Four words worth understanding

Words like sustainability and diversity can only mean so much when their definitions are often different between two people. How can we be sustainable if we do not understand and agree upon what sustainability really is?

Sustainability

Sustainability in its simplest form is the ability to sustain. Sustain means to preserve, remain, stand-fast, hold position, or maintain current conditions. So really, sustainability is the ability to self-maintain. From that perspective sustainability can not stand alone, it must describe something else.

Proponents of sustainability have decided that society, at present, is not sustainable. Insisting that instead of being conquerers we should be caretakers. As conquers of Earth humans will perish. But as caretakers of Earth the human race can continue into the future. To be a caretaker we must first be sustainable. However, what that actually entails is often overlooked.

Sustainable measures may include the buying up of forest and prime croplands in Central and South America and Africa for production of bioenergy crops. This displaces thousands of indigenous peoples who lose their homes and ways of life to profit-seeking foreign investors while decreasing our dependence on fossil fuels.

Is this a good thing? Is the benefit of mass producing cheap bioenergy crops worth more than the destruction of self-sustainable communities?

Compare that sustainable quagmire with this one. Often people decide to ride their bike or walk places when they could have taken their automobile. What they do not realize is that because they are using their automobile less, it incurs less wear and tear and uses less gas than normal. Leading to fewer trips to the gas station and mechanic. This pulls money and jobs out of the community as less money is spent and fewer workers are needed to satisfy demand. Of course, by not driving that automobile greenhouse gas emissions are reduced as well as vehicle related expenses and doctor office visits (because of the health benefits of regular exercise and car related incidents).

While global, local and environmental sustainability are benefited, global and local economic sustainability are negatively affected. The person making the decision to walk instead of drive improves their economic sustainability. Their decision affects more than just them. Thus, it is paramount to understand the context when discussing or making decisions about the sustainability of anything, anywhere or anyone.

Diversity

Diversity, like Will Ferrel says in the movie Anchorman, may have been an “Old, old wooden ship.” but the word and concept likely came from elsewhere. Diversity is often used in the field of ecology where it is a measure of both evenness (the distribution of populations relative to each other. ex. For five apples and seven oranges, apples make up 42 percent of the total population and oranges 58 percent, therefore the evenness is fairly uniform) and richness (the total number of players. ex. For the apple-orange scenario the richness would be two).

A community with lots of primary producers (the 99 percent) and a few dominating individuals (the 1 percent) is not diverse. A community of many individuals distributed along the entire hierarchy (a greater than two class system) is diverse. The more diverse a situation the more resistant it is to change and failure.

The term diversity is also used in business. Just like in nature, the greater the diversity of investments (placement of eggs), the more eggs in different baskets, the less likely all the eggs will be destroyed by the collapse of one basket.

Permaculture

Permaculture is a word less widely known and understood than sustainability or diversity. The word comes from the combination of permanent and agriculture, which is what it means. One should view permaculture as a system with minimum inputs and non-degrative outputs. A system which assimilates and recycles wastes and serves multiple purposes. This system does not require intensive (cost and labor) up keep and continuously improves. Permaculture is a business model and a way of life. In permaculture the system does the work while one simply enjoys the benefits. Permaculture is attainable at any size and scale.

Tomorrow

What is today but tomorrows yesterday? If we are always passing something off saying we will do it tomorrow nothing will ever happen because tomorrow does not exist without today. Today will soon be over and tomorrow will be today. Do not treat tomorrow as though it is the untouchable future, instead treat tomorrow as you would today: embrace it, love it and live in it.

Four Words

Separately these words sustainability, diversity, permaculture and tomorrow are all concepts. When put together, used properly and integrated into our daily lives they mean a whole lot more. Sustainability means taking care of our environment through sound social and economical practices. Diversity means bolstering a wide array of distributed yet sustainable populations, ideas and practices. Permaculture is sustainable agriculture which utilizes diversity to produce food, fuel and fiber for the inhabitants of tomorrow. Tomorrow does not exist without today. We must act today for those of tomorrow. These words, when applied, transform us from conquerers of Earth to caretakers of our planet.

Garden Update

After a horrible light outage citizens of the basement garden (Mole dwellers) needed a source of light.

 
Unfortunately for the pak choi the mole dwellers took over the living room garden leaving the pak choi vulnerable for consumption.

Downy mildew and impatience as well as a hungry cat (Carl the Destroyer) have been the scourges of the indoor garden, terrorizing all but the lucky.  Tolerance and perseverance will be necessary for survival in this garden.

Video Update

Intensive Home Food Production

This blog has been created to be used as a tool by anyone interested in producing their own food at home.  Topics of discussion can vary from backyard gardening to permaculture to aquaponics.  This blog will serve as a hub for ideas, knowledge, wisdom, experiences, and experiments of those actively engaged in Intensive Home Food Production.  Whether you are interested in gardening and composting for fun, are committed to sustaining yourself on local, high-quality food, or are fed-up with the current big-business food system, I think we all can agree that the unifying factor here is food, and that petty differences (politics, demographics...) can be overlooked for the benefit of ourselves and our planet.

Self-Watering Systems

Whether you want to produce one plant or several in one system, self-watering containers (SWC) are incredibly effective, convenient, and economical.  Self-watering containers use water from a reservoir to keep the growing substrate (soil, soilless mixture, potting mixture...) at what is called Field Moisture Capacity (FMC) through Capillary Action.  Growing substrate (GS)  has macro-pores and micro-pores.  Macro-pores are "large" openings within the GS that readily allow air and water to flow through.  Micro-pores are "small" openings in the GS that generally hold water and is where plant roots acquire water from.  Field Moisture Capacity is where all the micro-pores are filled and all excess water has flowed through.  Field Moisture Capacity creates an optimal root environment by providing oxygen through the macro-pores and water through the micro-pores.  Capillary action can be compared to diffusion in liquids where a substance of high concentration moves to an area with low concentration until equilibrium is reached.  This occurs in the GS in the same fashion, water moves from areas of high saturation to areas of low saturation.  Capillary action is the process that allows a Self-Watering Container to work.

The concept of Self-Watering Containers can be applied in many situations.  A very simple application would be a bottom watering system.  This system is quite basic and effective.  It works by setting a potted plant in a tray of water, that's it.  The water is taken up into the pot until FMC is reached.  As the plant takes up the water from the GS it is replaced in the GS from the tray of water.  The potted plant can be removed from the water after FMC has been reached and another plant can replace it.  This is a very basic version that can be expanded upon in many ways, all with the same benefits:

1. There is not moisture on plant surfaces which can result in disease
2. There is no splash up of soil onto plant surfaces which can result in disease
3. The plant receives the perfect amount of water while still having access to oxygen
4. Watering is no longer a guessing game (Did I give the plant enough?  Did I apply too much?)

Ok, now that we have the basics down let's take this one step further, the Self-Watering Tray (SWT).  The SWT is great for growing lettuce and salad mixes, peas, chives, propagating cuttings, and many, many other food crops.  The following video details how to make a SWT using two greenhouse flats, cloth, clothesline, and PVC piping.

Self-Watering Tray Video

This same concept can be applied in many different situations. The Wick can be nearly any length and the top tray can be any plant container or several plant containers.  The reservoir can be any shape or size and can be attached via a float valve (like a toilet float valve, a float valve in this context can be used to fill a reservoir when it drops below a set level) to a larger reservoir.  This larger reservoir can service several smaller reservoirs.  The beauty of this is that the reservoir can be filled and the plants will not need to be watered until the reservoir runs low.  What does that mean?  You can go away for the weekend and have no worries, house sitters can simply fill the reservoir (worry-free vacationing), you can take care of your plants on an every-other-day basis if your schedule demands so, and best-of-all, your plants will be growing in a system that provides the optimal conditions for plant growth!

To sum up - Self-Watering Containers:

- can be any shape and any size
- can be made very cost-effectively
- provide optimum conditions for plant growth.