Diet

I agree with Dave about food, you need to know how it was grown, and where. I never eat industrially farmed Pig or Chicken because I know how horrific their poor lives are. Its like a concenstration camp for animals its disgusting. and Pigs are as intelligent as Dogs, they know whats happening to them and they suffer. I will never eat Pig again as long as I live.
Beef I eat from a local source and I hope it hasnt had any antibiotics but you never know really. Fresh veggies and fruit straight from the farmer is the best.
Its not what you eat but its quality. If you eat a load of industrially made stuff its going to be bad for you in large quantities, a splurge now and again wont hurt.

I find a liquid diet perfectly adequate.

Cuts down on the shits, I'd imagine.

Mrs Figg wrote:I agree with Dave about food, you need to know how it was grown, and where. I never eat industrially farmed Pig or Chicken because I know how horrific their poor lives are. Its like a concenstration camp for animals its disgusting. and Pigs are as intelligent as Dogs, they know whats happening to them and they suffer. I will never eat Pig again as long as I live.
Beef I eat from a local source and I hope it hasnt had any antibiotics but you never know really. Fresh veggies and fruit straight from the farmer is the best.
Its not what you eat but its quality. If you eat a load of industrially made stuff its going to be bad for you in large quantities, a splurge now and again wont hurt.

Forgetting the Ethics regards animal welfare in industrial production for a moment (not that I don't agee with you, Mrs Figg!), I do wonder how healthy industrialized food is. All those anti-biotics and monocultural foodstuffs and hormones...

David, what growing methods do you use? Have you got photos of your farm?

Dave grows Cranberries

Orwell wrote:David, what growing methods do you use? Have you got photos of your farm?

Growing cranberries isn't quite like any other crop. It's basically a wild berry that grows in peat bogs. There were wild cranberries cultivated here by the local Indians since the beginning of time. We've improved the varieties an the techniques, but it's still about as close to the land as you can get.

Our family has been here for over 100 years, growing cranberries for at least the last 70. In the past our family also grew lilies, potatoes, a few pigs, cows, chickens etc. but we're pretty well focused on the cranberries now. I've posted pics before, but here's a few shots. Some new, some repeats:

Looks like a great place to grow up. Lots of adventures

Wow! It all looks so natural, David. You yourselh look as if you grew straight up out of the earth - perhaps something like a bearded carrot even. . Do you do it organic all the way, or do you need artificial ferrtilsers? I'm organic but not fanatical - indeed, I think organic as 'good' and artificial as 'bad' are misleading ideas. With me it's efficiency and effectiveness and environmental responsibility equaling (hopefully) health and sustainability (for all - even Scotshobbits ).

I must get some pictures of my farm up... ... well, backyard farmlet... ... err.... back garden...

Yes we definitely need to see pictures Orwell! (and others too if you've got a garden of any kind)
If everybody did what you're doing, there'd be a better understanding of the value of food, and there'd be a lot less waste. I heard an estimate the other day that about 50% of the food that's grown actually gets thrown out at some point along the chain.

When I had a garden it was organic, but for a commercial farm to call itself organic there's a whole 5 year certification process that isn't practical or cost effective for us.

The peat soil provides almost all the nitrogen and trace nutrients the cranberries need. We add a little postassium and phosphorus to keep the ratios right, especially at times of rapid growth when the plants can get stressed. We use an absolute minimum of pesticides, but if we see a population of fire worm, for example, starting to spread, we'll use a hard insecticide around bloom to get it under control and then go back to softer controls.

I figure stewardship of a farm is like being a good parent looking out for your children's health. You don't want to have all kinds of crazy chemicals going into their bodies, but at the same time there's a lot to be said for a few vitamins now and then, and if they've got a fever and the chicken soup isn't working, there comes a time to go to the doctor and get the antibiotics.

I'm fairly idealistic about sustainability, but the health of my farm comes first!

Hey, David, one has to start somewhere!



Do cranberries like acid alkaline or neutral media to grow in? I wonder if I could grow them in my growbed? I'm in experimental stage.

Pipe from tank pump (1000 litres an hour)





and

other shots of typical Little Forumshire Farm

My little mealworm farm. One day I'll be supplementing my fishies food with them. They will give up their lives for a worthy cause {{{ME! }}}







I'd show you my little worm farm too, but I think that's enough excitement for one day, thank you very much.

Wow, you two ! my hat goes off to you both ! Ive grown fruit & veg over the years,for myself & family & the taste difference is poles apart from the commercial substandard produce in the supermarkets etc. & also it was fun & felt fullfilling. My ancesters were country people, years & years on farms but as with most stories, it all went belly up. & then,theres little old me,last in the food chain, no inheritance left to me, My family once owned half a village, the post office,a few shops etc but,the men in the family either boozed the money away or lost it gambling. Im a country girl at heart,but, after years of moving about Im now down to a ground floor flat with a very nice but SMALL courtyard, I do grow my own veg still, runner beans are my favourite ! Ive got 2 small apple trees & a cherry tree, all on a small root stock, a grape meandering over an arch & a raspberry cane. I even toyed with the idea of having my own bees/hive but that was in the old days,when I had the garden space. Looking at what you have I feel even more depressed

wait what? you... grow stuff? cool.. we tried growing potatoes, but yeah... it didn't work out. although i have been helping out my cousins putting potatoes we sat on this thing behind the tractor and it was great fun they do cows, and everything is pretty much organic. they grow their food and uses poo as fertilizer. though they use some pellets food (dunno if that is the correct term) in some degree and therefore aren't classified as organic farmers.

you guys

your farm looks absolutely beautiful Dave, wow.

Orwie what do you use the wormses for?

eww.. those worms..

i forgot to tell.

we grow strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrant, currants. also across the road we have a forest filled with Vaccinium myrtillus (to kill all confusion) and lingonberries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccinium_myrtillus

i'de love to post pictures, but you know. snow.

I love those kinds of fruits ! Id love to see the snow YOU get, Im excited by it now ! but I understand it cant be easy to take photo's of, but if you video it ?? Is that possible ?

Other food producers in Forumshire!
We should set up a farmer's market!

Orwell wrote:
Do cranberries like acid alkaline or neutral media to grow in? I wonder if I could grow them in my growbed? I'm in experimental stage.

They love acid soil. pH 5.5 is about perfect, but they'll go a lot lower. Mostly they need lots of water. If you take a fistful of soil, you should be able to squeeze several drops of water out of it.

You've got a lot of stuff going on there! It looks like a pretty cool setup. It also looks awfully dry. Where does your water come from?

Water comes from a tap, you silly person. Just like chickens come from a supermarket refrigerator!

We plan on getting a large water tank (or two). The aquaponics idea comes up as much as a water saving contraption as anything, and idea of growing a little of your own stuff - fish, eels, yabbies (crutacheans) is enticing. I imagine a large greenhouse with lots of small tanks and lots of growbeds growing fruit, vegies and even green feed (for chooks and maybe meat rabbits later). It's all dream stuff, really, but I'm making progress slowly and patiently.

I've thought of running all water from one tank to siphon into all the growbeds to then siphon into the other (fish) tanks individually, and these latter to be all joined by pipes screened to stop different aquatic life from travelling and maintain an even water level - well, tanks that go up and down about 200mls evenly on a ten minute (or so) cycle. The sequence of growbeds would have a wide variety of plants that would share in clean up of whatever nutrients pass through depending on their preferences - a huge mutli-layered filter system that would produce food (under glass) all year. (Maybe with solar panels to run pump most of year). I'm going to put red wrigglers in my current growbed, as apparently they thrive in them. As I say, it's all dreaming and planning and I'm starting small.

Dry? Yeah. Deep summer and my son's motorbike keep the land dry and barren.

Ph in water is about 7.4 last I looked. Cranberries still need some oxygen, I guess? My system floods every ten minutes or so then drains to about two inches in growbed (works on a Bell siphon). The roots would be moist all the time, and if cranberry roots go down more than two hundred mils, parts would be permanently submerged. Roots never dry out completely in aquaponics but they get oxygenated about every ten minutes. Need to add an acidifying agent for cranberries - but fish may not like it too acid as they like it neutral to slightly alkaline I think.

Good to see you like my wormses, Mrs Figg and Norc. They'll be for the fish (and chooks) if all works well and I expand my systems for both mealworms and manure worms (red wrigglers - wormses).

Azriel, you tell a sad tale, but it's amazing what you can grow in a small area. You sound like you're on the ball with it. If you're not up with Permaculture, check it out. I get some good ideas from it.