Sustainability is sexy.

You've already seen duckweed, I know that.
It's ubiquitous and literally a pest in some areas.
Also known as "water lentils", they can cover ponds in just a matter of days. They are also one of the fastest growing and replicating plants ever.

Why is that relevant you may ask?

Well, Wolffia sp. could be the most nutrient packed superfood you'll ever eat.

I found a study where scientists analyzed the nutritional value of it, and holy fuck!
Not only is it a extremely good source of protein (up to 40% dry weight), but also contains omega 3 fatty acids in a very favourable ratio. And a lot of minerals, like iron and calcium. Especially for vegans too this might be perfect.

This sounds very similar to algae, right? Right!

But there are a few benefits compared to Spirulina and those like:

• It can grow literally EVERYWHERE. It's a weed, just like the name implies. You don't need any fancy glass tubes, pumps and whatever shit you need for algae farming, no. Just a puddle and optional trace elements. It's also not a "fancy algae strain" you have to order somewhere, you can just go to a local pond, scoop a hand full out of it, and then place it on your balcony or whatever and it will spread by itself.
• It doesn't need (even tolerate) lots of light. Algae are known for their high light requirements, sometimes even needing artificial lights, but this one grows in ponds on the forest floor and will not be happy if you leave it unshaded.
• It will come back after each winter
• AND: It's a viable plant source of vitamin B12!

It's almost impossible to find natural vegan B12 sources, because neither plants, nor animals or fungi, but bacteria, produce it.

Those duckweeds are known to live in symbiosis with those bacteria, and the B12 is then stored inside the plants, not the bacteria! So if you wash it, it still has the same nutritional content.

Also, similar to legumes, they can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere, which is why you can find them everywhere.

I still have to back the claims up by real sources, because right now, most of that stuff is just "I read it somewhere on the internet", but here on Medium is another article about that.

This post is mainly there to spread the information that it exists in the first place, so maybe some facts are not entirely true, idk.

What will I do now?

I will try to find it outside and then try to grow it on my balcony to see how well it performs and tastes.

I can feed it with my depleted hydroponic nutrient solution that would land in the drain anyway, but still contains a lot of trace minerals and stuff.

And hey, even if it tastes like shit, which I doubt, because it's claimed to be taste neutral, I can turn it into an organic fertilizer :)

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/18068633

I had a really bad slug infestation on my balcony garden last year.

Because they were eating on everything, and were in the thousands almost, I had to resort to "poison" bait.
Not one of the toxic ones, because I have cats, but ones based on Iron phosphate.

Still, it resulted in another pest: all those slimy slugs crawled under the floor cover and died there. Disgusting. Everything was full of flies and stank. But mainly, it was mentally horrifying.

This year, I want to do it differently. Instead of killing them, I want prevention.

I already looked up online, but all "natural predators" are bigger ones, like ducks and toads, but of course that isn't viable on my small balcony.

So, I thought about already killing them in the egg stage.

What natural killers, like nematodes or bugs, do they have in this life stage?
What can I do to attract them?
How is that regulared by natural balance?

Anyway, I got outside and dug up some soil samples from different locations and spreaded them in the pots, hoping that there are some eggs or critters in there that are currently hibernating and then improve the natural balance in the summer.

It was only one hand full of dirt per big pot, but that should be enough I believe. It's only the catalyst/ starter culture after all.

Btw, I'm currently building up the soil for the following season.
Last year has been absolutely great with organic living soil, and I want to improve on that.

The new soil, consisting of spent mushroom blocks, some soil, leaf matter, and more:

And the old one from a few months ago, when I harvested my hemp tree:

I plan to reuse it of course! No-till, a shit ton of organic matter, very well aerated with deep roots from the decaying plant that was previously in there. Extremely healthy dirt 🤌👌

Crosspost

Our farmers are are going to come into greater need of help in the future. I signed up end of winter got and interview and I start planting onions February 17th I'm super excited to help people eat. I've climbed the Albuquerque food network from JBBC to Mogro to Vida Verde Farm and even to Three Sisters Kitchen and met nothing but beautiful kind people. In my solarpunk revolution everyone eats and they eat well. FTP 🐇👨‍🌾🧅🥔🌄

We started a discussion in a Signal group, but wanted to move it here for more involvement. The proposal on the table is to use own source hardware and software to hack together an autonomous weeding machine, maybe using AI to recognize weeds versus crop plants.

Instead of chemicals, an army of ants may march right in. Though most people view the small insects as little more than a nuisance, colonies of them are being deployed in orchards across a handful of countries to stave off the spread of crippling infestation and disease.

In a body of recently published and forthcoming research, Jensen examined the antimicrobial effects of wood ants, a European field ant known for building dome-shaped nests in fields and open woodlands, and weaver ants, which live in ball-shaped nests within tropical tree canopies across Asia, Africa, and Australia.

Past studies have found that for crops from cocoa to citrus, ants could replace insecticides in a multitude of climates and locations, reducing incidences of pear scab in pear trees, coffee leaf rust in coffee shrubs, and leaf fungal attacks in oak seedlings. Weaver ant nests used as an alternative pesticide in mango, cashew, and citrus trees have all been shown to lower pest damage and produce yields on par with several chemical pesticide treatments. For more than a millennia, the species was embraced as a natural insecticide in countries like China but never quite made its way into the agricultural mainstream in North America or Europe.

Urban farming is often heralded as a practical solution to food deserts, providing fresh produce to communities where unjust urban planning and policy have limited access to nutritious options. But urban farms can also sow seeds that grow far beyond the garden beds.

In Baltimore’s Curtis Bay neighborhood, Filbert Street Garden is showing the power of community-led transformation. Once an overgrown lot, it has evolved into a vibrant community hub, thanks to the dedication of Black farmers like Brittany Coverdale, whose passion for racial and environmental justice led her to the garden coordinator role at Filbert Street Garden.

Its that time of year when banana man brings da presents.

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🌕🌕🌕🌘🌑🌑🌑🌓🌕
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🌕🌕🌗🌑🌑👄🌑🌔🌕
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🌕🌕🌘🌑🎁🌑🌒🌕🌕
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🌕👠🌕🌕🌕👠🌕🌕🌕

Apple banana coming in. I've had this patch planted maybe five years. It's becoming a bit of a problem and I'm gonna have to move it because it's taking over and crowding out some native plants but I thought garden and farm nerds might want to see how non industrial bananas are grown.

You startem out as keiki:

which grow at the base of a large corm, or pseudo bulb. I usually dig them out with a shovel and then throw them in a pot like this for to transplant. I fertilize with an organic heavy phosphorus mix just to get them going.

[note: this picture isn't apple banana, but Tahitian blue banana.]

At that point, with enough water and any where from 30-100% sunlight, they establish themselves. It takes almost 18 months from keiki to mature fruiting plant, and usually your first bananas are so so in quality. However, the new keiki will be coming up (about 12 months after planting), and if you irrigate or have enough rainfall, once established, you press up up down down LRLR start select, and that unlocks the infinite banana cheat code. Bananas, once established, are insanely productive, and you can manage the sugar to fiber ratio by how early you harvest. Boiled banana a favorite at our house and we do that with very immature bananas.

When a banana plant is ready to give it starts to lean. Bananas are all effectively nodal clones from the base of the corm, and can be pretty destructive. We had some come down on a fence and with the stem, which is basically all water, and the bananas, it's at least a couple kg suspended pretty high in the air. You can also tell they ripe when they yellow up and start to fan out like a open palm 🫴. The longer you wait the better the flavor is, but also more likely to fall uncontrollably. Depending on the variety can do real damage to cars or whatever underneath.

Most of thes going to go to a food bank and we grow enough fruit to keep an ice box pretty much full all year. Anything extra goes to an auntie who that's her thang and she'll make sure they get to the right people.

More pix first. Then explanation.

So this is going on the fifth year I'll be farming Vanilla. My operation is microscopic but it's a work in progress. I've got maybe 300 vines all in. I got some Vanilla off this planting 2 years ago, and this was the first vines I planted. Which is some what typical for Vanilla. Usually 3-5 years before they really become productive.

I fertilized these back in May/ April. It's a tiny yield but next year I expect to have maybe 5-20x this amount, which means if I can sell some of it, I'll finally be able to cover some of my costs.

Right now I have about five varieties. All from either trade or from hiking to old plantations and looking for feral populations. This one is a variety of Tahitiensis and I made a vanilla bean whip cream a few months ago with it. It's a very distinctly 'bourbon' flavor. Like i ground it up in a mortar and pessle and it straight up smelled like whiskey.

So not close to enough to sell (again) this year. But next year and the following years, maybe this hobby will finally start paying itself off.

A data driven assessment of the role of verticle farming in feeding the world.

“The economics of producing leafy greens and lettuce in vertical farms can work, if electricity prices are low”

Researchers have increasingly recognized how essential fungi are to sequestering carbon in the soil and some have come to appreciate the outsized role they play in supporting crop health, mitigating climate change, and even sheltering crops from disease. As fungi's vast benefits come to light, more farmers are tapping into this vital network, learning how to work with beneficial fungi to encourage its growth in the soil, swapping tilling for microscopes.

Mycorrhizal fungi, which encompass thousands of species, can form large, underground networks, connected by branching filaments called hyphae, threading through the soil in every direction. One type of this fungi, known as arbuscular mycorrhizal, attaches directly to the cell membranes of a plant's root, facilitating a smooth delivery. Other microbes in the soil, like protozoa and nematodes, participate in this cycling, too, digesting fungi and bacteria to release their nutrients in a more available form to plants.

TLDR Biological soil amendments can be quite elusive in terms of results. Be wary and investigate the actual need the product is fulfilling and whether or not it's claimed mechanism is reasonable and effective.

Invidious link

Did you know that the Aztecs created floating gardens called chinampas because they lived on an island in the middle of a lake? The Aztec capital city, Tenochtitlan, had a large population, so to help feed the people in it, the Aztecs used these island gardens to cultivate crops. This form of gardening was important for helping to sustain the Aztec Empire. The Aztecs built canals between the chinampas to navigate between them.