[Tfug] [SPAM] World Oil Production figures up to the end of 2007

[Ronald Sutherland]

On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 4:24 PM, John Karns <johnkarns at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 8:21 PM, Ronald Sutherland
> <ronald.sutherland at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The question as I see it is can a
>> home garden be done without fertilizer, pesticide, and rototiller?
>
> Of course - with organic gardening methods.  Although not a gardener
> myself, I friends who are.  One key word to look up would be
> "permaculture", which encompasses organic cultivation as well as

Permaculture: Permanent Agriculture (but also a play on culture as a
life style).

> things like water reclamation, and just about anything related to
> living an independent life style.

Some would say that it's not so much about an individual providing all
there needs, but a community.

If I have some land that I can use to grow food and what not, part of
the idea is to plan the use of the land almost like a kernel and its
resources. There are some things the kernel is always working with and
other things that need varying degrees of attention. Permaculture
calls these zones. Permaculture talks about the functions living
things have and how to plug them into each other, as well as how to
set up self sustaining living systems.

The truth is I see a lot of engineering and programing possibility
within Permaculture, I've spent more than enough time in an office
cubical, and it's getting old. I have always liked a good mix of
electrical, mechanical and software challenges, but I have a hankering
to do something different and outdoors. Permaculture makes natural
living systems sound like a programing environment, where part of the
goal is to get useful output/production from very little
input/efforts, which is to say that once its setup its a solar powered
engine that you can take some of the work from. If you take hold of
the machine with to much force it just stalls out. Industrial methods
are a pulsed mode production where the land is mostly dead except the
crop of interest.

I'm thinking a good understanding of conservation of energy is
important. Plants capture solar energy that is used to make a living
soil which then nourishes plants. A living soil is a complex idea, it
includes: fungus, microbes, bugs, worms, birds and other animals that
disturb and fertilize the soil. A correct selection of plants can work
together and harness solar energy with good efficiency, some plants
enhance each other, and in general diversity builds a much richer life
system. To be sustainable its not about peak production, but to limit
the harvest to some level below what will allow the living soil to
remain self sustaining.

Anyway, some experiments have been started, but more needs done.