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Message Subject How I grow food year-round despite harsh winters
Poster Handle Anonymous Coward
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Sure, I'll alter my tone....

-10/-15F you say, but rather doubtful you get that on a 24/7 basis for months or weeks on end. Correct?

Kind of clueless is my observation about what a "harsh" Winter is.
 Quoting: Lester 35595779

Thanks for agreeing to be civil instead of caustic and attacking.

Yes, it is correct that our typical winters don't have -10F/-15F for months on end. This past winter it dipped down there on three separate occasions for about 7-10 days each time.

Winters are indeed harsh here. Just because they're more harsh farther north doesn't mean they're not harsh here. For the context of this thread, 'harsh' should be taken to mean that food cannot be grown outdoors.

why not raise better quality fish?
 Quoting: Lester 35595779

First of all, you're making a bad assumption that I don't grow other types of fish.

As for why I grow blue tilapia, I've already explained that. But to go into a bit more specific detail: I chose to grow a fast-growing vegetarian fish so that I could create a constant source of clean white meat for my father, who suffers from Type 2 diabetes. Since my fish are vegetarian, I can easily grow their food on-site year-round.

What you write about here is useless to anyone in the Intermountain West, Canada, or further North. Might be useful in BC if on the Pacific side of the mountains; but nowehere that actually has a "harsh" Winter. Clueless.
 Quoting: Lester 35595779

Oh, I get it. You weren't really agreeing to be civil, you were just trying to be sarcastic.

Saying that my thread is useless to those folks doesn't really seem relevant, since I clearly said that I hoped SOME folks could find it useful, not that EVERYONE EVERYWHERE would be able to exactly copy my Kansas systems with success. You're just attacking a straw man that you yourself erected.

Furthermore, it's really inaccurate to think that it's "useless to anyone in the Intermountain West, Canada, or further North," since this type of system can be relatively easily adapted to achieve success in such locales. One of the easiest ways would be to further incorporate the concept of solar furnaces. I could make it hot enough to boil water in a greenhouse in Canada--EASILY--it just requires bouncing enough extra light into the system from inexpensive external reflectors. That was half of the trick of how I kept my initial high tunnel aquaponics system in the 50's during its first winter: I built large external reflectors (8' x 25')for very little cost that simply bounced in as much extra light/energy as I wanted (about 50% more light/energy than would have otherwise entered the system). It was warm and the plants loved the extra light.

So to edit my current design and tailor it to being a kickass Canadian greenhouse, I would start with these two things:

1) create external reflectors to bounce a bunch of extra light/energy into the planted greenhouse system...but not enough to fry the plants;

2) build a large-scale solar furnace adjacent to the planted greenhouse to serve as a sort of boiler to supply extra heat to the greenhouse if need be. I would build a very large pool of water in the furnace (covering almost the entire floor) and insulate it extremely well, then pipe it from there over to the planted greenhouse. I could either keep the tens of thousands of gallons of water in the furnace cool enough to still support fish life (say, under 100F), or I could ramp it up to literally whatever water temp I want. Want 150F water in there? No problem, easy to do. But I'd probably keep it around 95-100F on a full charge so that I could still raise tilapia in there (mine have survived up to 106F). Overall a pretty easy project for a good engineer, but I certainly understand how daunting and impossible it can sound to someone who doesn't have experience with these types of design elements.

There is no "geothermal" effect from ground soil.
 Quoting: Lester 35595779

I've only been talking about the geothermal effect gained from a pit that is dug down into the earth and covered with a greenhouse, not ground-level soil.

Not like anyone living in a "harsh climate" could use your plan.
 Quoting: Lester 35595779

So what? Even if it were true (which it isn't), it's irrelevant and not a sound basis to attack me.

And it's not a plan. I'm sharing what I do to grow food year-round in Kansas despite our harsh winters here. I'm extremely clear and straightforward about that. Intelligent people can then, if they wish, take whatever elements they want from it and incorporate it into their own designs that are tailored to where they live.

Are you going to keep attacking and insulting me like I'm some sort of low-brow enemy, or can we be cool now?
 
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