardy citrus.

Olives and Pomegranates, forget about it. Will grow but bearing fruit is a different thing.

Stauntonia looks promising. Can you tell us more about your experience with it?

Have you tried Artic kiwi?

London figs will bear better in pots, probably

Re: Fruit Trenches: Cultivating Subtropical Plants in Freezing Temperatures

#100

Post by pvaldes »

hirundo wrote: post #30

"Training small citrus plants was key to extending their cultivation across all regions of the Black Sea coast, where until then it had been impossible. This was achieved by pruning and guiding citrus plants into a creeping form, which reduced their height to a mere 25 cm." People complain about cubicle farms, but there's so much we can do to train workers to be productive in them, if we start them young enough.

We should notice than a 25cm height Citrus is not necessarily a 25cm wide Citrus. Could extend for a few meters. In the end is the opposite to a cubicle. Creeping plants are space hogs.
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