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Friday, December 24, 2010

The New Horticulture

How do you like my polytunnel? At the risk of giving Howie our CBM the excuse to raid the house I wish to discuss latest methods of growing food. That's food Howie not Ganga. Over the past month or two I have been researching hydroponics, aeroponics, growing small apple, plum, apricot and pear trees.

Not many people know you can grow a pear tree on a hawthorn bush or have ten different apple varieties on the same tree. Different fruit trees can be put together for as little a £4 a go and if you can find people (scion4fruitUK) to swap fruit tree material with you can do it for nothing. All you need is a small section of a branch (scion) and a suitable root stock for £2 and you can get fruit in three years.
If you can clone rootstock its all free except for a few postage stamps
There are over 3000 varieties of apple in the UK alone. Varieties that taste good, store well, crop early, crop late.

As for drugs. Each week we have media reports that various drug operations have been busted with loads of back slapping thrown in. I think a complete waste of police time even Former Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom thought this.  They are not even scratching the surface. A quick look through Ebay under the heading "hydroponics" shows the full extent of what is a multi million pound growing industry. It's now possible to grow drugs in a busted fridge the technology has got that good.

Here's a good site that shows how things are progressing  OODU
It's ironic that the illegal growing of drugs is also the way forward for year round fresh fruit and vegetables with very low energy requirements. The technology is being pushed forward by NASA for when we head to the planets.

I am currently working on my Genesis project which is about growing food aeroponically insulated with Kingspan. You can go an awful long way with a plastic storage box, 12 volt LED's, aquarium air pumps and air stones and water pumps. Or you can pay a £1000 for a proper one.

Links
Wikipedia Hydroponics
http://www.gb-online.co.uk/livecart/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRnBzn_ytQ4
Kuffelcreek
Welsh Apples
Different Systems

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