GAMCOD Poll: Do you plan to participate?

Hello fellow GAMCOD forum members!

I wanted to make a centralized poll to get a better feeling of who is in fact planning on participating and submitting to the freaky cheap gardening movie.

For up to date details of requirements/plans - Here



Share your thoughts!

If it's something I can keep up with.

Can we please have a third option?

I'd like to but I can't because I'm outside the climate zone


Or any other reason given in comments in reply.

I'll grow a 200 square foot garden and take photos and make some records.

An unsuitable piece of ground exists next to my driveway. I will try to grow something useful in it. I don't have any illusions about winning a calories per acre competition.

Maybe-what is GAMCOD? I gather it has something to do with making a garden in a currently crap location. I've seen the freaky cheap movie thread, which I don't qualify to participate in, it seems this GAMCOD thing is along similar lines.

EDIT-found it...grow a million calories from one acre of dirt. I don't have that much space. My whole lot is 1/4ish of an acre, my garden is something like 13x20.

James Bridger wrote:Maybe-what is GAMCOD? I gather it has something to do with making a garden in a currently crap location. I've seen the freaky cheap movie thread, which I don't qualify to participate in, it seems this GAMCOD thing is along similar lines.

EDIT-found it...grow a million calories from one acre of dirt. I don't have that much space. My whole lot is 1/4ish of an acre, my garden is something like 13x20.

The original GAMCOD was going to be at Wheaton labs on an acre, but didn't work out. This is along the same lines and is talked about in freaky cheap garden thread and this forum (called gamcod). Paul hasn't decided quite what to call the video yet, but wants to demonstrate growing food in a tough area. At least as cold as 0 fahrenheit and starting from 'dirt' (to be defined) rather than existing good garden soil. Hopefully using some interesting techniques and few external inputs. I'm disqualified because my climate is too "warm", but it only has to be using 200 square feet now, that's only 10' x 20', which most people with a yard have a chance of having available.

With the update to the temperature zones I now qualify and I have the space to do it.  Need to head back to the original thread and see if I can clarify a few things.  

I don't qualify for this year because it's too warm here, but I intend to plan out an area, and as soon as I'm 'allowed' I want to edge it with old roof tiles and start dumping grass cuttings in it to prepare the soil for planting, maybe cover it with landscape fabric if that's allowed.

If I was just starting out, I would consider it. Though I have no illusions about the time and effort needed to make decent video.

But I already have too much established garden space to deal with. Some of this is shared space on an old-school gardener's land, and adding new, kooky "experimental" methods is a matter of "show me the results and I'll listen." Baby steps.

Nope not this year, I'm in too warm of a zone and I garden in pots at this point, no land available (I live in an apartment, so patio is it for planting).)

I really want to but the camera work will be new to me.  We will see if any footage is usable.  Tom

Whoo hoo! I now qualify! We hit -11 on January 17 this year! The closest historical temperatures I could find, is from 40 minutes away in a biggish city. We run 5* to 10* cooler in winter. That location lists 3 years out of the last 10 hit 0* F. On my -11 night they recorded only 3* F.

I was interested but my land doesn't have a bad enough spot to qualify.

I'll see how things are going in the spring and I might try making a video record of a similar test plot anyway. I do need to do a desodded ground test area and I should get back into filming this sort of stuff. Put it up as an "inspired by" version maybe. ( if I can even access my old YouTube account....)

I will probably do the non-gamcod gamcod. My climate qualifies and the soil is poor enough with <2% OM. I will be able to 100% free range the chickens for manure when it warms up. But I can't do without my 32 gal plastic trash cans. They will be used for rain harvesting, fermentation and making liquid fertilizer. It's a lot more work to substitute one big can with 10 small stainless steel pots.

I don't participate because I don't have a proper patch of dirt, although maybe I could if it turned to dirt again after the season... but I have too many other plans. However, I will probably fence off some (much smaller) areas of my garden to protect them when seedlings are young so maybe that will be something similar... but temporary and then I will move the fence to another spot. I need to fence off everything, even with the help of thorny plants!

I'm extremely interested in seeing the finished film.

My climate doesn't qualify for this round - but I'm thinking of doing and documenting it here to see if I can.

There are a few things I would have to take into account like how the 'growing season' is 6 months of zero rainfall, thus making soil building take longer than other places.  We're also dealing with decreasing mobility so that would be something I have to work around.  

BUT... that might make an interesting film on it's own as lots of people live in Medeterrian climates and are dealing with the challenges of aging.  If it's not worthy for Paul's channel, I can publish it on my own although it would be nifty to collab.  Worry about that later.  

I'll have to talk with the family and see if they are game.  If they do, it would be planning this summer, then starting over winter while the rain is here so we can capture as much of it in the soil, then hopefully not need irrigation (during the 6 months of drought).

r ranson wrote:
My climate doesn't qualify for this round - but I'm thinking of doing and documenting it here to see if I can.

... it would be planning this summer, then starting over winter while the rain is here

Check out the thread on doing GAMCOD but not GAMCOD where Paul says...

If you wanna play, but your climate is too warm, or your soil is too good, or some other reason ...

You are welcome to get as close as you can and provide that video.  I'm not sure what all we might do with it, but maybe we can think of something.

I'm going to be something very similar - plan it out soonish, then gather mulch and smother the area until the autumn rains come. Then plant favas and giant radishes over the winter, then all sorts of things in 12 months.

I feel that the more of us do it as best we can, the more good and useful video will be available for Paul to make something awesome that will encourage other to follow suit.

I admit, I'm still reading through all the threads.  That's good to know.

It's going to take a bit of extra to convince the family to let me do this project, so I think I might try to figure out how many resources and labour it would take in our climate.  Most of the stuff already goes in the current growing set up, so there's pushback if I take away from that. But still, it would be interesting.  

Favas would be a big part of it for me too.  That and kale and garlic for the first winter.  So planting would start around midsummer for the kale, sept-oct for the others.  

I’m thinking about participating. I certainly have no shortage of hard packed clay dirt covered in aggressive weeds and grasses that I already want to start gardening in. Welcome to Western North Carolina! My question is, what about cultivating 200 square feet of weeds without at least a pile of imported wood chips is easy? I would never use plastic barrier as I don’t want to introduce that to my soil, but I’ve been thinking about getting wood chips or hay (I have an organic source).

Paul suggested a seven foot hugel which is a good idea because I’m on a hill and need swales anyway to capture water. That might be easy to build with an army of volunteers at hand, but we’re just two people.

Maybe this challenge is my incentive to try it and see how easy I can make it.

May Lotito wrote:I will probably do the non-gamcod gamcod. My climate qualifies and the soil is poor enough with <2% OM. I will be able to 100% free range the chickens for manure when it warms up. But I can't do without my 32 gal plastic trash cans. They will be used for rain harvesting, fermentation and making liquid fertilizer. It's a lot more work to substitute one big can with 10 small stainless steel pots.

Plastic is discouraged but not forbidden.

Plus, that stuff is outside of the 200 square feet, right?  More like it is part of your "ghost acres".

Su MacLean wrote:I’m thinking about participating. I certainly have no shortage of hard packed clay dirt covered in aggressive weeds and grasses that I already want to start gardening in. Welcome to Western North Carolina! My question is, what about cultivating 200 square feet of weeds without at least a pile of imported wood chips is easy? I would never use plastic barrier as I don’t want to introduce that to my soil, but I’ve been thinking about getting wood chips or hay (I have an organic source).

Paul suggested a seven foot hugel which is a good idea because I’m on a hill and need swales anyway to capture water. That might be easy to build with an army of volunteers at hand, but we’re just two people.

Maybe this challenge is my incentive to try it and see how easy I can make it.

It is my opinion that swales are not a good fit for a cold climate.

No imported wood chips or hay for this project.

hugelkultur:  I think I am now closing in on telling people all over the internet about a hundred times.  To build a seven foot tall hugel, I suggest building it UP four feet, and dig your paths DOWN three feet.  Then it seems like seven feet.



If you wanna rent an excavator for a day, that's fine.

paul wheaton wrote:

Plastic is discouraged but not forbidden.

Plus, that stuff is outside of the 200 square feet, right?  More like it is part of your "ghost acres".

Yes it will be outside of the growing area. I also wanted to keep track of water consumed. Despite the months of April and May, precipitation is less regular and less than 1" per week. We are in a long term drought and hopefully the situation will be relieved this year.

If 1 inch of water is supplemented per week for the 200 sq ft area, that equals to:
200/12×7.481 about 125 gallons or 4 trash cans full.

I am tempted.  I have apiece of land that has not been farmed for 25 years. But I doubt if I will move ahead.  I have too many commitments at present.

Does anyone have a recommended website with a chart or graph depicting the lowest recorded temperatures by county by year?  Thanks!

I found one here at Weather Underground.

You can type in your city and state, or zip code. At the bottom,click calendar, and choose your month and year. It doesn't have my city in the archive, it automatically switched to a big city nearby. I wandered through the two cold months we get to find the dates of 0*.

GAMCOD will have a new season in 2025.

Start concocting your plans now, I hope to see everyone succeed!

I am looking forward to doing this!
I am in. Recording it will not be easy for me - broken phone and all but I have a trail cam I think I can make a time lapse of the hugel. Good luck everyone.
Oh and my area recorded -50c in the last ten years. I heard -48c one night last year.

Last vote in apple poll was on December 11, 2024