William Bronson

I am very acquisitive, I like stuff.
Most of the stuff I have cost no money to acquire, but it does cost me dearly in other ways, sucking up time, energy focus and space, that could be better put to use.

What am I giving up in favor of stuff?
People?
The planet?
Peace?

Human society has to answer the same question.

I'm anti growth in the sense that putting growth first seems to induce humans to do harm.
I'm pro-growth in the sense that abundance can be used to free people from want.

Two electric scooter companies set up shop around campus a few years ago.
Only one remains, and my son was just commenting on that.
He said it seemed like good business model.
I pointed out that it depended on what you mean by that.

The incentives to create a business that can be sold for a profit is as strong or stronger than the incentive to create a profitable business .
The incentives to avoid doing harm to humans or the planet are minimal or non existent when we value growth for its own sake.

Hey, do you think these bubils are ready to plant?

I would suggest looking at the strawbale greenhouses  created by Chad Midgley of Utah,
(https://youtu.be/LKWYS9G6_GU?si=Hz5-HmRSDbjUsYRy)
but he uses lots of plastic in his greenhouses.

As an alternative to strawbales,  how about using dirt?
Specifically, consider a  Walipini greenhouse.
The earth walls of a pit greenhouse should readily deal with humidity.
I don't think it will remain warm enough for tropical plants on its own, but if you add compost heat, you will essentially have the equivalent of a pineapple pit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineapple_pit

I don't love greenhouses that require a lot of digging, but for your purposes a Walipini makes sense.

M Ljin wrote: I wish I could get the domestic ones to flower and try crossing the two…

Oh, are they like potatoes in this way?
No flowers means no seeds and greatly reduced invasiveness.
(I know potatoes can produce flowers and even viable seeds, but normally don't).
No seeds makes selecting for new traits tricky, but the reports I've seen on garlic make me think it's entirely doable.

How hungry are these plants?
I'm wondering if they could be raised in sand, for ease of harvest.

The die back that M Ljin witnessed has me convinced at  that domesticated chufa won't be invasive like regular yellow nutsedge.
At the same time, their success growing chufa in a zone 5 reassures that me my zone 6 has enough growing days to produce a yield.

I have some "buss tubs" (from the restaurant industry).
They are about 5 inch deep, is that enough for growing chufa?
If not, I have barrels, half barrels , buckets and totes...

I would like to let them go to seed, collect the greens for hay and the seed for food/fodder/ next year's crop.

M Ljin, that's very exiting!
Did you wait for the tops to die before harvesting?

A while back, I had the idea to grow winter rye in a comfrey bed, and use both for green manure:

https://permies.com/t/179522/Cover-crops-die-summer

The plan hinged on the way comfrey disappears over the winter.
I've yet to try it, but there's a bed at the community garden that could become a green manure bed.

I also have a biomass bed over at the yarden, delegated  thusly because of shade and a hostile neighbor.
Said neighbor sprays herbicide on anything that is higher than the privacy fence, so I've been planning a switch to low growing plants instead of the jchokes and "trash" trees I've been growing.

B, thank you for the hard earned wisdom!
These are old, old wood chips, so that's great news!
I have chicken curated household waste compost that is rife with red wrigglers, so I can add that as well!

The note on wood chips plus urine is very useful.
I might still make such a bed specifically as a perennial garlic bed.

So I compost my dog's poop in n in ground bin.
I started out using an in ground bucket, it filled up, so I added a bottomless bucket on top of that, and started using a compost auger.
The auger really are a difference, and now it looks like this:

I found some of these in an African market.
I'm entranced by their high fat content, and fodder potential.
Like the nutrients of the tubers are similar to olives, and sedge has been successfully fed to rabbits.

I don't think they are actually the same as yellow nutsedge.
The bags of "chufa" sold for wildlife plots do seem to be cold hardy nutsedge, but I believe real chufa is  actually killed by frost.

Container growing seems like the best way to deal with the long growing times, frost sensitivity, and harvest difficulty.

So anyway, who has experience planting, growing and eating chufa?