I. THE NO DIG GARDEN METHOD FOR KIDS AND SENIORS
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COLLECT ALL THE HARD PLASTIC KIDDIE SWIMMING
POOLS YOU CAN FIND ON THE TRASH in alleys or curbside and make GORGEOUS
GARDENS. Then, do you have a roof on top of your apartment
building? A nearby Vacant lot? Does the entire neighborhood consider that
vacant lot that's been for sale an eyesore? Well, it's sure not going to
sell now, during a recession as the DOLLAR
HAS TANKED, ditto the REAL ESTATE MARKET so circulate a xeroxed
ANNOUNCEMENT to every house on your street. "Let's TURN THE VACANT
LOT into a COMMUNITY GARDEN. COLLECT HARD PLASTIC WADING POOLS & Start
your compost pile now!
Those hard plastic Kiddie Wading pools can be placed in any areas that
could not be gardened conventionally, such as rooftops, patios, decks,
sections of playgrounds, along railroad tracks, or in nearby hardsoil,
parched, brown fields.
The wading pools are lightweight (before they are filled with soil),
easy to situate, and last for many years
without decay. If you do them on earth, use a red hot knife to
make some holes for drainage. Some seepage of excess liquid must occur
or the earth gets rancid, sour.
Wading pools provide an opportunity to grow food in areas where there
is soil contamination or where there is
limited or no land available for growing a garden. In THE
URLS found in this article, you will find complete instructions on starting
a container garden in your neighborhood:
http://www.arts4all.com/elca/page1.html
http://www.arts4all.com/elca/page2.html
PRECISE INSTRUCTIONS FOR PREPARING THE POOL- http://www.arts4all.com/elca/page3.html
CASH CROPS- I've been researching big cash crops as a net Pal asked me what I thought was easy to grow and lucrative. I hear that Garlic is -- especially specialty types like ELEPHANT GARLIC which is easy to grow and valuable. If you braid the stalks so that it is also decorative, tie a raffia bow on it, it really earns the farmer top dollar. Right now, if I buy garlic at my barrio market, it's 3 for 20c, 15 for a dollar, but braid it with a raffia bow, you can charge l0$ so I'd put garlic at the head of my list.
Pondering food I have to pay a LOT for..to get a single OUNCE! SESAME
SEEDS Very lucrative.
Agribusiness can't go near it. The reason is that it must be hand harvested
as the pods split! http://www.masterjules.net/sesame.htm
I'm
planting it this year just as I use so much toasted sesame on top of my
simple vegetable/ fish meals to make them tastier. Stews, vegetables get
a heavy shake of toasted sesame. You keep it in a small tin after you toast
up an ounce. CHINESE markets give me an inexpensive TOASTED SESAME OIL
to put in the stew. Currently to buy an ounce of this seed, you pay a buck
easy!
SO retire to the SESAME FARM! One could open a FALAFEL STAND by the
highway if one grew one's own sesame seeds and garbanzos and garlic and
lemons. And made one's own PITA bread.
BERRIES ARE BERRY GOOD! Berries are a big cash crop. Again, a Summertime stand by the road. Fun thing to do this summer is drive the highways one gas tank from your home, seeking farms for sale or farmers who'd sell off a few acres of their homestead.
To inspire you, the GENTLEMAN FARMER's WEBSITE!
http://www.masterjules.net/gindex.htm
PS Contribute what you find in the 'cash crop google' line of research. I'll write it up. Post it.
FARMS ON THE EDGES OF THE CITY. A friend in Oregon told me that he felt that rural farmland could be leased. That a land lease arrangement could be accomplished by these beginner 'city vacant lot' farmers from the city who already have a food supply mechanism going. They'd go out to the farms and lease vacant land. The idea is that urban Communities might do so well in their city gardens, they'd eventually have the team power to lease farms. City groups find vacant lots, leasing something called a "garden plot" They can rent Plots of that community land for $15 a 10x10 plot, per season. After the whole neighborhood grows a ton of food, they start up a serious farm. A few acres of some farmer's back pasture. Let's say the city growing group leases an acre or 2 of rural farmland for $1500 a season. This land is certified organic, the owner supplies the tilling, organic fertilizer and irrigation (maybe a river is a few hundred feet away. They do irrigation ditches. A farmer might as $2000 a season He has 50 acres. You haul in l00 school kids on weekends, and do the work. Say the head city gardeners make him an offer he can't refuse. RENT and share of the profits. I'm offering to get all his plots leased due to the fact that I know that Food and Water will be the #1 business to be in real soon. I give him a percentage of my profits.
I responded: Why should he take that offer? You give him a commission on what you grow and pay no rent? HEY, TRY IT OUT but if he says NO, then you had better have a well thought out SECOND BEST PLAN for him. You will have to GUSSY UP THE OFFER, make it rounder, more appealing.
So state firmly that you HAVE NO CASH TO RENT IT, if that is the case. And then explain to him that this bargain rate allows you to get started, and do well and that second season he gets his full asking price. Tell him you have to feel out 'markets' --- venues for selling. You're green at this.
Tell him he can have all the produce he wants for his personal use,
and if he can devise a sales venue for the produce that YOU GROW with your
labor, living on a tent on the land, right? THEN you share and devise a
% split. By the way, where will you live? Are there houses? And how
will you irrigate. Is there a pump, pipe? hoses? Could you build drip emission
pipes across the fields? Drip emitters, look them up online. Or are you
doing ditch irrigation? Do you know how to do irrigation of fifty acres
with ditch system? Flooding? Seems to me you're a total beginner. Howabout
you and he together do emission systems. It's a kind of plastic pipe. Google
it.
NOW, do you have any cash on hand, savings or a parttime job so that
you do have cash to live, cash for seeds, Do you cash for manure, trucking
rentals, fees? Are you abandoning a job in the city? Do you plan to live
in a tent? Is there a house there on the land?
LAST THERE IS GUERILLA
GARDENING.
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