MikeG
Senior Member.
From realfarmacy.com
Urban Farmer, Will Allen Grows One Million Pounds of Food in the Dead of Winter
The article clarifies that the entire growing season is the entire year, not just the winter.
The author walks the reader through a quick survey of “bio intensive” farming.
Finally, the author engages in some back of the envelope math and comes up with the million pound figure. [my emphasis]
Neither accompanying video mentions crop yields on Will Allen’s small farm.
I am an amateur gardener with limited knowledge of the topic.
Is any of this even close to possible?
Urban Farmer, Will Allen Grows One Million Pounds of Food in the Dead of Winter
The article clarifies that the entire growing season is the entire year, not just the winter.
http://www.realfarmacy.com/urban-fa...illion-pounds-of-food-in-winter-without-heat/On just 3 acres they are producing 1,000,000 pounds of food each
year! How are they doing this?
-10,000 fish
-300-500 yards worm compost
-3 acres of land in green houses
-Growing all year using heat from compost piles
-Using vertical space
The author walks the reader through a quick survey of “bio intensive” farming.
Think of it this way, the standard planted row may have 2 or 3 rows of veggies. Bio intensive will plant 12 rows; thats already 4 times the produce. Now add in onions, for example, that grow vertically above sweet potato vines, this increases production a lot. Now add to that 4 harvest per year vs the standard one season growing season. Now you have 4x more productivity. This brings us to 4×4 or 16 times the productivity of the standard growing methods.
If you add to that hanging pots to add more growing space you have again increased productivity. I personally have not used vertical space in that way. A snap shot of my experience is growing one sweet potato per 1.5′ x 1.5′ area (2.25 square feet.) This one plant produces on average 12 pounds of root per plant and in that space I grow 4 to 6 leeks adding a pond of produce.
Now, the vines grow all over the place, and I tie some up, are not confined to that 2.25 square feet of soil space. From each plant you can easily average 3 pounds of delicious edible leaves as you pick them over the growing season. At this point alone I am averaging 16 pounds of eatable food in 2.25 square feet or 16/2.25 about 7 pounds of food per square foot.
Finally, the author engages in some back of the envelope math and comes up with the million pound figure. [my emphasis]
Now that is in ONE GROWING SEASON. As I also grow fava beans, wheat, and fodder greens for two more seasons so my yelid is averaging 8 to 10 pounds in a year. IF I did this on 3 acres of growing space, excluding foot paths and green house walls etc. then my production would be 8 pounds per square foot * 43560 feet acre * 3 = 1,045,440 pounds of food. It is possible to get even more by choosing the right crops and getting 4 harvest per year. I have settled on 4000 square feet of growing space per person for providing pretty much all the food a person needs. I suggest anyone starting out begin with a very small garden and do it well. Something like a 5′ by 20′ growing bed would be the most you would start with.
Neither accompanying video mentions crop yields on Will Allen’s small farm.
I am an amateur gardener with limited knowledge of the topic.
Is any of this even close to possible?