[Commanding_Heights]

Has anyone done a study on how personal gardens would impact peak oil? If everyone started trying to raise some (not all) of their food what would be the effect on depletion? Instead of a Victory Garden a Peak Oil Garden. We could have Gertrude the gardener instead of Rosie the riveter. The government could put out an organic gardening guide kind of like the energy star guide.

If there is a study please provide me with a link because I haven't found one.

I know that Jevons paradox would creep in here somewhere and farm lobby wouldn't let it happen. I'm just wondering what the saving would/could be.

[Commanding_Heights]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gideon', 'Y')ou know, it's the damndest thing.
I just happen to have finished a broad scale study on just this topic.
I've submitted my results for publication, but they're not ready yet.
I will, however, post a link to the results section.
Please keep in mind that the results shown are with a 99.9% confidence interval.
My thesis question was - "How much difference would it make if everybody had a garden?"
ResultsofEverybodyHasaGardenStudy

[Loki]

As for your garden question, we've had many many conversations about gardening here, including victory gardens and urban gardening. Check out the Planning Forum. And forget about the Jevons Paradox. It's an unfalsifiable hypothesis that some people here erroneously take as the gospel truth (mostly to rationalize their lack of conservation). Plus it has nothing to do with gardening.

[Commanding_Heights]

I don't believe I mentioned a single thing about stopping peak oil or global warming. Take a look at the last paragraph of my first post. I just asked what the savings would/could be. Your mistake.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')oki wrote:"It's an unfalsifiable hypothesis that some people here erroneously take as the gospel truth (mostly to rationalize their lack of conservation). Plus it has nothing to do with gardening."

[Commanding_Heights]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Commanding_Heights', 'I') know that Jevons paradox would creep in here somewhere and farm lobby wouldn't let it happen.

[thuja]

OK after the idiots have left the building- planting Victory Gardens, or PO gardens can have a substantial effect for the community you live in. When the Soviet Union fell, many folks had a small plot of land outside the city that they could grow gardens on and support themselves when they couldn't make ends meet.

We will witness the same thing once the price of food escalates rapidly. People will look to their backyard and community garden for supplements. As cost escalates, people will raise more chickens for meat and eggs. Semi-rural spots will see the return of the backyard goat for cheese and milk. People will start doing this not out of some plan to stop oil depletion, they will do it out of economic necessity.

Yes Jevon's Paradox does apply and yes oil will deplete just as rapidly. But communities that initiate a local foods movement will be able to weather the massive crisis better than those without the ability to raise much in the way of local crops (read: Arid SouthWest).

[billp]

Senior citizen is in process of rototilling his Albuquerque garden with more than 30 year old chain drive front tine rototiller bought in Pullman, WA in about 1976 for $99.
Senior citizen bought about $25 of onions and some gold yukon potatoes.
Senior citizen poured about a gallon of gas into 'tiller.
Senior citizen believes that energy gotten out of fun garden is substantially less that energy invested. EROEI.
But gardening is fun. And great exercise trying to horse heavy 'tiller around garden.

True story is that senior citizen is so busy with essential non-gas-wasting travel during the summer that he didn't harvest all of garden in 2006! 'tilling up old onions and potatoes in April 2007.

One more item of interest.
Senior citizen tried Kentuck Wonder pole beans.
A disaster. They all came ripe at one time. Then grew horribly large. And about collapsed the trellis.
Blue Lake bush beans work lots better.
They rippen at different times.

I am amazed at Peal Oil and the Oil Drum that apparently most, if nearly not all, readers did learn in high school, college or graduate school, or understand.

HEAT OUT = HEAT IN.
A fundamental principle of thermodynamics.
Regards from senior citizen
Who is into computing stuff, not energy stuff. But sure finds Peak Oil and Oil Drum articles interesting!
Including microcontrollers.

[IanC]

Germaine to this topic is more complete urban gardening. What given that many urban people don't have back yards, could we think creatively to expand cultivatable square footage in the city? How about planting fruit trees along the streets? There are some nice big grassy buffers between neighborhood streets and the sidewalks where I live. Could these be made into gardens? Probably root vegetables like potatoes, onions, and turnips would be best as they would be less likely to be easily stolen by passers-by. This would be a good way to connect with neighbors and expand the available calories for all involved. Fun.

-Ian C. (drumming fingers, waiting for Doomers to pile-on).

[billp]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')an C. (drumming fingers, waiting for Doomers to pile-on).

[mommy22]

I also think that it would be really interesting to see a study. I was with a group of people talking about gardening, and someone said that there should be an energy credit of some kind for anyone who gardens and produces a certain percentage of their food. Last summer, I actually kept track of how much my garden was worth by giving an amount that the same produce would cost in the grocery store. It came out to about $450. And I have a pretty small garden when compared to a lot of the gardening posters here.

[billp]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')ast summer, I actually kept track of how much my garden was worth by giving an amount that the same produce would cost in the grocery store. It came out to about $450. And I have a pretty small garden when compared to a lot of the gardening posters here.

[Laughs_Last]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('billp', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mommy22', 'L')ast summer, I actually kept track of how much my garden was worth by giving an amount that the same produce would cost in the grocery store. It came out to about $450. And I have a pretty small garden when compared to a lot of the gardening posters here.

[billp]

I weeded a bit.

Not much time spent on gardening.

Hey, we were off on to other non-gas-wasting senior citizen pursuits!

[billp]

Senior citizen spent some time weeding.

Then came essential senior citizen travel.

Senior citizen beleives that garden is a negative EROEI.

But fun.

Is coal a negative EROEI?

[thuja]

So gardening is a net energy loser--- I have to laugh- using fossil fuels of course...but organically gardening using compost and permaculture techniques? I'd have to heartily say "no."

When you plant an apple tree as a sapling- you just...watch it grow- maybe a bit of watering and pruning as the years go by. And then suddenly a few years down the road- an abundance of calorific apples- that you pick with your hands and eat. Net energy loser- I think not...

[careinke]

I might buy an EROEI of less than one on the initial setup of your garden. But once established, using a combination of organic, bio-intensive and permaculture methods there is no way that your EROEI is less than one. If it were, mankind would not exist.

If you are peak oil aware, and not trying to grow at least some of your own food, I would say you are just suicidal. Learning and practicing growing your own food now (prior to collapse) offers so many advantages it silly not to do it.

1. It gives you the opportunity to fail at a time when it won't kill you.

2. It lets you establish your garden now when it is a LOT easier to do prior to the peak.

3. It gives you a post peak skill that will make you more valuable to your community.

4. The food you grow tastes better than what you can buy in the store.

5. The food you grow is safer to eat than what you buy in the store.

6. It will free up some of your money to spend on other peak oil preparations.

7. It enhances the environment rather than degrading the environment.

8. It's a great form of psychotherapy.

9. It gets you into a proactive rather than reactive mode.

10. It's Fun.


If all your work in the garden used manual labor, you could get a rough estimate of the EROEI by doing the following. Multiply the number of hours you work in the garden by 100. This will give you the number of calories used in producing the food (Your Energy Invested).

Weigh the food coming out of the garden, convert it to grams and multiply that number by four. This will give you the amount of calories you produced (Energy Returned)

divide the Energy Invested into the Energy Returned. This will give you your EROEI. If it is larger than one you are ahead of the game. If it is greater than .1 you are doing better than what you would get5 by buying the food in the store.

OK I know that is an oversimplification but it is close enough.

Cliff (Start a revolution, Grow a garden)

[SILENTTODD]

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[SILENTTODD]

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[Commanding_Heights]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gideon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')umans can instantly be motivated to stop an irrational or dangerous behaviour if they understand that it's going to hurt them personally. You proved that point with your neighbor story. His greed made him conserve.

[Commanding_Heights]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('billp', 'S')enior citizen spent some time weeding.

Then came essential senior citizen travel.

Senior citizen beleives that garden is a negative EROEI.

But fun.

Is coal a negative EROEI?