Urban areas have strict building codes that often make it difficult and costly to build with natural materials. Good rural land is expensive and hard to come by. So where can you live? Pinyon-juniper scrub land is very abundant, cheap and worth considering.
Landscaping
Transition Forest Gardens
Deforestation is actively destroying about 13 million hectares (32 million acres) of forest every year. The biggest, most valuable trees are logged for timber. Often the smaller, less valuable trees are left remaining… for a while. Then farmers come along and clear the land for field crops such as soybeans, corn and cassava, because the remaining scrub forest doesn’t have much commercial value. But what if the deforestation process stopped after the large trees were cut? You could use the smaller remaining trees to help regrow a forest more valuable than timber – a food forest that continually produces abundant food indefinitely for generations to come without need for cultivation, chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides.
How to Grow a Forest Really, Really Fast
“A forest planted by humans, then left to nature’s own devices, typically takes at least 100 years to mature. But what if we could make the process happen ten times faster? In this short talk, eco-entrepreneur (and TED Fellow) Shubhendu Sharma explains how to create a mini-forest ecosystem anywhere.”
Back to Eden: Best Gardening System?
“This is the complete 6-1-2014 tour of Paul Gautschi’s Back to Eden garden on one video. This is four hours of Paul talking about why he gardens the way he does and answering questions from people on his tour. If you have more questions about this heavy mulch system, please visit the Back to Eden FAQ section of my website”: L2survive.com
Best Ways to Grow Potatoes
Growing potatoes in sand/sawdust mix:
“Amazing Sweet Potato Harvest: 139 lbs. from 3 potatoes
I planted them in April in sand and sawdust and fed them with the Mittleider weekly feed mineral fertilizer. I really didn’t do much more than that but the sweet potato harvest was amazing! Sweet potatoes are highly nutritious and store well when cured properly. This is a great preparedness food.”
Urban Agriculture in Atlanta
“A video survey of urban agriculture and community gardening in Atlanta. This story was featured on “This is Atlanta with Alicia Steele,” a Telly Award-winning and Emmy-nominated magazine show on PBA, Atlanta’s PBS Station. View more from “This is Atlanta” at http://www.pba.org/atlanta.”