Agriculture Engineering

Gary Gauger is an organic farmer in fact correct, it is a true organic origin and is really what is Bio several levels. Organic is a word with multiple meanings, the definition of science is quite simple: if it is or was once alive, it is organic and therefore carbon. Fairly dry. Organic food, however, is another matter. Yes, he lives, but how is it really alive? If he is to be able to grown without pesticides? Can you compost? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes, you really are for a trip to the farm organically Gary ready.

A greenhouse and two hoop houses are an essential component to go to the organic farm of Gary. In a very cold day in early April, things were busy in the greenhouse on the farm. The outside temperature hovered around 35 degrees, but in Gary’s converted chicken coop baby eggplants are basking in a gentle 85 degree heat, sunlight, passive use of solar energy through windows and glass encased water generates wood stove again.

The theme here is “free” heat and a lot of time. The greenhouse effect is a cross between a seemingly simple hut recovered chicken, machinery shed and greenhouse. The glass coating on the south side of the solar system green building is a skylight redwood salvaged from a former office building in Chicago years vary raised. The windows are so old they are crimped and placed in frames at the age of Redwood gray patina too warm. The plants are in wooden boxes filled with deep “special recipe of Gary” the growth medium. Thermometers boxes on-line monitoring tropical temperatures required for heat-loving vegetables that were launched in succession in late February to life. The greenhouse effect is a masterpiece of the original form follows function. The shape is amazing, but the feature is suburb. Support for the heat from the sun through the window is a small wood stove is surrounded by water tanks made of metal from various sources. Eclectic, but effective.

The water tank can be made of roof water runoff rain water (1 / 2 inches of rain can fill a 500-liter tank!) And the law as a reservoir of hot water storage tank, and seedlings with little wood stove warms the multi rainwater. This system provides thermal mass heat on the coldest nights and warm chemical and mineral free water for plants emit. When heating the building, but also functions as the main source of heat as a machine shed year. The entries in the table only bulbs. After sowing machine shed / greenhouse is large enough to be transplanted, they are displaced in the two houses Hoop production until they are large enough, got into the fields adjacent houses will be transplanted from hoop.

The really interesting thing in these two houses is that the heart of a deep 12 to 14 cm of compost horse manure and corn screenings with plastic sheeting, which is produced cover along both sides of the tire stack, appointed in a corridor of the East. The grafted plants will be composted in large plastic containers filled with planting medium. The firm special recipe is a 50/50 mixture of horse manure from the stable on the road and projections of maize, a waste product of grain silos that is composed of flakes, pieces of cracked corn leaves and dusty debris that falls to the ground and can cause a fire cause. A larger cluster is the door and a “nuclear reactors”, the warmth of the house in the tires during the night left helps. This is the mountain of work that makes the heat plus next year compost. A stack of old sat next to the newer, the manure pile in the next year. What is interesting and important is that both components are waste products. Horse manure is the medium of choice for organic farmers. The horses are pampered pets get the best hay, grain and the horse, hand-baked biscuits. All manure herbivores own nature as hay and grain consumed relatively free of pesticides.

Gary makes sure that the compost pile works by adding water when needed and turn it regularly, which ensures that the battery is “hot.” Thus the heat required for the tire stores and increases the temperature in the pile (160 degrees or more) is enough to kill weed seeds and pathogens. If you’re wondering whether this is enough fertilizer needed to grow the seedlings, it is. The tomato plants in the house Hoop mammoths are 2 meters high, the buy Gary a three-week jump ever on their tomatoes on the market before other manufacturers. This corresponds to profit in the markets for local farmers.

The key is to monitor the temperature recorded at many thermometers in the subjects of growth; quote Goldilocks, “not hot nor too cold, just right”. The fall time of the night, but still above zero degrees in the greenhouses. Gary believes in tough plants for optimal performance on the field, and stress within tolerable limits is OK.

When I was in the house Hoop my glasses steam warm, moist air, wet, partially filled with green earth, growing healthy plants. The house had Hoop herbs, strawberries, eggplant, and many varieties of heirloom tomatoes.

These greenhouses are devices and methods of air from high-tech is not high enough, but the technique is really good, man, no longer with less technology. The ability to take up with a minimum savings of energy input is not true.