We heal nature as we learn to produce the things humans need in cooperation with nature’s carbon cycle.
The goal of our green house project is to be able to produce protein and fresh vegetables year round. If we are eating on a budget or living in a food desert it is the protein and fresh vegetables that are missing from our diet. Starches are cheap but they do not provide the nutrition necessary for thriving.
A system of production that produces everything that it needs to operate has no cost.
A system that uses everything it produces has no waste.
Unheated greenhouse and Chicken Coop
In this diagram the greenhouse structure is sized to fit a 275 gallon IBC tank that will provide sufficient thermal mass to eliminated the need to heat the space. The front panel is 50 sq ft and covered with a double layer of greenhouse plastic.
Inside is a 4’ x 10’ wicking bed. Water is pumped from a reservoir at the base of the bed into the large tank which then over flows into the wicking bed. The water runs through the wicking bed and back to the reservoir.
The wicking bed is filled with wood chips and chicken bedding just as in our deep mulch gardens. The chicken coop shown in the diagram is sufficient for 6 - 16 chickens depending on the outdoor run space available.
It is also possible to raise fish in the large tank. The flow of water through the wicking bed will remove nitrates from the fish waste and the returning water will be clean.
With this set up we can produce protein and fresh vegetables year round.
Operating without cost and without waste is the essence of sustainability. It is the way nature builds systems and why natural systems are sustainable. Even more exciting is the fact that a system operating without cost and without waste can increase its contained resources with each cycle of production. We call these systems "integrated closed loop production systems".
There are organisms that could be participating in our production systems but are not. They are not participating because of some limiting factor. It may be too cold, or too dry, or too many predators. When we intentionally adjust these limitations we take on the role of keystone species.
What we have been able to accomplish to date is just scratching the surface.
Read more about integrated closed loop production systems
Agents of Habitat: Conducive to Life