wpns
Solar Joules are catch and release
Someone from a planet orbiting the star Vega.
What is electricity useful for if you have land?
- Thread starter Gueyog8a7
- Start date
fatjay
Solar Wizard
Don't forget drink. I do like to induldge in drinkwait wait wiat.. according to some of your posts..... (do not get me wrong... I approve of them fully)... the way you eat bro is akin to a sacrificial lamb... I wonder what a fatjay pita sammich will taste like
However, i'm SUPER active these days, the pounds just FALL OFF! I can eat and drink what I want and remain quite fit. I concentrate all my intake around meat, with an occasional vegetable, with almost no carbs except for beer. Makes a huge difference.
Daddy Tanuki
Emperor Of Solar
beer good bro... cannot argue with that.Don't forget drink. I do like to induldge in drink
However, i'm SUPER active these days, the pounds just FALL OFF! I can eat and drink what I want and remain quite fit. I concentrate all my intake around meat, with an occasional vegetable, with almost no carbs except for beer. Makes a huge difference.
Huh? You must live in a warm climate. My greenhouse uses far more energy for winter heating than summer cooling, and i have a pretty elaborate solar thermal capture and storage system.
Rednecktek
Expert Newbie
Western Washington. We never needed to heat it in winter much, a few water jugs under the shelves and it only got cool enough for the plants to think it was winter, but not cold enough to cause frost damage. The fans in summer were by far the larger average draw, along with the sump pump in the rainwater catchment barrel for watering.
I think there was one time she actually ran an extension cord for a space heater for a couple day blizzard, but that was the only time she ever added heat.
A greenhouse sized for self sufficiency I think would require much more airflow to maintain a happy plants temp in summer which will eat watts.
Daddy Tanuki
Emperor Of Solar
yo house got wheels... run forest run!
You have to realize that getting a garden going fron scratch is not like putting in a PV array, which is once and done. Gardening is far more complex and is always a work in progress. You're constantly learning, modifying, improving, adjusting.
Id start with a quarter acre at the very most and expand as you learn. A quarter acre of actual garden space is a lot. 1000 square meters, or a bit over 30 meters on a side if it's square.
I have about that amount of garden space plus a 15x50ft greenhouse. That keeps the two of us very busy, and we have a tractor with all sorts of implements, a drip irrigation system, multiple pressure canners and freezers.
I haven't tried to calculate it but I doubt we get more than about a third of our food caloric intake from our garden, and much less in terms of economic value. We're not vegans. I'm 100% certain that we would be better off financially buying the produce from Walmart.
If it's raw land you'll most likely need to fence it to keep critters (and people) out. 120 plus meters of fencing.
Get the soil tested. You'll need that data to prepare and amend the soil. Is it flat? If not you'll need to terrace it. You'll need access to heavy equipment for that.
Where is the irrigation water coming from? Do you need to put in a well or is there an existing source? Hand watering is very time consuming but unlike many other gardening tasks can be easily automated with a drip irrigation system. I highly recommend doing that.
Put in a chicken coop next to your garden and raise a small flock of chickens. Eggs are excellent protein. Very easy animals to keep and unlike with mammals most folks aren't that sentimental about killing them when the time comes. They can eat all the stuff from the garden that you don't but you'll need to augment with some chicken feed and you can let them forage in your garden area in the off season. They are at great risk from predators so if you have that in your area you'll need to protect them.
If the real object in raising your own food is less human contact I don't think you will be happy gardening. If you buy your food at a grocery store you can go early in the morning every couple of weeks and be in and out in a few minutes without having to talk to anyone. If you have a garden you'll be having much more complex interactions with people about your soil, systems, and supplies. And you won't save any money if thats what you're thinking, it will just be spent on different things.
Actually, there's no difficulty getting sufficient calories with a vegan diet. Remember that those high-calorie French fries, donuts, etc. are vegan. The bigger downsides are lack of vitamin B12, lack of sulfur, and possible lack of lysine, an essential amino acid, if the diet has insufficient legumes (some people have difficulty digesting beans, or they may have G6PD deficiency disorder which prevents them from consuming them).
Vitamin B12 deficiency causes anemia, which some might confuse with a lack of calories. It isn't. As B12 levels drop, mean cell volume (MCV) of red blood cells increases. The oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood is reduced, with hemoglobin affected. The initial signs of this anemia may be masked by abundant quantities of folate (vitamin B9), most often found in green leafy vegetables, and vegans are at risk of learning too late that they have B12 deficiency. Prolonged deficiency can cause permanent brain damage, along with loss of hearing, sight, taste, or other sensory aptitudes.
Vitamin B12 is required for nerve action--every use of the nerves will consume it. There is no B12 in a vegan diet.
Studies have shown lacto-ovo vegetarian (vegetarian plus milk and eggs) and pescatarian (vegetarian plus fish, milk and eggs) diets are superior to both carnivorous (meat-eating) and herbivorous (vegan) diets in terms of longevity.
Vegans' only clear advantage over all other dietaries is in having almost no risk of diabetes. However, vegans' cancer risk is higher--equal to meat-eaters.
I'm in the southern Appalachians. Way colder than Western WA. Typically around 15F overnite right now. In the summer we do ventilate the greenhouse but we have plenty of PV capacity for that. I run a quarter hp fan for around 12 hours so that's only about 3 KWh/day.
In the winter I try to keep the nighttime greenhouse temp around 45-50F. I collect heat on sunny days with a thermal collector on the north wall of the greenhouse and store the energy in a couple big stock tanks. Then I release that energy at night through the same collector. Works fine on sunny days down to around 20F or so. But on cloudy days or colder nights I have to augment with wood heat or electric. That can be as much as 30 or 40 KWh/day if get too lazy to keep the water stove going. edit- plus the water pump which is about 3/4 hp.
Self-sufficiency, whilst theoretically possible, is impractical for an individual unless you have large amounts of money & then you would be pushing it. Unless you wanted to live a Stone Age existence, you will have to compromise. Buying stuff off Amazon & hiding out in the woods isn't self-sufficiency. If you are serious about being more independent, you need to get weaving instead of spending so much time on here. With hundreds of posts, I've yet to see any project you've completed apart from the water filter & DC/DC converter.
Rednecktek
Expert Newbie
All very true, just thinking about how much lettuce you need to grow & eat to get the same amount of usable energy from a rabbit or roast chicken. Plus, ya know, bacon.
Omnivorius diet FYW!Good thing he lives in the UK then, 114% of Americans die of cancer every year so the odds are in his favor.
Have you read the John Seymour book the Complete Book of Self Sufficiency? I am reading it and it seems very exhaustive.
As I mentioned I already volunteered on a produce garden which was about 0.5 acres which sold food to the public. I did that for a couple of years through the full growing cycles so have a good idea what is involved.
Indeed it is raw land and full of clay! I am not so concerned about the local wildlife, which there doesn't seem to be much as up in a valley. Not saying that means less but I haven't seen any except loads of pheasants.
The soil is very poorly draining and boggy. I read about 'lazy beds' as a way to work with this poor soil type. It is south facing, so that is something, it was a criteria I held out for when buying, and on a gentle slope.
I think more water is the last thing the land needs! Far far less I think.
That is fine. So long as isolated from evil/stupid humans.
Sad troll. Umm you probably don't know cos you haven't done it but buying land is like a big deal and takes many months to research and many more to go through the process of buying, the best part of a year, which is what I had been doing while you thought I was jerking off in my van. You don't just order it on amazon and comes in a couple days.
What did you do in that time? Lurk on my threads and post a couple of negative comments to boost your ego.
This is an unfair comparison.All very true, just thinking about how much lettuce you need to grow & eat to get the same amount of usable energy from a rabbit or roast chicken. Plus, ya know, bacon.
Good thing he lives in the UK then, 114% of Americans die of cancer every year so the odds are in his favor.
Compare it to legumes/lentils/beans/nuts which have similar protein content to meat.
wpns
Solar Joules are catch and release
Wait till someone plants a buffet for them. Did the produce garden have a fence around it?
wpns
Solar Joules are catch and release
Well, fortunately you have the internet for social interactions, no evil/stupid humans here!
wpns
Solar Joules are catch and release
Umm? Pot, kettle?
How is asking for advice on relevant questions to my life trolling?
RV8R
Solar Addict
We Are All “Evil/Stupid Humans” sometime.
“No Man (or Woman) is An Island.
@Gueyog8a7 have you ever considered changing your perspective ? There use to be a series on TV where I live & the title was “Change Your Brain - Change Your Life”.
Also, you might benefit from considering “Stoicism”. Very powerful Philosophy.
Instead of turning your back on “Society”, develop skills to cope with it.
LAND
,,, They Ain’t Making Any More of It.But Volcanoes do
.I believe in buying land, but only as an investment. And only if it has a good chance of being worth more then n the future than I pay for it.
Self Sufficient / Self Reliant ,,, I once saw a gazelle born on the Serengeti, and it was up and running within minutes of birth (think Darwin - the gazelle has to or it won’t survive) Humans @ birth are very reliant on other humans, or they will perish. We are reliant on other humans our entire lives. Without humans, there would not be this DIY Solar Forum
.If I went back in time, I don’t think I would make a diffference - Starts @ minute mark 3:20 (I would be this guy too);
My Point is ,,, Like it or Not “We Need Each Other”
Maybe a good read for you; Sapiens
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Mate I've been off grid for more than 2 decades, in a foreign country, started out with a pickup truck and a caravan on land with no infrastructure. Every tool i owned fitted into one toolbox & we built our first cabin with hand tools & a cordless drill I borrowed from a workmate. Did i mention work ? We lived in a bender next to the caravan & I was getting up every morning at 06.30 to work on a building site when it was -10 C. You, on the other hand, don't seem to have banged in a single nail or done anything that you could post as a write up. All this and bringing up a young family, so you can politely f*** right off calling me a troll. This is a polite, well behaved forum by internet standards - some of the shit you've posted on here would have got you absolutely shredded in 5 minutes on other forums. Folks on here have patiently tried to suggest solutions to the questions you've asked, and in return have got childish, rather spoilt responses. So keep wanking off in your van & get back to us when you've built a Boot Jack from some old pallet wood.
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Indeed it is raw land and full of clay! I am not so concerned about the local wildlife, which there doesn't seem to be much as up in a valley. Not saying that means less but I haven't seen any except loads of pheasants.
The soil is very poorly draining and boggy. I read about 'lazy beds' as a way to work with this poor soil type. It is south facing, so that is something, it was a criteria I held out for when buying, and on a gentle slope.
I think more water is the last thing the land needs! Far far less I think.
If it has a slope and still isn't draining then it really is pure clay. Lazybeds must be a UK term, I had to look it up. You will have to do some type of regrading like that to get anything to grow in it. They don't look like something that a lazy person would build, that's for sure. Id get a backhoe in to construct whatever drainage system you decide on. You could also look at bringing in some good loam topsoil and creating raised beds with better drainage, but it would be expensive.
By all means get the a standard soil test done for P, K, Ca, Mg, Zn, Mn, Cu, Fe, B, plus soil pH. That way you'll know what you need to amend it with depending on what you're growing. You'll have to add organic material as well. Once you get proper drainage you'll need to water it during dry periods.
Umm... so why do you keep posting on here then?
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