GARDENING
PROJECTS
CONTRIBUTION
ON
HOW TO CREATE & MANAGE YOUR OWN 'PROJECT'
BROCHURE CONTENT OVERVIEW
(Work in progress – Overall Version [V107-95D])
01 - ANNOUNCING THE GARDENING PROJECTS HOW TO BLOG [V107-95D]:
http://gardeningprojectshowto.blogspot.com/
02 - ======= COVER LETTER 1 ======= This is version [V101-94$]
03 - ======= COVER LETTER 2 =======This is version [V104-94$]
04 -=============== Presentation - PROJECT OVERVIEW 1 - V105-94$ =======
When you start a Garden of your own, there are basically five possible approaches...
05 - Presentation - PROJECT OVERVIEW 2 - V101-94B
THE P.L.E.A.S.E APPROACH
TO INTENSIVE ORGANIC & SUSTAINABLE “VICTORY” GARDENING
a.k.a. "VICTORY GARDENING 2.0"
PLEASE stands for "PATTERNED LAYERED EDIBLE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS &
ECOLOGIES", besides being a pleasing way to garden.
06 - ================== Presentation - PROJECT OVERVIEW 3 – V103-94&
UNDERSTANDING UNITS IN THE P.L.E.A.S.E APPROACH TO
INTENSIVE ORGANIC & SUSTAINABLE 'VICTORY' GARDENING
a.k.a.
"VICTORY GARDENING 2.0"
07 - ================== Project Overview 4 - V103 ====================
FOOD PRODUCTION:
IS TECHNOLOGY A PATH TO PERDITION OR THE ROAD TO SALVATION?
UNDERSTANDING WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THE COMING BATTLE ABOUT FOOD
FREEDOM AND THE LIBERATING EFFECT OF TECHNOLOGY
******
01 - ANNOUNCING THE GARDENING PROJECTS HOW TO BLOG [V107-95C]:
http://gardeningprojectshowto.blogspot.com/
(ORGANIC) VICTORY GARDENING PROJECTS-RELATED MATERIALS WILL BE POSTED ON THIS BLOG
If you decided the time is ripe for you to create, design and maintain a Garden or to start a Project that will create, design, maintain and manage an Organic Gardening Project, you have come to the right place.
(Organic) because there is no "Victory Garden", or actually no "garden" of any sort that makes sense that is not organic.
If it's not organic, it's "small scale conventional agriculture", or perhaps a "conventional
garden". At any rate, it can't be a "Victory Garden". And anyway, why would anyone bother growing it?
If you don't mind eating "food" that's not even suitable as animal feed, laden with pesticides, herbicides and GMOs, you certainly can get that stuff from any supermarket. There is definitely no need to grow it!
What we will describe here will often refer to the climate and situation of Southern California, but with climatic adaptation, is universally valuable anywhere in the USA and in the world.
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Copyright and copyleft: (C) OSL 1964-2009. The material here is all
copyrighted, but you are hereby licensed to copy it, print it and
repost it freely, as long as: 1/ You reproduce it verbatim, that is,
exactly as it is, with all authorship and copyright mentions intact,
including this one. 2/ You do not charge ANY money for it, be it
directly or indirectly, and do not use it to *make* money. There is
nothing wrong with business at all, but if you use the material
published here this or any similar way, then, you will need to
acquire a commercial license from the copyright holders. That is, in
most case, us. Disclaimer: Whether used at no costs or by license,
the present material was published for information and/or
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Permalink -- The permanent link for this page is:
<a href="http://gardeningprojectshowto.blogspot.com/2009/04/organic-victory-gardening-projects.html">http://gardeningprojectshowto.blogspot.com/2009/04/organic-victory-gardening-projects.html</a> </p>
- ======= COVER LETTER 1=======
This is version [V101-94$]
Hello!
Here are the documents we promised you about how to start an Organic Gardening Project of your own.
The most advanced approach we know of
are the "PLEASE" Organic "Victory Gardening"
methods, something so cutting-edge that it seems to now even have
reached into the White House. Best proof of it, make a search on
Google. Here is what you get: Results 1 - 100 of about 138,000 for '
Michelle Obama organic victory garden '. (0.20 seconds)
The PLEASE methods are actually about
pleasing yourself, as you address the fundamental needs of your body
for functional, wholesome foods. "PLEASE” is an acronym
for "PATTERNED LAYERED EDIBLE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS &
ECOLOGIES". This actually means a lot of specific things, which
we will go over in the coming weeks as we develop these informational
pages...
But for right now, just think of it as
“Square Foot “, “Lasagna”,“Companion
Planting” Gardening and “Edible Landscaping” on
Steroids, and you will already have a quite good idea of what this is
about: Emulating Nature's own ways by recreating “natural”
Edible Ecologies. Sort of mini-Paradises where all is edible, one
way or another, and all is nourishing true FOOD, and not the pitiful
ersatz materials that supermarkets and fast-food joints try to
persuade us to be worthy of the name.
Truth is, that “food” is
not even fit to serve as animal feed at a hog farm, considering that
most of us will end eating these pigs. At most, we could use it to
feed pet hamsters or rats. That is, as long as we are not too
particular about their long term health. It's certainly not fit to
feed our children and ourselves!
Think of it next time you go buy
“food”!
Your friends at the Health Thru
Gardening team & the Projects Support Team at
Victory Gardening 2.0
http://victorygardens2.blogspot.com/
03 - ======= COVER LETTER 2 =======
This is version [V104-94$]
Hello!
If you have a piece of land or a
rooftop on which you might consider starting an Organic &
Sustainable Gardening Project, we certainly would be happy to look at
what you have so to evaluate the potential of your location, so to
see if it is possible to start a Project managed by us at your place,
or to give you some guidance for a self-managed one.
Everything we do is completely free of
charge, including evaluating a location. However we have no budget to
actively support you or
anyone else, and this includes to pay for gas to evaluate the
potential of a location (if we would do that, we'd have to have a
$500 or $1,000 a month budget just to cover for gas expenses!).
Therefore, anyone with a location to evaluate must either pick-up one
of our evaluation specialist from where they live and bring them back
there, or cover gas expenses at the minimum rate of $0.14 per mile.
Asides covering this or any other
actual cost incurred for the purpose of serving you, we do not charge
anything to assist you in your Organic Gardening projects – we
do not handle
any conventional agricultural or gardening projects at all anyway.
This, on the principle that if anyone is foolish enough to feed on
pesticides, herbicides and GMOs, (to say nothing about nice additions
such as irradiation, artificial hormones, antibiotics and “diet”
sugar substitutes), they can certainly get the stuff from their local
supermarket or fast food joint, and certainly do not need any help
from us with slowly poisoning themselves.
Fact
is, as the quality of commercial food constantly degrades, with all
the implications this has for our health and the health of the people
we care for, this, as we face a return of the Great Depression, or
even a “Greater Depression”, creating and maintaining our
own organic food-producing Gardens becomes an evident solution to
many of the issues we face!
Addressing
the issue of a reliable supply of functional and non-poisonous food
is slowly but surely truly becoming an urgency and possibly already
an emergency, as more and more people realize that things are getting
worse by the day with the ubiquitousness of the latest ploy to keep
us chronically ill with GMOs, artificial hormones, antibiotics and
irradiation in about every possible “conventional “food”,
in addition to our previous constant dosing with herbicides and
pesticides. In fact, it looks more and more like, for some corporate
poisoners, the pests are US!
Here
is a collection of information to help you decide what approach to
Organic
and Sustainable Gardening and Victory Gardening is best
for you:
We hope these documents help you make
the right choices!
The Projects Support Team at
Victory Gardening 2.0
http://victorygardens2.blogspot.com/
PS: Don't try to re-invent the wheel!
As someone told us about 2000 years ago:
“Knock, and it will be opened to
you. Seek, and you will find. Ask, and it will be given you.”
04 -===============
Presentation - PROJECT OVERVIEW 1 - V105-94$ =======
STARTING YOUR OWN PROJECT
When you start a
Garden of your own, there are basically five possible
approaches:
1/ If you have both the knowledge
and the time, do it yourself!
Perhaps
enlisting the help of friends and family, whom you can entice
and bribe with the promise of some organic fresh produce of the
like that is sold between $2 and $6 a pound and more at Whole
Foods, etc.
2/ If you don't have both the knowledge and
the time, then have it done for you for free,
if you have land, space and wits available. Land to do it.
Space to host a Coordinator and perhaps some Resident
Volunteers. As for the wit component, it is necessary as well,
first to simply understand that such a thing is actually
possible (we do it all the time for people just like you, so we
*know* it's possible! ;) ), and then, to persuade yourself to
actually do it.
3/ The alternative being, if you have
the money, to purchase a ready-made garden, at
a cost that will usually vary between $25 and $100 per
installed square foot of raised beds. Here again, wits are
needed, first to understand that layered raised beds are the
only reasonable option for *intensive* food production in the
Garden. That is, producing 1 to 5 pefas or 5 to 25 kemas.
[These are units used to evaluate organic edible production of
a Garden in the P.L.E.A.S.E. approach to Victory Gardening 2.0.
Please see the note at the end of this document about what
P.L.E.A.S.E. and these pefas and kemas are, and how they apply
to you!]
But of course, if you have lots of land and
manpower available, then you could also consider doing things
in more conventional ways. Why indeed would you care if you
produce only say 0.2 kema on your acreage, as long as it is
marginally profitable, if you farm 10, 100 or 1,000
acres?
Or more.
4/ If you don't mind sharing your place and its
production with neighbors and people in the local community,
then consider Teaming up for a Community Garden.
5/
If you have the patience and knowledge for that, you could seek
and get a grant to do all or any of this, or
personally, or at the community level. Once you have secured
your grant, you will be back to 3/.
These avenues, in
reverse, are also open to you if you don't have your own land
yet, but are looking to create something on someone else's
land.
Let's go over this:
40/ First, WHY
HAVE A GARDEN AT ALL?
As to why one would want
a Garden (aka "an organic and sustainable food-producing
garden") at all, you could for example
read:
http://www.heartbeetgardening.com/urban.php
http://greenlagirl.com/2007/05/16/book-review-food-not-lawns/
http://www.foodsecurity.org/urbanag.html which you can also
download in .pdf form from
here:
http://www.foodsecurity.org/urbanagpaper.pdf
plus of course all the material on our own or our friends
websites, such as
http://victorygardens2.blogspot.com/
http://vg2gardenerhandbook.blogspot.com/
http://buildinggreenwithearthandplants.blogspot.com/
(in construction)
http://victorygardeningevents.blogspot.com/
http://www.pathtofreedom.com/
and http://www.pathtofreedom.org/
among many more. Please notice that each site has its own
copyright, disclaimer and privacy policies.
41/
IF YOU HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE, DO IT YOURSELF:
There
is plenty of information on the Net about all aspects of Garden
Design and Maintenance. Use these resources. A good
introduction to doing it right is known as "Square Foot
Gardening", and had met with huge success over the
years.
There is an overview video about it available
here:
============================================
Square
Foot Gardening Introduction
Video.avi
http://mybloop.com/go/cnCt5i
============================================
(Sorry,
this link is VERY fickle and unreliable. Also, this is a video
about 180 MB big, and take time to download. None of this is
under our control.)
42/ IF YOU DON'T, HAVE
IT DONE FOR YOU FOR FREE:
This is only an
option if you have land, space and wits available
aplenty.
Land, to create the garden on.
Space, to
host a Garden Design Coordinator for the 10 to 20 weeks (or
more) it will take to design and create that Garden for you
(unless you are particularly lucky, and a suitable coordinator
lives a walking distance from your place).
Wits, as the
wit component is first necessary to understand that such things
are actually possible (again, it truly is – we do it all
the time!); and then, to persuade yourself to actually do it.
Actually, later, a bit of wits could also prove useful when it
comes to actually maintaining that garden, preferably in a
close to optimal state, once you are on your own.
For
example, having such a Garden made for her is something that
has just happened in the Eastern part of Los Angeles for
"Mary".
Who is "Mary"? No one who
had special connections, or anything. Mary just read one of our
ads proposing to do create a Garden at no costs to her, and
thought it was interesting...
So, no one in particular,
besides being someone smart enough to actually read ads,
understand that ads perhaps mean exactly what they say,
inquire, and then do her homework (in her case, by visiting
another prior Project in Topanga, and see what's there) and
finally, decide to go for it and actually get a Garden of her
own.
The capability to do all this obviously already
sets "Mary" apart big time... ;) However, in truth,
none of it rocket science. Anyone with a backyard and a space
to host a Garden Design Coordinator for a couple weeks could
actually do it.
So, if you have a backyard you want
transformed into a Garden at no cost to you, and also have one
room or RV or whatever available, which a Garden Design
Coordinator could occupy for 10 to 20 weeks, (in Mary's case,
she had one room that was going to be empty for 10 weeks), you
too could do it!
10 weeks is of course too short to
truly put a complete Garden in place, 15-20 weeks being more
like it normally, and the actual length of the Project of
course depending on parameters such as the surface of finished
beds you seek to install, how easy material procurement will
be, the quality and complexity of the beds and of the soil
being designed, and the number of volunteers or other people
available for the task.. (A practical rule of thumb being about
50 square feet of complete optimally-made raised beds per week
from the fourth or fifth week on, for a small Project with a
budget of zero, and twice as much for a bigger Project with
some money available for expenses.)
Particularly in that
case, as we had no prior Project in the Alhambra to Altadena
area since 2006, where “Mary”'s Project was
located, and had to start a new one again from scratch. Which
normally also takes about 15-20 weeks.
But 10 weeks is
certainly enough to create the general frame of a Garden.
Thereafter, of course, "Mary" will have to manage her
Garden on her own. Since she is pretty resourceful and tried to
learn while she could, she will probably make it at say, 60% or
70% from optimal.
Meaning that her Garden's production will probably be around 1.5-2 pefas (PEFA = Pounds of Edibles per [square] Foot per Annum). Which is already quite remarkable compared to what most laypeople achieve when trying their luck at "gardening". Which is in the order of, say, 0.15 to 0.25 pefas or 3-4 Oz/SqFt or 85-125 g/SqFt or .93-1.25 Kg/m2 (optimal here in SoCal being
15-20 Kg/m2 and over), per year. These higher numbers being exactly what is now routinely achieved by the Dervaes family in Pasadena, as you can see on their websites here:
http://www.pathtofreedom.com/ and/or http://www.pathtofreedom.org/
To get familiar with these units and how they relate to you, and how you could actually make a business out of it, please read the document that goes over them and a host of other technical and economic issues.
We can arrange the same thing we arranged for "Mary" for anyone equally so blessed with land, space and wits, with this only limitation that at the time being we only have about half a dozen
Coordinators with sufficient knowledge in soil design and permaculture edible landscaping that will do this without pay. Of course, if money is no object, we have access to quite a few more... And again more money will get you the Edible Landscapers to the Stars, people such as the bio-dynamic magician Jack McAndrew.
43/ IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY, PURCHASE A READY-MADE GARDEN:
Of course if someone like you is willing to pay for the service, there are plenty of people of various levels of competence available. In general, commercial garden designers will charge between $15-25 and $100 per square foot of finished raised beds (which, again, are the only reasonable way to go for small surface intensive gardening).
431/ For example, on the more affordable side, see: Heart Beet Gardening at
http://www.heartbeetgardening.com/
.
From an L.A. Times article: "Most of Heart Beet's work, however, isn't large yards but smaller vegetable gardens and edible landscapes. Want Heart Beet to help set up yours? Call them, and you could have your own garden in just a week. The cost for a 100-square-foot garden with a raised bed runs between $1,500 to $2,500 for set-up, depending on the condition of the soil, the type of irrigation system desired, and other factors particular to your garden. Seeding and planting is of course additional, costs depending on what you want planted.
Once you have the garden set up, Heart Beet can help you maintain it for $75 a month, which includes weekly visits to your garden. Of course, a vegetable garden really needs to be looked at more than once a week, and Heart Beet's overall goal is to get more people gardening themselves. Says Megan: 'It's not rocket science'."
We do similar things (actually, what we do is one notch or two above what you can get from the sources we are listing here, which we believe to otherwise be the best available locally. but that's normal, since we do research and teach on a steady basis. Plus, we fully integrate complete soil design to our Garden Designs, and what we do is based on over 100 years of direct mentorship affiliations with the very best people in the field, topped by over 50 years of direct experience for our most senior Expert Organic Gardeners.
The main difference being that we are a non-profit and do it for free.
Of course we will do it for hire as well, if we have to. And in both cases, it is quite safe to say that we are usually acknowledged as being among the very best. To the very least.
432/ A bit less affordable but equally good (well, perhaps a tiny less good on some marginal details, and a tiny better on others), you have for example "Gardens To
Gro": http://www.gardenstogro.com/
There you can get 45 sqFeet plantable for $1,500 to $3,150
(plus the cost to assemble it, so let's say a total of between
$35-$40 and $75-$90 per usable square foot installed).
The
most affordable of their units is: "8'x8' Garden to Gro -
All models include gopher-proof beds (approximately 45 SF
planting space), 3' high bunny-proof fencing, automatic
irrigation unit (battery-operated controller, soaker hose, coil
hose, and hose holder), and weed barrier for walkway. Deluxe
models and plastic lumber gardens also include 5'8" high
built-in trellis. 8'x8' Standard Garden to Gro - 12" high
beds Price $1,500. Price does not include delivery or
assembly.
You can buy their ready-made 16 sqFt (about
14+ SqFt usable) "Eden Garden" model for just $499 at
Home
Depot:
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100661952
433/ Then you have elite Edible Landscapers and
Biodynamic Gardening experts such as the famous Jack McAndrew,
best known as “the Bio-Dynamic Gardening Expert to the
Stars”, who charges $2,000 to $3,000 per 30
square feet bed filled with the most exquisite choice
materials, mainly pure organic alfalfa leaf and bio-dynamic
compost, at the rate of 65 pounds per square foot or so, and
more, depending on the material of the bed itself. Polished
marmor and granite beds of course cost even more. His website
is http://biodynamiccompost.com/
.
What's even more remarkable is that Mr McAndrew
actually teaches at no charge at several different schools, and
that it is often easier to get an appointment with him at no
costs for a non-profit rather than for some sizable amount of
cash. Through his mentors such as Peter Dukich and Margrit
Selke, and their mentor Dr Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, Mr McAndrew is
just two generation away from Rudolf Steiner himself, who
founded biodynamic agriculture and the Waldorf school system,
the biggest and most widely acknowledged private school system
on the planet.
44/ GET TOGETHER WITH FRIENDS
& NEIGHBORS TO START A COMMUNITY PROJECT OF YOUR OWN:
If
you have land and a strong desire to get wholesome food, it
could be a viable option for you to actually share your land
with such a group of local people, putting together a system
where each input, such as land, water, knowledge, work, etc, is
valued and acknowledged equitably.
This is best done
through community-based “hour” or similar
currencies, and having such a system up and running locally if
or when the economy truly crashes might in the end prove one of
the best things you ever did.
This is worth substantial
developments, and we will go over it in details later. For now,
let's just mention here that this is an option you might want
to consider as a landlord or a leaseholder.
45/
IF YOU HAVE THE PATIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE TO APPLY FOR ONE, GET A
GRANT TO DO ALL OR ANY OF THIS:
Some ideas
about that can be found here, in a paper already
referenced:
http://www.foodsecurity.org/urbanag.html
which you can also download in .pdf form from
here:
http://www.foodsecurity.org/urbanagpaper.pdf
So, and particularly (but not only) if you were to be
interested in forming a community program for the purpose of
creating a community garden, you could possibly even get grant
money for that. See:
http://www.foodsecurity.org/funding.html
There are numerous other grants possible. We are
currently in the process of evaluating the opportunities,
procedures and practicalities relating to ordinary people going
for grants.
[ Actually, we ourselves could use a grant to
prepare something comprehensive in that area! ;) But haven't
yet found the time to ask for it! :( ]
Get on any of our
mailing lists, and we will keep you informed on what's possible
in that area. Or look at any relevant blogs regularly, such
as:
http://victorygardens2.blogspot.com/
and its complement
http://vg2gardenerhandbook.blogspot.com/
, as well as other sites such as
http://lawncrusade.blogspot.com/
http://www.healththrugardening.blogspot.com/
http://www.topangamodel.blogspot.com/
and many more.
46/ FOLLOW GREAT ROLE MODELS:
In fact, if you were in need of some ENCOURAGEMENT TO ACTION,
perhaps just consider that the First Lady Michelle
Obama just joined the Victory Gardens 2.0 movement,
and that maybe she is on to something, doing so... ;)
Sure,
one may argue that what politicians do is rarely a reference
for anything... particularly considering that at the same time,
politicians in the same party are working hard on making
organic gardening plain illegal, and organic farming close to
impossible! Of course, to “protect you”... under
the guise of “Food Safety”.
About that, you
could
read:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Linn-Cole-1-Monsanto-Zero-by-Robert-Singer-090320-126.html
(If you are so inclined, this could be a good occasion for
you to contact your Representatives and tell them what you
think about the plans of some of their colleagues for you and
your health!)
However, while still legal, if it's good
enough for the White House, shouldn't it be the way to go for
all of us? ;)
We hope you will find this paper
useful, and that this answers your questions about these
issues.
Your friends at the Projects
Coordination Team at
Victory Gardens 2.0
Cutting-edge
Intensive Organic Gardening for the XXIst
Century
http://victorygardens2.blogspot.com/
5 - Presentation -
PROJECT OVERVIEW 2 - V101-94B
THE P.L.E.A.S.E
APPROACH
TO INTENSIVE ORGANIC &
SUSTAINABLE “VICTORY” GARDENING
a.k.a. "VICTORY
GARDENING 2.0"
PLEASE stands for "PATTERNED
LAYERED EDIBLE AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS & ECOLOGIES", besides
being a pleasing way to garden.
PATTERNS: Think Cycles and Rotations.
Think "Stripes" or "Square Foot", "Square
Yard" or "Square Meter" Gardening. Think making
things simpler and easier for you, and ultimately, when technology
allows, fully automated.
LAYERED: Think "raised beds"
with designer soils composed of multiple layers of suitable
materials, "lasagna gardening", "slope and hill
management" using "natural terracing", and Robert
Hart's “Forest Gardening, etc...
EDIBLE: As we see it, the main
function of a Garden is to be edible. It can be beautiful too, as
long as edible. ;) If not edible, like, say, a lawn, it's basically
a waste of space, water, energy, time, and money. Particularly
considering that beautiful yet perfectly edible landscaping is a
choice any interested party can make at any time.
AGRICULTURAL (or GARDENING) SYSTEMS:
Victory Gardening and, more generally, Organic Agriculture, can be
considered as Systems, including as Complex Adaptive Systems closely
interfacing with and interacting with the genetically-programmed
needs of human beings. This will be developed in quite some detail
and has numerous consequences we will in time explore.
ECOLOGIES: One aspect of it is the
concept and potential role of "Edible Ecologies": How
gardens can be turned into complete self-contained edible ecologies,
that interface and integrate with the place of humankind in the wider
scheme of things and the ecologic place of humans in their
environment. This interfaces with issues such as the fact that our
bodies have specific needs that conventional agriculture, supermarket
and fast food fares do not address, or even deny, but which can be
addressed through Victory Gardening, locavorisme, permaculture and
the like.
These ideas will be further developed
in the coming days and weeks.
6 - ================== Presentation
- PROJECT OVERVIEW 3 – V103-94&
UNDERSTANDING UNITS IN
THE P.L.E.A.S.E APPROACH
TO INTENSIVE ORGANIC &
SUSTAINABLE 'VICTORY' GARDENING
a.k.a. "VICTORY
GARDENING 2.0"
A pefa stands for [Pound of Edibles per
(square) Foot per Annum].
A kema stands for [Kilogram of Edibles
per (square) Meter per Annum].
These units are used to evaluate how
productive your intensive Victory Gardening project is. Particularly
if you want to do anything quantified, so what you do can be compared
to similar endeavors or is better understood. This is very useful
for group endeavors or semi-commercial, or commercial ventures
(market gardening). So there are many reasons why it is a good idea
for you to start thinking in pefas and kemas, preferably as you start
to do P.L.E.A.S.E. gardening.
The Pefa is a purely U.S. unit, but it
can also be used in Myanmar.
The Kema is the unit in use for the
whole rest of the world, except indeed Myanmar [former Burma], which
expresses its love of the United States [or perhaps its utter
backwardness ;)] by using the same units than us.
A Hema is simply 1/10th of a
Kema, and is perhaps the most useful unit of the bunch, as you can
think of it as a “portion”, in terms of numbers of 100g
“portions” per surface per Annum.
[For your information, 1 m2 = 10.764
sqFt and 1 # = 0.4536 Kg or 453.6 g(rams), meaning that 1 Kg or 1,000
g(rams)= 35.274 Oz or 2.205 pounds. Therefore one pefa in
international standard units translate into = .4536 x 10.764 = 4.88
Kg/m2. So 1 pefa is approximately equal to 5 kemas or more exactly
almost 49 hemas.
The h in hema stands for hectogram (1
hectogram being 100g) and the hema is actually the unit of choice for
people who want to think "calories" per portion of 100 g,
since a hema is actually exactly that: A portion of 100 g of organic
high-quality food locally produced in your own garden. This, the
hema, is probably the unit you really want to use.]
Translated into English, these
calculations mean that each time you produce about 1 pefa (pound per
square foot per annum) using cutting-edge gardening approaches such
as the PLEASE approach, it translates into about 5 kemas (Kg/M2/yr or
kg (a Kg is 1,000 grams) per m2 or kilogram per square meter, per
year) or most closely, 49 hemas, for the rest of the world.
These apparently weird units actually
make lots of sense, once you get accustomed to them. Your goal in
climates like Coastal Southern California, Florida, Southern Spain
and France, coastal Italy and Greece, coastal North Africa, etc, and
all subtropical or tropical countries can reasonably be to produce 1
to 5 pefas that is 50 to 250 hemas for each square foot you have
under intensive cultivation. The Dervaes family at
www.pathtofreedom.com nowadays routinely produces about 2.5 pefas or
122 hemas of the highest quality organic produce per cultivated foot
in Pasadena. In 2008, this translated into over 10,000 pounds of the
best possible produce for the surface they have available, which is
about 4,000 square feet. Pretty good! And even better...
So could you! Indeed, you could do
exactly the same! This is NOT rocket science or brain surgery. With
proper guidance, a child can do it! And the best proof of that is
that children are routinely doing it.
Plus, higher yields are definitely
possible with a bit of automation, and, someday, with a bit of
agricultural and gardening robotics, and high-tech input.
08 - ================== Project
Overview 4 - V103 ====================
UNDERSTANDING WHAT IS
AT STAKE IN
THE COMING BATTLE ABOUT
FOOD FREEDOM
AND THE LIBERATING
EFFECT OF TECHNOLOGY
What do we mean with "a bit of
agricultural and gardening robotics"?
We mean that we as a specie are on the
verge of a great revolution in the way we feed ourselves. A
revolution as profound and momentous as the beginning of agriculture
was, many thousands of years ago.
Because, today, in essence, except
perhaps Eskimos, each and every of us could eat truly optimal and
locally-produced foods.
In fact, today, there would be no
reason anymore not to eat the purest and most functional foods,
organically-produced from completely untainted seed.
Of course, nothing new in that, as this
could always be done: 100% by hand at the cost of lots of labor, but
at close-to-zero out of pockets costs. But what is new is this also
could be done for each of us by specialized semi-intelligent or
intelligent robots. With practically no human labor involved.
It's the promise of a new "Garden
of Eden". And a promise that could be actualized right now.
But this won't happen without a great
final struggle -- truly a momentous fight: Human Rights, Freedom and
technology being on one side, and the forces of enslavement and
Darkness on the other.
From a technological viewpoint, it's a
fact that gardening and later agricultural robots will start being
around soon, simply because this is an obvious application. In fact,
we have little doubt that, sooner or later, we ourselves will get the
financing to create such low cost gardening robots.
And if we don't, someone else will do
it, if for no other reason than the fact that it's a potential
multi-billion dollars business just at the mere gardening level (a
market estimated to be in the range of $70 Billion for 2009, 45% up
from 2008, a year that was itself 25% up from 2007, and that in the
middle of the worst economic crisis of all time). And this is to say
nothing about market gardening and agriculture.
In other words, the coming field of
Garden Robotics has the same IPO potential and potential for buzz and
excitement a better dot-com had in old times. But that, with a much
better chance of overall success, as it's hard to imagine a better
"killer app'" than offering more and more health-conscious
people access to a reliable source of organic foods practically for
free right in their own backyards or on their own rooftops...
To give you just a small idea of that
potential, in 2002, gardening was a $37.7 Billion business in the
U.S. alone, and, again has been projected to reach the $70 B mark in
2009. Fact is, in the middle or rather, the beginning, of the worst
economic crisis ever, this is one of the rare sectors of the economy
in full double-digit growth and expansion for the past 3 years, date
to date.
Catching only 5% of this existing
gardening business would already create a $3 B a year business that
the stock market would probably capitalize at 10-20 times earnings.
Moreover, this could be achieved with a minimal initial investment,
if the risk of growing slowly was considered acceptable, or maybe a
$50M investment, if the goal was aggressive growth and immediate
market saturation.
In today's economic climate, it would
be hard to imagine a better opportunity. Plus, a first mover in this
field, that is, a company with a technology or product so
revolutionary that it disrupts an existing industry and/or creates an
entirely new one, has the natural potential to dominates its
industry... and that is exactly the position a “gardening
robotics” business using the techniques we researched over the
past few years could be and could do.
Moreover, one can easily envision the
impact this could have for organic *food* and food production (that
is, organic agriculture)... The potential there is even bigger.
After all, we all need to eat. And more and more people realize that
it's actually a great idea to eat right – at least, if
staying healthy is of any interest. As agricultural robotics will
make organic agriculture much easier and cost effective, this will in
turn affect market expansion positively.
And, despite the price barrier, organic
agriculture as well is a markets in constant expansion, as people are
slowly awakening to the fact that standard supermarket and "fast
food" fare equals chronic disease and early demise. Particularly
with secret GMOs (genetically-modified organisms) being carefully
hidden in everything, and slowly becoming unavoidable and ubiquitous.
After all, besides the fact that GMO "food" can be and is
freely marketed with no labeling at all, even supposedly "organic"
food can have a 10% GMO contamination in the U.S., instead of of the
0.001 to 0.1% tolerated in better run countries. U.S “standards”
are at worst Third World levels, and 100 times higher than even the
European and Asian countries the least serious about the quality of
their food supply! . It might be hard to believe, but that's how low
we have gone...
When the food segment of the market is
taken in consideration, the profit potential for getting involved
early with this coming revolution in food and agriculture becomes
simply staggering. Assuming, of course, we are actually still legally
allowed to eat organically and locally produced foods in the
years to come.
Besides the current effort in Congress
[HR875-S425] to kill small farms and all backyard organic food
production, this overall situation is obviously VERY good news for us
all, simply because where there is potential profit and powerful and
clear momentum, one can be sure that the "invisible hand"
of entrepreneurship will sooner or later jump on the bandwagons of
history. So, seeing all this happening is not a matter of "if"
-- only a matter of "when".
Unless of course the forces who want us
to live in a very different world manage to use government guns and
jails to stop the increasing will of the People to “eat right”
from making all this happen...
It could be why making organic
gardening and small farming illegal appears to have suddenly become
so urgent for the corporate powers-that-be: Perhaps there is some
fear at that level that we will soon be capable to start feeding
ourselves quality self-grown foods, cutting into their immense food
processing, food distribution, fast food and "health care"
profits in dozens if not hundreds of ways!
What must be understood is that once
gardening robotics is scaled up to organic agriculture size,
everything that applies in the garden can and will now be used in the
field.
Because the potential of this
paradigm-shifting technology is to make organic agriculture
affordable to all, spearheading a Renaissance of the small farm and
of the countryside, a much “greener” world, and perhaps
putting an end to unsustainable agri-business.
Unless of course, organic gardening is
made illegal, which in turn would make gardening robotics a losing
proposition, as well as small scale honest organic farming. Which is
*exactly* what HR875, the scandalous and most deceptively named "Food
Safety Bill of 2009" is endeavoring to achieve in the U.S.
Congress right now. Guarantying that our food will essentially remain
as unsafe as it is now, loaded with pesticides, herbicides,
fungicides and GMOs, and Big-Business-controlled forever.
Since such attempts go against the
clear or diffuse sentiment of about 90%+ of the U.S. population,
bills with such payloads can only pass by using complete, utter
deceptiveness (which is of course exactly how corporate propaganda is
currently attempting to advance them), making this truly a battle
between Good and Evil. Evil here of course parading as "good",
under the pretense of "safety" in "Codex
Alimentarius"-related supposed "food safety" bills,
that objectively advance exactly the opposite agenda to what they
purport to support.
Fact is, there is hardly any other
battle that carries more weight for our future and the future of our
children than the current ones for our right to remain free to feed
ourselves and to have access to small local organic farms and to CSA
("Community-Supported Agriculture") and “farmer's
markets”.
It has been said that “Food
Freedom Fighters” are truly battling Evil in its ugliest and
most absolute form. One thing is sure, conclusive statistical
research shows that more and more people start thinking that
introducing Terminator Seeds and hidden GMOs everywhere is immensely
more evil than making torture standard government policy. Such
smaller evil at the time only reached to a couple tens or hundreds of
thousands of people, and has now been voted out of existence. We can
only hope that this immensely greater evil in the making, meant to
impact the destiny of 300 Million people, will soon find the same
fate.
On the positive side, what we also all
need to understand is that at the same time, the technology which
could allow the vast majority of us to eat totally organic and
highest quality food, to a large extent straight from our backyards
or community gardens, is now completely available.
To see this immense progress
implemented all over the place is just a matter of starting,
organizing and financing small businesses dedicated to make our
vision of a better and safer world for us all the reality we will
actually all experience.
This is open to all, exactly as Organic
Victory Gardening is truly an equal opportunity.
This can be done entirely by hand at
practically no costs whatsoever, as we demonstrate every day, and
every time we give a free class.
But if knowledge and time are not
available, fact is that, today, it is in itself most easy technically
to create a completely new type of application, a "killer app'"
if there was ever one, namely "gardening and agricultural
robotics", and make it most widely available at very small
costs.
Once this has happened, and it will
happen within the coming decade, there is no question about that,
that is, once these robots or robotized gardening systems exist, as
well as reliable supply lines for their upkeep and maintenance, then,
it will become just plain stupid not to follow the "Warburg
Imperative" of "Eating Right".
In fact, continue to eat like most of
us eat today, and be chronically ill as we all are today, instead of
eating how we should, and "be chronically healthy!", as
we should be, could very well someday be seen as a form of mental
illness, if there is a choice, or as the most ruthless form of
enslavement and slavery, if there isn't any. As indeed, eating like
most of us eat today, could quite reasonably be looked at to be.
From a moral standpoint, there is
obviously little other choice than following the "Warburg
Imperative" of "Eating Right", and promoting it
widely.
And from an economic standpoint, this
is definitely one of the most exciting fields to be in. And getting
in right now, one way or another, is placing yourself at the very
ground floor level of a huge movement that has the potential to
completely transform the way we eat, and therefore the way we feel,
and our overall health. And ultimately the way we live.
===================================================
Excerpts from a reply to an inquiry by
a major organic food retailer, about the economic potential of
“Ready-Made (raised bed) Gardens” (TM).
===================================================
Here is a (copyrighted) document we send to people inquiring about starting their own Garden or having one started for them (this refers to “Projects Overview 1”). It probably contains background information that could be useful for you when deciding what sort of class you want.
In fact, your company might also consider selling pre-manufactured small (or big) "Ready-Made Gardens" ™. These, we could manufacture for you according to our optimal specs, and a cost which would allow to sell them at lower prices than the existing similar pre-manufactured raised-bed gardens referenced here. Of course, we could also manufacture them to your own lower (but even less expensive) specifications as well.
We had a market study made informally, which evaluated the current market for semi-automated (raised) garden beds about $1.5 Billion a year for a properly funded corporation,
going aggressively for market share and market saturation, with practically no competition at the present time. Another study placed this closer to the $3 Billion mark. In fact, this study actually pointed to five specific major businesses as ideal or potentially valuable commercial partners to sell such units, and this included your own.
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