Adventures in Experimental Horticulture

Following on from my last piece about how far we may go in space, one thing that is key for any long term space mission is being able to grow your own food ‘in situ’ as to ship in food in any serious quantities would be cost prohibitive. In a more holistic sense what will be pivotal for any long term space exploration is what is called ‘bioregenerative life support’; essentially taking an ecosystem with you so that you are able to recycle your air, water and waste whilst producing required food in a closed loop system.

Some fascinating research is going on into real world applications of such technology and may one day provide the basis for humanity to live in locations across our solar system. Whilst this is of course all very interesting it is rather esoteric. However, It does bring to mind some rather more pressing, down to earth issues, namely that the systems our civilisation has built for the provision of our daily bread are somewhat odds with maintaining our planet’s bioregenerative life support system.

What this means in practical terms of course is not that all over the world plants will stop growing all of a sudden but that land degradation from unsustainable agricultural practices combined with increasingly extreme weather caused by rapid anthropogenic climate change will greatly reduce yields of key crops in the world’s breadbaskets. Add on top of that just in time supply chains and foreseeable economic turmoil and you have great potential for disruption to food supplies.

Whilst one answer to this may be to apply the techniques we are perfecting for those space faring settlements to create self-contained mini ecosystems in greenhouses this is not something that most people have the resources for or that is likely to be something that could be scaled up to provide large numbers of people with food.

Large scale agriculture, depending on certain cash crops in a few key regions for the majority of global calories is incredibly vulnerable to disruption and decentralising and diversifying food systems is the most straightforward way to achieve this. A range of techniques with great potential have been put forward to improve on industrial agriculture such as agroecological farming methods, permaculture and wider organic farming. Another piece in this puzzle is promoting small scale, local food production of the backyard ‘Dig for Victory’ vegetable gardening we saw during the Second World War. Needless to say such gardens also helped keep starvation at bay during the collapse of the USSR.

Unless you have at least ¼ of an acre it is sadly not really feasible to grow most of your own food year round, even in the tropics, but you can grow decent amounts of healthy food even with relatively limited space. With all this in mind over the past few years I have been experimenting with all sorts of different horticultural methods to see what is most effective in terms of sustainability, cost, yield and labour requirements.

I have tried growing a range of different crops using a variety of methods such as double digging and ‘no-dig’ beds, using raised beds and traditional garden beds, single crops and polycultures, using artificial fertiliser and making my own compost and fertiliser.

I have also tried a range of slightly more unconventional farming activities; I have reared quail for their eggs, kept fish, grown mushrooms and tried my hand at both hydroponics and aquaponics, I have even grown spirulina algae to assess the premise and whether it might be a useful and/or feasible system for home production.

From all of this experimentation, alongside study, I have come to some very useful conclusions, as well as having one heck of a lot of fun! So without further ado, let me have saved you some experimenting and provide some findings to make your life easier;

What may be best to avoid

•  Most grain crops are not feasible/not worth the effort for backyard horticulture
  
  
•  Unless you have dedicated space and resources livestock of any kind will yield insufficient return to be worth the investment and time required.
  
  
• Fruit crops are a pleasant distraction but do not provide serious food production, if treated as a supplemental extra, put in corners in place of ornamental shrubs though, combined with some wild foraging are an excellent resource for some lovely home made desserts and wines.
  
  
• Various esoteric activities like growing algae, growing mushrooms, aquaculture, aquaponics or hydroponics or growing plants under LEDs are all worthy hobbies but do not produce serious amounts of food and/or value if wanting  to ever sell anything - with the exceptions of rearing poultry for meat/eggs or carp for meat, IF you pretty much have a small holding.
  
  
•  Many typical allotment annual crops are well worth the effort for domestic production but a number of them are often too temperamental or low yielding to be worth the effort in most instances; namely a lot of root crops such as carrots, parsnips, swede and delicate bulbs or edible flowers like onions or  broccoli & cauliflower.
  
  
• Some perennials such as globe artichokes or asparagus are also too low yielding to provide a great deal of physical produce or sustenance.  All fine in their context of course but large scale production is best for a lot of these, beyond them being edible ornamentals.
  

• Full polyculture mixes such as food forests are lovely, but they take several years to establish and the yields are relatively low unless you have a lot of space for specific purposes such as nut tree farming, not the most efficient set up  for small scale horticulture.

 

What is most likely to be worth your time

• Making your own compost and fertiliser is easy to do and cheap, well worth it, though will need to be supplementary to soil already present or compost you purchase to fill raised beds or pots.
  
  
• Raised beds or pots are very efficient especially if you are limited on space and can lead to less weeding; I have found no-dig raised beds to be both the easiest and most productive method, with a fresh layer of compost /mulch every season, If you can combine this with a polytunnel, all the better!

• Greenhouses/polytunnels are excellent if you can access them as a resource, polytunnels in particular are great for covering a large area affordably. 
  

• For the humble backyard gardener, coldframes and row covers also offer wonderful smaller scale solutions. The trusty window sill is of course also perfectly fine for sprouting seedlings! 
  
  
• If you are fortunate enough to have decent sized windows, you can also get some indoor beans going for example, or a fine mini-herb garden even in the smallest window. In this context I would advise LED grow lights as a sound investment if you want a year round herb garden, though not scalable for any large scale food production, for some nice chives in January they are well worth it!
  
  
• Covered growing set ups such as polytunnels are particularly relevant in the context of climate change as they provide you with a nice stable growing environment and not only extend the growing season, but also provide you with a stable growing environment. Particularly useful if the rapidly changing climate decides that regular seasons are no longer a thing!
  
  
•  For me personally, leaving the area surrounding your plots semi-wild and/or with perennial fruit bushes and the like for maximum ecological diversity is also to be recommended. A pond, however small, is also invaluable. This draws in birds to come to drink, and handily eat some plant eating insects whilst they are at it. Abundant foliage and a good range of flowers of course also encourage and helps preserve our invaluable pollinators.