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<LP> Subject: experimentation
<LP> From: Liz Pike <pike@always-online.com>
<LP> Date: April 3, 2000 5:57:04 PM EDT
<LP> To: lionkuntz@email.com
<LP> Lion,
<LP> I am serious about wanting to experiment with your hypothesis of 2
<LP> acres. I'm forever a learner, and am curious as to this working.
<LP> Large farms are becoming history, and 2 acres is more achievable than
<LP> the 10-100 people assume is needed for farming/sustenance.
<LP> 2 acres is the limit, correct?? How much room is taken up by the
<LP> house and buildings?? What buildings are needed, size,etc?
<LP> I will start reading through your website. I have studied John
<LP> Jeavons, Alan Chadwick and Eliot Coleman extensively, among others.
<LP> I'm really interested in incorporating Coleman's current greenhouse
<LP> set up into the 2 acres.
<LP> Let me know if you have any further thoughts, suggestions on this.
<LP> I am currently building a website for market farmers. This will be my
<LP> first project!!
<LP> Liz Pike
<LP> Morningstar Gardens
<LP> Pollocksville NC
<LP> ICQ # 68142830
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Hello Liz Pike
I will offer every advice or assistance to any experimental test you set up.
Please be informed that I sometimes do not check the email for days,
and sometimes cannot respond immediately to email which requires
thoughtful contemplation or investigative research before answering.
My writings on Micro-Farming are to stimulate adoption or experimentation.
Nothing is particulary rigid, and there is a lot of wiggle-room to adapt and
adjust to better fit some local circumstances or limitations.
Two-to-Five acres is a general rule of thumb for obtaining a median income
without excessive work-load, by a ruggedly independent farmworker who
will not depend on hired help. However, in truly adverse climate conditions,
such as eastern Washington state, where annual precipitation is about 9
inches, coming mostly as snow in the deep winter, more land (which is
cheap because of the adversity) might be needed to gather the year's
water ration into impound ponds without stealing from the needs of the
local ecology.
In North Carolina, two acres is plenty if you have markets within one hour
transportation time from your micro-farm. Five acres allows more perennial
crops (cane berries, fruit and nut orchards, asparagus, artichokes, etc.)
More land if you have it is nice to provide sanctuaries for wildlife and
endangered species.
Beyond rugged individualism, micro-farmers can be important contributors
to their local economy by hiring help and expanding operations. This is
communiy-building as a service, since it isn't necessary to expand or employ
for personal profit. I recall that you said you enjoy hiring people and like
the companionship as you work. Employees are a problem wih chicken
slaughtering, as federal regulations do not allow farmer-processed chickens
if they have employees. It might be necessary to maintain two separate
businesses (including all the paperwork involved) if butchered chickens
are offered to customers, with you alone handling the chickens.
Local and state licencing and regulations apply to the other livestock
and fish, plus any value-added products you include in your operation..
The butchershop is the most critical building on the property. It requires
a walk-in cooler and a backup power generator capability. You are in
hurricane country. Hygenic concerns dictate this not be a multipurpose
building, that it be constructed vermin-proof and easy to clean. It can be
combined with value-added food processing operations (such as
canned soups, juices, jams, jellies, pickling, relishes, etc.) but is not
part of the green grocery harvest washing, packing and storage
operations which take place elsewhere. If you cannot accomodate these
requirements for meat and fish marketing you cannot benefit from the
important contributions these make to the overall picture.
The sizes of buildings are dictated by the intended volume of use. That
in turn is dictated by your ambition, and a sensible sober growth plan.
Lest anyone accuse me of promoting a "get-rich-quick" plan or "easy
money" scheme, let me repeat what I have been publishing consistently
for the past two years: It is estimated that it takes two years of diligent
learning (through practice, apprenticeship, and/or wide & deep reading)
to accumulate the skill set necessary to manage the diverse operations
of small livestock and varied plant cultivation.
Perhaps you have already invested that two years (as your writings
indicate that you have.)
Then it takes time to build up your living systems, who are eager to
fulfill their own imperatives, so that they can take over a good portion
of the work-load. The worms are going to be your tractors, tilling and
conditioning, and adding valuable fertility, to your growing soil. Building
up their numbers takes time and investments of labors and cash.
One can begin immediately using "Bio-Intensive", "Square-Foot" or
similar practices on traditional raised beds on open fields. However,
until one applies livestock management principles to the worm
(and optional mushrooms) crops, you will not be receiving the help
from the worms and will have to be double-digging yourself.
As the worms increase, the chickens, ducks, and fish numbers can
increase. So until the worms are both digging the soil AND feeding
other livestock, there is a time lag of reduced profitability because you
are importing feeds. There also is a time lag until you can be freed
from soil tillage. This does not mean ZERO profitability, in fact it
can be sustaining even at these lower levels, but it means that the
synergy of whole food-chain webs has not yet been achieved to
vastly decrease labor while sharply increasing over-all net production.
There are a variety of less expensive optional ways to make the
worm-mushroom-plant beds. Some are cheap, temporary and need
replacement in a few years. I have ideas on long-term (50+ years)
concrete or "earth"-crete beds which can be installed over years if
one is not in a hurry to obtain maximum productivity in the shortest
possible time.
One further reply to your question about buildings and housing. It is
preferable to live on the land being Micro-Farmed, but it is possible
to be housed off-site down the road a piece. Greenhouses are not
optional -- they are required to intensively use the small land area
more of the year. A greenhouse built onto the side of a residence can
make very important contributions in home heating cost-savings during
the winter, as well as reduced costs of keeping the greenhouse itself
from freezing throughout the cold months. More than one greenhouse
is recommended, although they can be shared workspaces enclosing
a variety of activities.
On my website, but not here posted to Sanet, I sometimes describe
modular building panels made of fiberglas. These can be built on the
micro-farm, in fact built in a workshop made of the same modular
panels being created there. (This is part of the two-years learning
curve I mentioned above). Fiberglas panels can be transparent,
translucent, or opaque; assembled into quonset-huts, domes,
pentagons, octogons, silo-shaped, A-frames, cubes and rectangles,
as well as carport-type roofed open spaces. The techniques I have
worked out permit transporting a small temporary building on the
roof-rack of small car, assembling or dismantling it by one person
with only a few simple hand tools in a couple of hours. With this kind
of technology It is not very germaine to describe buildings in terms
of permanent structures of specified square-footages.
Like the permanent walled beds, these panels can be bootstrapped
a little at a time until one discovers they actually have a surplus of
them. Hen houses, greenhousing, rabbit hutch covers and grow bed
cloches can be as temporary or as permanent as you want them to
be. They have superior weather resistance and very high strength-to-
weight ratio, impervious to termites, never need painting and about
30-year lifespan in their first usage with useful recycling options for
after that. Sustainable resins for making fiberglas are already possible
from ingredients grown on macro-farms with power traction, so this
concept is not reliant on petroleum supplies for the long-term
although that is the raw material source at present.
One can transport three 1,100 cubic feet domes in the back of a
pickup-truck without overloading the vehicle, and the cost at
today's prices is about $300 per dome for materials. All windows,
studs, trusses and joists are designed-in and built-in to the basic
modular panels and fitting hardware. Doors are not included in the
price above, and require adaptor fittings. Flooring and foundations are
not included, and may not be needed for hen houses, small barns,
workshops or sheds.
Micro-Farming makes use of straw bales for a number of
functions, if the material is locally available cheaply. Straw bales
can effectively insulate grow beds through the winter for cloche-
covered continuation of earthworm activiy or growing. Bales also
can insulate the north side of greenhouses or provide windbreaks
on other sides of greenhouses for a few degrees of micro-climate
protection. If it gets weathered and soaked, what the hay? That is
good preparation for the forthcoming uses as mushroom substrate
and worm bedding. Straw and strawbales can be used for "root-
cellers" for harvested cold-weather crops, and strawbales can make
the walls of temporary storage sheds.
I would like it if you would read the webpage about "failure"
http://homepages.msn.com/VolunteerSt/lifesaviors/failure.html
because I define failure where others might think they are
succeeding pretty good. I think the page anticipates where
some of your questions above arose from.
I accept and welcome constructive criticism and error correction.
If you see something in my writings which I stated badly or is
just plain wrong, I will be happy to make the corrections and
attribute your help in fixing the error.
Sincerely, signed Lion Kuntz
Currently in Eugene, Oregon, USA
LionKuntz@email.com, LionKuntz@aol.com, LionKuntz@yahoo.com
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