This thread is way too much fun.
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Thanks for the information Permies. One of our objectives is to ānever do for them what they can do themselvesā. With thousands of refugees sitting around wishing for something to do we want to teach them not only agricultural concepts but spiritual renewal and practical life skills.
Getting away from roving animals is one of the great advantages of gardening on rooftops. In my new book āGardening on Rooftops and other Above-ground locationsā (free download) at around page 38 it shows a lady in Guatemala City where the tire garden is ONLY on the outermost edge of a corrugated roof. No goats, dogs, cats, cattle or kids up there. The corrugated sheets may even stay put better in a wind storm by having a few tire gardens along the edge. By the way, Iām enjoying reading all your discussion and sharing ideas. Keep up the good work. Martin Price
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It was pointed out to me that I referenced an older release of the same book by Dr. Martin Price.
Here is the most recent publication of the same text updated in 2018:
Apologies for wrong link.
I hope this helps start to point you in the right direction. This is actually what Iāll be looking at to start my research and work in the Urban Garden at ECHO.
God bless you and your work!
āMattā
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Thank you Tyler for that suggestion. That is intriguing and Iād be willing to investigate how to create a version of a similar system that is more of an Appropriate Technologies approach for demonstration in the Urban Garden at ECHO.
Thanks again for that suggestion.
Do you currently do work in an agricultural development context?
Grateful in Christ,
āMattā
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Thank you Mark for sharing those important lessons of tropical urban agriculture in Haiti.
Yes, I am also interested to see if there is a way to add some kind of central āauto-wateringā element to the tire systems so that water can be added to an enclosed container, then allowed to seep out through small holes into the soil media so that by capillary action within the container, waters is pulled in as the plants need it. But that is something Iād definitely have to workshop and trial while Iām here.
āMattā
And as for the animal grazing issue, that certainly has a tricky social dynamic to it, but I wonder if there is a way to elevate valuable vegetable crops out of the reach of free grazing animals but I donāt know if that would create some undesirable tensions by keeping food out of reach of others if is possible. Something definitely to keep looking at.
Thank you for bringing that valuable real-world scenario to my attention.
āMattā
Matt,
One thing that might be an attraction at your urban gardening section there at Echo would be to set up 1 or 2 refugee tents/huts and demonstrate limited space gardening surrounding the tents. More people are living in camps than ever before in human history. It would be interesting to see a demonstration of the possibilities.
Edward
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Hi Matt, I did a certification course with John Jeavons at Ecology Action in Wilits California back in 2015 after studying his work for a few years. They showed at their community garden and taught us how to calculate how much food and what kinds to grow to develop a proper nutrition for each individual in a family . And how to grow each persons needs in sustainably on 1000-2000sf using the Grow Biointensive method, not to be confused with ājust double digā. They have workbooks for this method and itās far easier than anyone would think, āIFā they know the technique. Average 2 hours a day per person in garden, which is about what you need at a minimum for grounding your body for health anyway. So that Earth connection time is a bonus to a farmers health. Grow Biointensive is a complete method and requires doing each part correctly to produce 4-6X traditional yields. It can restore soil too pretty fast. And if you learn Johnās special digging technique, you wonāt even get tired doing the digging, super easy. Feel free to reach out to me, Iām super interested in working down in Jamaica and Islands and considering living there either part or full time to serve if I can find the right opportunity that God provides.
One other perspective, the human body is highly susceptible to man made compounds and most people have no idea how dangerous they actually are and how easy they get into bodies and cause disease. Using tires, metal or other man made materials in a garden is highly dangerous and may kill people fairly quick or sometimes worse slowly. Try to keep all man made materials out of your food systems, because a lot of it is toxic and we donāt yet really fully understand their effect on the plants and people that eat them.
Thank you Ed for that suggestion. I believe we have somewhat of a representation of that in the Urban Garden but certainly could make a better talking point out of what is already present and improve current demonstrations to more appropriately reflect whatās possible in a refugee setting.
Yeah, that certainly is a huge need to address right now so thank you for suggesting that as a possibility to consider.
āMattā
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Thank you Derrick for that reference to John Jeavons. Iāll look more at that Grow Biointensive method. I know we have tried demonstrating that with limited success but I think there are things we could do to improve the demonstration.
Yes, we certainly are created to operate in a certain way and, unfortunately, because we live a world broken by disobedience against God, that the food we eat in containers made by men can have negative repercussions on our health. We certainly want to promote methods that are safe and effective to use for growing food while also considering the limitations that small-scale farmers have with finances and resources. So at this point, we do demonstrate growing in tires but can certainly investigate growing in other containers and ways that allow people in areas with little to no soil to still grow food for themselves and their families.
Thank you for your valuable contribution.
āMattā
I am catching up after a busy tourist season with lots of garden/farm visits. Cubans have spread organoponico gardening wherever they have barrio projects. There are also major permaculture groups throughout Cuba. One person I know started with a little patch between two low rise buildings, and now is a source for vegetables for the whole barrio and beyond (about 2ha under constant cultivation).
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Mark - you donāt know how many problems you have just solved. Thank you for your great post. The tire gardens are a solution for old tires (rural menance) and for my terraza! plant pots are no help.
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Thank you Kate!
Tires have advantages and disadvantages and how useful they are depends a lot on context. In the tropics, if they are readily available, they are useful even in the countryside because you have more control of the soil quality and the insect pests. In the work Iāve done with various folks in Haiti, we have lost a lot of crops to fire ants, crickets, goats, cows, horses, pigs. Tires raised off the ground protect from all of those. Even the chickens sometimes took 6 months to a year to figure out there was food up there.
In terms of possible toxins that could potentially damage human health, Iāve done a lot of thinking and reading about that, as well as talking with friends at ECHO. I have said, but not yet done it, that I would get myself tested for heavy metals, because if heavy metals transfer is an issue, I should have indications of problems, because I have eaten a lot of food from tires over the last 12-14 years.
In the blogs and youtube videos that Iāve seen, there has been a focus on the potential toxins in the tires without much objective information on what those toxins are, what the concentrations might be and how much might actually get into the soil.
The other huge factor that I have not seen explored online is the comparison of what toxins soils in tires might accumulate from the tires and how what toxins are already present in the original soil and in what concentration:
āSoils contaminated with heavy metals have
become one of major environmental problems around
the world (GratĆ£o et al., 2015). The contamination
may occur due the industrial expansion, mine tailing,
combustion of fossil fuels, spillage of petrochemicals,
disposal of high metal waste (eg. Batteries),
atmospheric deposition and agricultural practices
(Khan et al., 2008; Zhang et al., 2010, Liu et al.,
2016).ā
I also have a blog, " Best Practices for Growing Vegetables in Used Vehicle Tires" that has a list of ways to avoid problems using tires. At the end of the blog is a discussion of articles that deal with heavy metals in tires, which are a large part, but not all, of the potential problem:
http://markandjennyāpcusa.blogspot.com/2017/03/potential-heavy-metal-contamination.html
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MARK, glad to hear your looking into the tire toxins. One thing to keep in mind when any of us are growing food and contacting non earth ānaturalā things. Modern science has about 1% understanding of the human body and almost no understanding of toxcicity in things humans have made, or their interconnection to create toxcicity. The goal many of us have is returning to a true restoration of first kingdom living and health, devoid of manās toxins. We used to live for hundreds of years, even up into the Roman times in some places, our limited understanding of the hazards of metal mining and smelting and destruction of the eco systems by annual food production are things we still donāt fully understand. So in general Iād propose to people to find any way possible not to use man made compounds anywhere near their food, water or living spaces. Having studied health as ahobby for 20+ years, seems everything that kills us is tied into what we contact or eat thatās made by man. Now it may not apear to be killing us while it is, but if we die at the young age of 85 sick and worn out, that tells us weāve been toxified and stripped of electrons and nutrition. The cutting edge of understanding the body and itās electrical nature is showing that the electrical structures of things play a huge role in how our bodies react to them. Antioxidants being an example, structured water another and plastic toxins another. Tires can have some things in them like nano technology and polymers for instance that have never been studied as a polutant, so very risky in my opinion. Same with plastic containers and or cooking on metals that are not food safe. All that to say, natural is always going to be better until and unless we can definitivly prove unnatural ways are safe. And that proof generally takes a few hundred years of study to be sure. Because we have to understand the multigenerational impacts to whole living systems, not easy to study that.