!! SEPP to Boot: Stephen's Experience (BEL)

TOTAL CALORIES, GAMCOD PLOT: 20,570.5

GAMCOD Plot size: 8ft x 25ft (200sq ft)
Acre Size: 43,560 sq ft
One Acre / GAMCOD Plot = 217.8
Calories expanded to cover a full acre = 20,570.5 * 217.8 = 4,480,254.9

...That seems like a lot, to me. Can someone help correct my calculations?

I can confirm this part.  Also it doesn’t seem unreasonable.

The first thing I found with a quick google also gives a bit of orientation, not sure where this blog got their info

Million calories per acre

Wheat:  6.4

Corn: 12.3

Potatoes: 17.8

http://www.waldeneffect.org/blog/Calories_per_acre_for_various_foods/

I guess these are conventional farming practices that deplete soil have huge industrial inputs etc.  

on the other hand extrapolating the labor inputs as well as the material inputs for the theoretical 1 ac Hügelkultür raises other questions.

Really interesting conversation, great work gathering all the data!!!

A few little bits of information/insight I neglected to add in my recent video update... Everything is debatable, and I invite counterpoints.

SUNCHOKES
To the people who think sunchokes are weeds or whatever, and shouldn't be eaten:
- I partially agree with you. Until I moved here, I had never even heard of a Jerusalem Artichoke.
- Go ahead and remove the calories attributed to sunchokes from the calorie totals, and you'll see the Boot team's efforts still met the goal of the GAMCOD project. I looooooooove pumpkins! I looooooove potatoes! Plus neither of those serve up nearly as much "gastric baggage" as sunchokes. We'd just plant more of those instead to increase our calorie count.
- Find a better cook, and you'll realize that sunchokes are delicious and the "fartichoke" phenomenon can be mitigated almost completely. Personal biology exceptions aside, I think that acclimating oneself to them can also help in this regard. Fermenting, soaking, and dehydrating sunchokes are useful methods of prepping these vegetables both for easier digestion as well as long-term storage.

HUGELKULTUR ACCESSIBILITY
To the people who think there's not enough room for paths between:
- Another topic I partially agree with, for sure. Although our hugel doesn't completely reach the boundary of the 8 foot-wide area granted to it, I can see that it would be quite narrow. But a path of sorts would be there.
- My friend Clay pointed out in an earlier post that the current reigning European champion of hugelkultur, Sepp Holzer, develops hugel berms with very little space between them. Were I to have the chance to do something similar with the land, I would attempt to achieve a similar level of "corrugation" and texture to the landscape.
- I'm confident in saying that even if we stuck with the 8'x25' footprint, and then nudged the boundaries of the hugel inward perhaps a foot, then we'd both have room for adequate pathing, plus still have met the GAMCOD challenge.

ABOUT NEXT YEAR
On a further note, Paul and I have discussed what's to be done next year. The subject of hugel berms has been brought up - go figure! - and I personally don't prefer hugel berms so large that scaffolding, ladders, and/or paths are required for care and harvest. So I don't think we'll be doing something that large next year. On the other hand, he put forth the idea of using a 5' x 40' plot for a narrower hugel berm that still meets the current GAMCOD requirements. This would provide even more surface area for planting and cultivating, and is a very tempting possibility. If I find a spot within a fenced-in area that can accommodate a 40' long berm that can be oriented north-south, then I'll likely have the team go for it. Maybe I'll have the acre I'm stewarding prepped accordingly, and then this 40-footer can be a reality.

Thanks to everyone for adding to the discussion here. I'm both pleasantly surprised and very pleased with the Boot team's efforts in making our GAMCOD project successful. It's turned into quite a learning experience and source of inspiration, for sure. I'm grateful for the opportunity to carry on the discussion about it.

Hey Stephen-

I hope this finds you well!

You asked for some help with the calculations.  I put together a spreadsheet really quickly to check/verify them.  You can find it here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a-WKB2Jg9T0NiyuWyj3iMLQpfujSJNfywortuxiUmGM/edit?usp=sharing).

Here's the important stuff/executive summary.

Your calculations look pretty spot on to me, definitely within an order of magnitude of what I calculated.  The reasons for my different numbers are mostly because I chose to use the smaller of the values if the USDA had multiple values for energy (such as in the case of the Russet potatoes and the Pumpkin Seeds).  So, I think that you are correct in saying that if you were to expand your 8'x25'x5' huglekultur plot to a full acre, you could expect to get around 4.4-4.5 million kilocalories from it in food stuffs.  Pretty amazing, if you ask me!

There are three potential caveats to this claim.  

The USDA's info on pumpkin seeds doesn't indicate if it is for shelled pumpkin seeds or not.  I assume you didn't shell all your pumpkin seeds.  So the amount of calories for the seeds MIGHT be elevated.

 

Similarly, the USDA's info for russet potatoes indicates that the potatoes are peeled (i.e. lacking skin).  I assume that you didn't peel your potatoes and then weigh them.  However, I would imagine that both of these factors would result in negligible changes to the values; it probably wouldn't result in an order of magnitude difference in the amount of calories grown.

 

Finally, all the USDA values seem to be for RAW food as opposed to cooked.  So, the actual amount of calories consumed by people could be different than these.  I can't recall if the GAMCOD "requirements" are for raw calories grown or if they are for the calories to be consumed by people.

I hope this helps put your mind at ease!  Great work!!

--matt

Here are the leftover questions from today's livestream.  Thanks y'all, thanks Stephen!

BEL #702

A highlight of last week was working with SEPPer Nick on a long-standing, and long-overdue, project for Allerton Abbey: window quilts...! We did everything except for the outer-most layer of fabric on one of the window quilts, and the mechanical parts are working wonderfully. This video depicts what we started with, one of our major fabrication updates (combining older window quilts together for better window-sealing and coverage), and demonstrates raising and lowering the quilt after it's been installed. I think things look much-improved over there.



Thanks for watching, and enjoy your day...!