Hey, thanks, Bob! There’s some great info here. I had skipped over a lot of the rooftop articles because so many people here have flimsy metal roofs here. But it looks like there’s still a lot to be gleaned from the general concept. Thanks!
Thanks, Lorraine! I’m adding it to my list to check out and maybe try out myself!
@Edward_Martin and @cgonzalez I very much appreciate the warnings. I think this will help me step a little more cautiously into the project. I was considering on just starting out with beans, potatoes, and chaya because beans and potatoes are familiar and chaya is so robust. But even so, I may need to have some more conversations, especially with some locals, before I start implementing anything. Thank you.
1 Like
There is potential for consumption/subsistence production but also consider the local market and high value crops that can be exchanged for money and consider whether the need is carbohydrates or proteins or for vitamins. Undernourished people may do better with sweet potatoes and other carbohydrate rich foods if they can supplement with edible wild herbs or weeds and foraged legumes can provide some protein but beans and animals such as rabbits (if the climate is not too hot) may be a better source. Locally I can eat 50 to 75% of the weeds are edible and don’t taste bad and dried they could supplement the whole year. I like Gonzalez’s list. I have tried a number of them and all good. One strategy I use is to try to get very sweet small varieties of tomatoes to be grown near house and along walkways (i.e. cherry or currant tomatoes) or cape gooseberries/ ground cherry. The fruit of Solanum nigra nightshade taste good and in Kenya they eat the leaves of Black Nightshade. I have modified the sack gardening technique in our area because I found that my sacks were drying out too quickly. I now line the insides with old waste plastic and also the top with white plastic and poke plants through it and also the sides. I am doing much better this year with them as a result since they retain much more moisture. Gather up all your neighbors leaves, twigs, or weeds (preferably ones that have not yet gone to produce mature seed) and throw soil over the top of them, sprinkle small quantities of diluted urine on the leaves before you throw soil over the top. You can make raised beds that way or trenches or planting holes. You go up with your soil formations and planting if rains produce soil saturation at the surface or flooding. If soils are droughty then plant in holes or sunken gardens. I don’t bother composting since it takes too much time and I can do the same with the methods described above where the composting happens naturally below the surface from decaying brown or green (thin layer only to avoid heating) material without the need to turn the soil. Also above the surface as mulch so your organic matter is doing double or multiple duty for you. Human urine works wonders if applied at the right rate. I put urine on during the rain so no residual smell and everything washes off.
4 Likes
Hey Joshua,
These responses are great. Cecilia’s list could be huge! I wanted to double down on Dan Janzen’s recommendation for using urine as a key resource, especially for leafy vegetables. 1:10 dilution seems to be the most common recommendation. I have a smallish bucket, collect my urine at night and fill up the bucket with water.
There is a an article, “Human Urine as Fertilizer” in ECHO Development Note #108, and a bunch of helpful responses in EDN #109.
I also had a friend post a video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tseo7p7MkrE&feature=youtu.be
Blessings!
3 Likes
What I do is store up urine and then when it rains that is my signal to “fertilize”. No I don’t pee in the garden but I find that at this time no dilution is necessary as long as I do it in the middle of the rain episode instead of at the end and I have never had problems as long as I don’t put too much or use it after transplanting (which requires a two week wait for using urine so as to avoid stress). I use a simple method of a plastic coke bottle that I just unscrew the lid a little and dribble a small amount down the line of vegetables and the smell and evidence I did it washes away and it dilutes into the whole root zone (as long as you don’t get too much rain then it could go outside the root zone). I have also used a watering can in the past but it takes more time since I store the urine in coke or water bottles. I don’t make compost which to me is a waste of my precious time but truth be told I do make compost but “in situ”. I make a planting hole and put leaves in the bottom. Then put a little urine around the outside edge of the leaves or just wait until it rains and then add the urine to provide for the missing nitrogen for the microbes to break it down. Then some soil on top. This is faster than making compost and the urine is perfect for it. Sometimes I dig down and check the progress and always in very short order I have compost in the planting hole. You can do this with trenches for plants planted closer together and you don’t have to dig them deep like you do with double digging which is also a lot of work (unless you like work). You put in the leaves and then the urine on the edge or later when it rains add a little soil over the top and “wala” it is ready for planting seeds or transplants. If your rain episodes are infrequent and rain does not puddle (have high water infiltration rate) you are best making the trench or planting holes deeper and leaving the trench or planting hole only partially filled (sunken garden concept) but if not you can leave it at soil surface level or higher if your soil puddles for extended periods of time and cuts off air to the roots. The rain method also forces you to add urine when it is least likely to do salt damage or salt stress (when cloudy weather and it dilutes salt to whole root zone) and it is very very fast with great results and you can add a lot more urine at one time because of this. Also I don’t weed but just use Roundup or a cheap glyphosate “knock off” brand. Spray works for between the plants and a big sponge and a rubber glove and 3 parts water to one part product wiping of weeds either above the surface of the crop or pulling or pressing down the weeds to the sides with the sponge. I rub the sponge a little on the bottom above the container to get some foamy lather so it does not drip on my crop plants and it is then leak free. If you have a problem with Roundup remember that to be scientific (or a steward of all that God has given us including pharmaceutical products which God has given us the intellect to save so many lives) about it. Remove the “other” bigger sources of carcinogens (verdict is still not out on whether Roundup is carcinogenic) in your food first and I am sure that no one is willing to remove them all from your diet since many if not most foods naturally carry natural chemicals that are carcinogenic when tested at the same rates as pesticides and industrial chemicals are scrutinized they are found to be carcinogenic. Remember plants are chemical factories and this is “ramped up” when they are attacked by insects or diseases. This is much faster than pulling weeds and also the weeds serve as a wonderful surface mulch if you time glyphosate spray or sponging well. I spend precious little time weeding. Gardening is more fun and enjoyable when I get big results with little effort and can farm/garden a large area with very little effort. I get to spend more time on the Great Commission and discipleship and changing people’s non-Christian world views as a result of all the time I save and teach other people to save with high-value agriculture as their support system. Just use these very simple efficient methods, using what we already have without even expensive machinery. From the income and savings you can invest in machinery for even more efficient equipment. Anyone can do this. Life is very rewarding in this way!
2 Likes
Also I am teaching people to make sack gardens where there is no soil (or no soil surface or cement or too much rock or gravel) and this is going great. I will try to give an update. I just take a regular sack and line the inside with waste plastic so it does not dry out quickly then I fill with a leaves (composted or uncomposted does not matter) and soil and I have a sack garden. I can plant the top and sides by making slits. I put a white plastic bag over the top if I have one.
Hello Dan,
Your insight on the modified sack gardens for more drought prone/arid climates is very helpful. Could you provide photos of this? You also mention in a comment below that you are doing a similar design for spaces with minimal plant/composting resources - supplementing with plastic bottles. Could you provide photos of this technique as well?
Thank you for the help!
Joyfully,
Kayla
Hello Edward,
Your tips are very relevant to some conversations I am having with an org that partners with refugees in Iraq and Syria. In Bangladesh refugee camps, how do individuals access water during the dry season? What are they doing to maintain their production and conserve water resources? If they are paying for water, about how much are they willing to pay for water that goes into their garden? If using gray water, what sources are they receiving it from? What chemicals might be in the gray water due to soaps used, and how does that impact the plants?
Thank you for the help!
Joyfully,
Kayla
khatcher@echonet.org
I need to know more about your situation and what you would like to do.
I was talking about lining polywoven bags or feed bags or any other large bag that breaths with plastic so that the flow of air does not dry it out quickly.
There are lots of things you can do with plastic bottles related to gardening and I looked back through my conversation to try to find that which you are referencing and not sure. I use plastic bottles mostly as planting containers after cutting off the top and bottom and then when extracting the plant or tree I cut it open so the roots are damaged less. Otherwise the ribs make it difficult to push it through.
Dan Janzen South Sudan # +211925635255
+211916292312 (message phone when can not reach # above)
16162042268 (WhatsApp & permanent voice mail phone # for when I am overseas)
The refugee camp in Bangladesh is in a tropical climate so water is hardly ever an issue. We do work, however, in non-refugee situations in arid areas. The most important thing to teach is to keep the soil covered at all times. This will expend your growing season and effectively shorten the dry season. We recently had a situation in Haiti where there were no rains for over two months after the beans were planted and they still harvested a crop. The neighboring fields were uncovered and bare and their bean seeds didn’t produce plants.
Blessings,
Edward
2 Likes
Thank you, Edward! Mulching is so crucial and finding creative solutions for mulch that are not are typical ideas. Have you seen some creative mulch alternatives in Bangladesh?
1 Like
Thank you, Dan. I will have to try a side-by-side of the poly woven bags with plastic lining and one without to observe this difference. That could be a simple solution to some evaporation challenges.
Thank you for the ideas!
Joyfully,
Kayla
In the area in southern Bangladesh where we are located it’s semi-tropical so finding material seems to be no problem.
Leaf crops can be quick and provide excellent nutrition.
See:
https://leafforlife.org/gen/leaf-for-life-handbook/index.html
Free pdf downloads in English, French, and Spanish at bottom of page.
1 Like
Yes much of the amaranth family originated there and is super nutritious grain and leaves and requires Little inputs.
Yes urine is awesome. Nutritional Needs are very important to consider. Moringa may not be highly calorie dense ( but you can make a high quality oil from the seeds) but it has an amazing range of nutrients including those very important for growing children such as iron vitamin a vitamin C , calcium and high-protein for a leaf vegetable. In fact in some countries the dried leaf matter is being researched as a substitute for
Malnutrition treatment powders In Africa.
This is a great initiative you’re doing. Sacks and unused containers around us can work wonders. You don’t need more space that what you have to use the containers and sacks. You only need to use the littlest of space around you.
There were several mentions of Sack Gardens in this post. The link below lists several references. Do network members have comments on these or links to additional resources?
https://www.echocommunity.org/en/resources/ee34ba46-31b3-4638-9432-5726324356e2
I really like most of these ideas, Dan. The one that gives me pause is the use of glyphosate. From what I have read, the jury is mostly in about the dangers of incorporating it into food systems, or using it at all as part of our lives within Creation. That said, using it with the technique you mention would be about as zero impact as I could imagine, applying it very directly and in relatively small quantities.
Here is one article describing the decision to classify glyphosate are carcinogenic:
https://www.iarc.who.int/featured-news/media-centre-iarc-news-glyphosate/
Widespread use of glyphosate has also been implicated as a significant contributor to kidney disease epidemics seen in rice and sugarcane production. Here is one article about that:
This relationship is harder for investigators to pull out because the harmful effects are probably caused by the glyphosate exposure in combination with other factors and chemical compounds, but the circumstantial evidence together with data from the basic chemistry is now convincing.
Again, applying limited amounts of glyphosate directly to the unwanted plants would be by far the lowest impact use of the product and probably not comparable to its massive use in corn, rice and sugarcane production.
Thank you again for your other ideas. I particularly appreciate the focus of in the ground composting, using high carbon material together with urine in trenches. I want to work on that as part of the new garden area we will be developing soon.
Blessings.
Thanks Mark. That was a very nice non-condescending response and very objective. I really appreciate that. You are the right type of person to take these difficult issues and try to parse out the right approach for a Christian or development worker. Some day I may change my mind when there is really good evidence but I don’t see people stopping flying on airplanes just because they are megadosed with cosmic rays which is a very high cancer risk factor, or anyone campaigning to stop Walmart selling cellophane-wrapped green potatoes that sit in the light for long periods of time and become high in alkaloids which is also associated with cancer or people worried about how malaria does so much damage to the body and contributes to cancer but yet we had to stop IRS programs because people were worried about the pesticides, or we don’t stop eating our barbequed meat even though there is an association with charcoal and cancer, people don’t put sunscreen on every time when they go out in the sun, they don’t stop eating high heated items such as roasted coffee beans, prune juice, bread crust and other high heated items which are often associated with carcinogenic activity. We like to pick on Roundup/glyphosate I think to the exclusion of a lot of other threats in our lives. Being overweight is a huge one. Not getting enough exercise. The link to glyphosate being harmful is very very pitifully weak from looking at the data but that is not my field. I asked my friend Rich Leep, an extension specialist at MSU about it a while back and he said there was little substance to the new claims and he knows a whole lot more about it than I do. Check out this study… This may be more comprehensive than some of the ones you reference or to be fair to you maybe it is not…
Read these two articles: Ames is likely the most experience cancer researcher in the world. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/MisconceptionCausesofCancerContents.pdf
https://environs.law.ucdavis.edu/volumes/16/1/articles/ames.pdf
Mark you keep researching and keep communicating. My email is janzen200@yahoo.com. You will go far I am sure and try to extend what you do to others so they can learn, particularly the youth. There are more techniques I can teach you if you are interested such as tilting plants, tiered vegetable canopy considerations, grafting of fruit trees, intercropping tomatoes to reduce disease, and shade for homes, etc.
1 Like