closed circuit food production

[skippy]

Right, this was developed by a long term inmate at Edinburgh Sauchten prison for use in developing counties.
Basically its a very low input smallholding system.
You need a small plot of ground. The size of the system depends on how much space you can get.

So first of all you have to dig a small fish pond. (again the size has to do with how much ground you have) Line the fish pond and make it deep! Then use the soil from the dug out pond to mix in with the poor soil on your plot to make a farmable area. Build a secure fence with posts, rails and chicken wire around your plot. Next with the left over bits of wood and wire build a chicken house with a slatted floor that sits out over a part of the pond. The chickens will also have free range on your plot of ground.

So thats the construction over with. Now the farming.
Plant Barley on the plot of ground. when the barley ripens you use some of it to feed the chickens over winter, some of it to make "Bare" bread and some of it as seed for next year.
The chickens feed through your crops keeping down pests and incidentally fertilizing the ground. You gets eggs and chicken from the chickens. The overhanging chicken coop drops some poo into the water where it is eaten by carp (I cant remember the exact species) which also get some vegetation from the weeds in the field to eat. you get fish from the fish and their poo which gathers in the bottom of the pond is spread on the fields in the winter ready for the next years barley. the chickens also get fed any bits of left over fish.
So in total you get:
Milling Barley to eat
Chicken feed
Seed barley
Chickens to eat
Eggs to eat
Chicken poo Fertilizer
New chickens
Weed and pest control
Fish to eat
Fish meal fertilizer
Fish remains chicken feed

So there is a very low input system which does require some work to set up and maintain but if sized right will sustain a family with IIRC 10% of traditional farming inputs of seed, fertiliser, breeding stock etc etc

food for thought

Skippy

[TeeDee]

Thats really good Skippy , I'd be interested in a link if you have your hands on one ( easily ) please.

[skippy]

I have been trying to find a link but cant.
However lots of links on carp and talapia farming which are the two fish for temperate or tropical systems.
http://www.thefishsite.com/articles/595 ... ommon-carp
http://www.fishfarming.com/tilapia.html

[diamond lil]

I only wish I had some muscle available to do even some of that

[Brambles]

Lil, you read my mind.....

[Big fat bill]

I only wish I had some muscle available to do even some of that

The thing is if it needed to be done post fall it would get done either by you, your loved ones or by friends who you can barter food for labour.

you might be able to start off with some in a fish tank of say 1.2m x 0.6 x 0.75. or 4ft x 2ft x 2.5 ft.That gives youa surface area of 10 sq ft.

Dig a bit each day and it will soon be done.

[Triple_sod]

Interesting stuff, reminded me of something in John Seymour’s complete guide to self sufficiency;

Strangely enough in the sixteenth century the matter was
far better understood - even in England. At that time a writer
called John Taverner wrote that you should make large
shallow ponds, four feet deep and more, and keep them dry
one year and full of water the next. When dry graze them with
cattle, and when wet fill them with carp. The ponds grow lush
grass because of the sediments left by the water, and the carp
benefit from the fertility left by the cattle. This is the true
organic approach to husbandry. You should have at least two
ponds so that there is always one full of fish and one dry.
Drain the wet pond dry in late autumn, and take the best fish
out then to putin your stewpond near the house, where they
are ready for eating. Put a lot of young fish in your newly flooded
big pond.

[Rosesandtea]

This is not exactly the same thing but the idea is the same, I guess:

aquaponics/vermaculture/aquaculture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV9CCxdk ... re=related

This is the first part of a 3-part series which gives a bit more detail on the above if I haven't gotten things muddled up!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k39D2myz ... re=related

[diamond lil]

How do you flood a pond and keep the water in it ? Would it not drain away and leave a soggy boggy bit ground? I love this idea but could never ever do it. Nobody to do the work plus I live on a hillside and have very light fast-draining soil. But I love history - they always had a simple no-fuss way of doing things that worked.

[skippy]

How do you flood a pond and keep the water in it ? .

loads of ways to make ponds .. the oldest and usually still the most successful is to use puddled clay (clay thats has been walked over a lot)to form an impermiable base, more modern pond liners or right up to date an IBC tank with the top cut off. But if you mean how do you flood then drain a pond then a sluice will do this nicely. I have two ponds on the farm .. 1 natural and 1 man made. The natural spring fed one is great and holds water all year and the 1900s mill pond empties each summer because it leaks ....go figure.
skips