Long term self sustaining food and water plans?

[lasinvegas]

A small greenhouse with an aquaculture set up would be the way to go in the mtns in my opinion. My experience with aquaculture has shown a huge growth jump over plants grown in other manners. Your fertilizer is self replacing and you get the added benefit of meat.

As far as growing grains go, i'm not sure you could grow enough to make a loaf of bread reliably. I could be wrong, but it might be worth a try from someone already living in the mtns to see what they come up with. Be worth knowing before you actually had to grow them.

As far as livestock, I am a big fan of goats. They can feed and thrive in areas that a lot of other livestock would never thrive in. Plus you can get milk and make cheese from them. I am a big fan of ducks over chickens for eggs. We have ducks now and have averaged over 300 eggs each a year from our girls.

[Irving]

When you say "aquaculture" are you referring to having a tank with fish in it, with plants growing on top of the water? I recently heard something about this on NPR. I guess the fish poop fertilizes the plants. Supposedly, getting the balance just right is kind of a big deal. There must be more to this though, because I know that all the fish I have would eat any plant I tried to grow.

[lasinvegas]

There are several ways to do the aquaculture thing as well as several different fish and crayfish you can grow.

Basic system description-

Tank for the fish and a tank for the growing medium and plants. That is all there is to it. You pump the water from the fish tank into the second tank which is usually mounted higher than the fish tank. Once the water reaches a set height in the plant tank it will activate the siphon and drain back to the bottom tank. This allows the roots to get flooded with the nutrient rich water from the fish tank as well as filter the water for the fish. You can also grow things like lettuce in rafts on top of the fish tank. The rafts are nothing more than styrofoam with holes for the lettuce roots that float on top of the water and you harvest as needed.

It gets a lot more technical than this, but I didn't want to get too into it. I guess I could start a thread on it if there was enough interest.

[Irving]

That's a great explanation, thanks. That really is a pretty viable source of both meat and veggies. I wonder what kind of numbers you could pull though. Lets say that you have a fish tank the size of an above ground pool, and a veggie tank of equal size. Is that going to be able to get you enough food to feed a family for a year and remain sustainable, or will it be more for having an excellent supplement for your other stores?

[J Tactical Firearms]

There are several ways to do the aquaculture thing as well as several different fish and crayfish you can grow.

It gets a lot more technical than this, but I didn't want to get too into it. I guess I could start a thread on it if there was enough interest.

I saw a video on this once and was thinking this was the best idea. I would be interested in reading more info on the subject. If its sustainable long term then it could be a good hobby to learn if you ever need to provide meat and veggies for yourself.

[J Tactical Firearms]

Only if you have the power to pump it out of the ground!

Good observation. Good thing I was thinking about long term solar. Since power might be a requirement you would need a solar setup that might possibly have to last forever or at least be repairable post civilization.

[Byte Stryke]

Good observation. Good thing I was thinking about long term solar. Since power might be a requirement you would need a solar setup that might possibly have to last forever or at least be repairable post civilization.

if this is to be truly off of the grid, I have a suggestion you might not like.



reality is that if your solar system fails, you die.
There are so many things from a simple circuit failure to a "Solar Disruption" Scenario that will render an electric/solar system useless.
Then there is the shelf life issue of batteries. Current draw, Motor life, etc.

a little more work, allot more reliable.