GAMCOD 2024: 200 square feet; Zero degrees F or colder; calories cheap and easy

This thread is the official central thread for this project.


We are calling it GAMCOD for now, but the final movie might have a different name.

I am hoping that 100 gardeners will start this project.  And then the best six results go into a final movie product.  The core of this is to show six great gardeners demonstrating great permaculture gardening practices to people that have never gardened before.  I wish for the observers to conclude that gardening is cheap, easy and productive.





Calories per acre is the core of this project.  While it is true that there maybe be wiser metrics, those wiser metrics might be the core of a future project.  

200 square feet must be clearly marked out at the start.  It must be one contiguous piece (not two or more pieces adding up to 200 square feet).  Probably a rectangle or a circle.  Start with dirt patch or a lawn-on-dirt.  Note that 7x28 is less than 200 square feet and could hold a 7 foot tall hugelkultur.

For this first attempt at a movie project, if your garden is in an area that went to zero degrees F or colder in the last ten years, then it qualifies. (if this works, later projects might be for warmer climates)

At least five crops that are generally known as food (you can find the foods in the organic grocery). No soy.  And the focus remains as "highest calories per acre". Polyculture is strongly encouraged.

Optional: an additional 200 square foot plot that is planted with perennials. A summary in late summer about what the productivity might be like in five years and ten years.  

Gardeners are encouraged to use a "ghost acre":  a place where mulches and fertilizers are grown, outside of the 200 square feet.  Details about mulches and importing seeds/tubers/bulbs here.

I want to see practices far above organic.  I wish for the final movie to advocate NOT buying stuff, and NOT risking the import of things that could be toxic.

Unlimited irrigation.  Explain how this is critical for building the soil so in the future you won't need as much irrigation.


Keep track of

   - total time put in (try to keep this low)
   - total money spent (try to keep this low)
   - total money saved in groceries (try to keep this high)


I want people that watch this movie to KNOW to their core that gardening is:

  - easy
  - delightful
  - productive
  - thrifty
  - yummy



monies

- for a kickstarter movie that brings in more than $50,000 (the "goal" will be $50,000)

o $100 per minute if the kickstarter brings in $50k to $99K
o $200 per minute if the kickstarter brings in $100k to $199K
o $400 per minute if the kickstarter brings in more than $200K

- prorated, so if we use 22 seconds you get 22/60 of a minute of this dealio

If we use 30 minutes of video in the final movie, and the kickstarter brings in $100,000, that would be $6000.  

I am willing to sweeten the offer for "big names".


GAMCOD Poll: Do you plan to participate?
help each other be excellent at GAMCOD!
how to prove that you are starting with dirt
gamcod importing materials, ghost acre, mulches, seeds, tubers
GAMCOD: What resources may I use?

GAMCOD: Video Submissions

doing GAMCOD but not GAMCOD

If this has already been addressed, then forgive me.  I’m just wondering about resources invested in the ghost plot.  Seems they should be part of the total for the GAMCOD 200 sq feet.

I think if somebody grows an acre of field peas, and then cuts the pea plants to use as mulch, that's cool.  It would be good to mention the cost of the pea seed - if any.

I removed a post asking about soy.  

No soy.

If people want to learn more about this decision, I think I have covered it many times in these forums and in podcasts. And in past discussions of GAMCOD.  If people want to restart that discussion, it would have to be in the cider press.

Thanks for the clarification!  This sounds like an exciting project, we're in!!  Where do we sign up and when can we start?

What about molasses and compost? The long term compost pile got started last fall, it has some leaves and grass clippings from offsite. Should I instead start a fast compost from the ghost acre? Also, I want to use a sugar/carb source to activate compost tea, would molasses bought from the store violate the terms?  What about human urine? What about a compost tea using my long-term off site input compost pile and not the compost itself?

Skyler Weber wrote:What about molasses and compost?

I know that different parts of the GAMCOD project have started getting separated into their own topics to be addressed.

One for resource to use/not use can be found at this link - https://permies.com/wiki/241030/GAMCOD-resources

Dave Dahlsrud wrote:Thanks for the clarification!  This sounds like an exciting project, we're in!!  Where do we sign up and when can we start?

There is no official "sign up".  Instead, I think it would be good to say something in the poll and then start a thread when you have your very first pic/vid.  This thread will act as your "journal" or "log".  

Video Submissions are now active!

Click Here to go to the video submission thread, you'll find a button at the top. Follow the instructions and feel free to ask any questions!

How's this going? Plenty of submissions?

Just stumbled upon the thread. I might throw something in and see what we can do in a cold climate Fall season? If not definitely interested in participating next if done again.

My plot is growing and I have footage collected.  A bunny rabbit is causing me some mischief though...

Mike Haasl wrote:My plot is growing and I have footage collected.  A bunny rabbit is causing me some mischief though...

How would calories for hasenpfeffer be calculated?

I believe you only get calorie credit for plants that you grow, not raising animals or hunting on the plot.

Stephen is closing in on the finish line and has started to harvest and weigh foods ...   it seems like when he is all done it will probably end up at 80,000 calories.  

I kind of like the idea of hunting an animal that is eating your crops and counting its callories after you process and eat it as part of the total callories produced in the garden for this project, but yeah, it probably doesn't count .

I've harvested my potatoes, beans, squash and volunteer greens.  Still need to dig sunchokes and tease out some sunflower seeds.  Walking Squirrel Farm GAMCOD

Paul, is that number for the calories grown on Steven's plot or the calories grown there multiplied out to an acre?

stephen is gonna run the exact numbers over the next couple of weeks.  

All of the sunchokes have been harvested.  About five buckets full.  If each bucket weighs 20 pounds, then that is 100 pounds of sunchokes.  330 calories per pound.  So that is 33,000 calories just for the sunchokes.

If the rest of the stuff falls short of 80,000 and ends up at something like 50,000 calories, then ...

43,560 square feet in an acre.  200 square feet in a gamcod plot.  

Then that works out to about 10 million calories per acre.  

Add in some extra paths and whatnot, and you are at about 8 million calories.

The yield of 200 sq ft can not be simply multipled for the yield of one acre. It receives more sunlight just like the end row of a corn field. The height, shape of the plot and orientation all affect how much sunlight it intercepts. If I come in the first place I would feel like cheating. Nevertheless,  I get to see the full potential of this specific 200 sq ft plot and that's my goal.

On the other hand, the time spent would go down when the scale is up because different planting techniques and tools will be used (row garden + machinery).

paul wheaton wrote:Then that works out to about 10 million calories per acre.  

Add in some extra paths and whatnot, and you are at about 8 million calories.

I just wanna pause for a beat and take a good look at what we are trying to do ...

Grow a Million Calories on Dirt.  

The first time we tried to talk about this idea, it was a million calories on an acre of dirt.  

I know that stephen's project definitely started with dirt.   And the results could be expanded to an acre.  Granted, one person working a full acre is different than one person working 200 square feet.  But the 200 square feet aspect definitely tells a story! And I think this is a great story!

And stephen is now loaded with ideas on trying this again next year!  

Another angle on this:  it sounds like the total effort for this is pretty slight.  A function of this project is to show the part about growing food to be cheap and easy.

So if we have footage of five or six different people doing this ... from dirt ...  cheap and easy ...  then I think we have something powerful to show off!

Do we have enough people succeeding with this to make a movie?  Five or six?

Do we need to do this again next year to finish up?  If so, do we want to change anything?  

I think that if somebody is doing a 200 square foot GAMCOD plot, they could *also* do a parallel 200 square feet of **soil** and talk quickly about the difference.   In a similar vein, if somebody does a new 200 square foot plot in 2025, their 2024 plot will be halfway to being soil the second year.  Also, the 2024 plot could be planted with a bunch of stuff in the fall that will pop up in the spring!  

And if this GAMCOD movie project does really well, then it would be awesome to have more movies in the future that build on this.  Maybe there could be 200 square foot permaculture plots that put out four times more calories on year ten - and the effort is hovering around zero, and the expense is hovering around zero.  ??

After seeing Stephen's GAMCOD hugel, and our discussion in the truck on the 17 hour drive home, we want to build some hugels and berms.  If fall prep work is allowed, I could certainly participate for 2025.  

As it happens, the first day at our acreage after getting home showed most of a tree had come down so I cut it down to sizes that would fit in the bucket of the tractor and will be part of the start to a hugel bed (which will be placed where it will also give us some dust / noise abatement from the road).  Multiple yields from the structure....

Of course you are welcome to make hugelkultur stuff whenever you like.  But to qualify for GAMCOD submission, I think it starts january 1 ...  looking at this thread it seems i never said that ...  but that has been my intent.  

Of course, a person could grow several 200 square feet plots, and then submit their best plot AND give a bit of mention to their other plots.

Thanks Paul.  I appreciate the intent, but it would definitely be a struggle for us to do it all after the calendar changes.  I guess if I have all my material at hand and we have decent weather with respect to snow melt and so forth I might be able to make it happen.  It's a busy time of year attempting to get gardens going.

Perhaps I'll strive to make a short video about the plot and the intent, then cut the grass back and measure out the plot and bring the wood nearby, then assemble once the snow melts.

I'll have to give this a bit more pondering...and discuss with She Who Must Be Obeyed.

paul wheaton wrote:
All of the sunchokes have been harvested.  About five buckets full.  If each bucket weighs 20 pounds, then that is 100 pounds of sunchokes.  330 calories per pound.  So that is 33,000 calories just for the sunchokes.
...
Then that works out to about 10 million calories per acre.  

OMG that makes my attempts look totally pathetic..

I have a nice collection of pumpkins though! And I've been eating lots of sweetcorn and tomatoes. And some of the bean seed I hurled around are cropping, but they are going to be saved for seed for next year as it was mostly an exercise in throwing in whatever I had to see what grew. And I've just hurled a load of seed around since the rains have set in to grow greens and radishes for winter harvesting, because I don't qualify for 0F thing.

I guess I should attempt to tally things up and make a guestimate of calories...

Stephen measured his harvest.

A five foot tall hugelkultur about 8 feet wide and 25 feet long. He shoveled lifeless dirt on wood. He weighed the food and ...  20,570 calories.  About 30 hours to pack the wood and dirt to the spot and 20 more hours for the whole summer for general gardening.  Potatoes and sunchokes were taken from other hugelkulturs and stuck in. Pumpkin seeds were from saved seeds last year.  So zero cost.  

If Stephen did this exact same thing for an acre, it would be over 4 million calories. The average person consumes 730,000 calories per year.  

Next year, this same plot will generate more calories with zero effort.  And Stephen is already talking about trying a new GAMCOD plot next year and beating this year's accomplishment by 50% or more.  

You can see stephens harvest numbers, and hundreds of pics here

  https://permies.com/p/2674161

I hope you encourage Stephen to take more pictures and talk about his gardening accomplishments in his thread.  Maybe he can take enough video about it that we can post something on youtube.

Of course, the BEL is running a bit light and Stephen hasn't posted any pics for a while.  If folks wanna load up the BEL ...

  https://permies.com/w/bel-fundraiser

My guess is that we make a copy of this thread to try again for 2025.  Any suggestions for changes?

paul wheaton wrote:My guess is that we make a copy of this thread to try again for 2025.  Any suggestions for changes?

Nothing off the top of my head, but I'm in.  I hope to take some video tomorrow to outline where I plan to create a hugel...unfortunately for me, I don't see building it tall enough to qualify for the PEP BB.  

I started GAMCOD with the intent of building a 20 foot hugel that would also count for the first two tiers of PEP gardening, but it quickly became in impossible amount of work (with a shovel and a bad back and lots of other chores) and so I "failed over" to building a 10x20 pad of hay bales on lawn and planted that. I haven't been posting any documentation to my GAMCOD thread because I'm pretty sure that you won't count the use of outside hay even if I account for the cost and explain how it's organic. But I have been taking occasional video and it's about ready to harvest (I've been dragging my feet to let the runner beans have as long as possible). Was my impression correct about the forbidden outside hay?

Yeah. Use your power to keep Bambi away.

I hope to post my documentation soon. Ish. Don't think much would be usable for a movie. But may be good for general gardening encouragement. Damm deer.

Christopher Weeks wrote:I started GAMCOD with the intent of building a 20 foot hugel that would also count for the first two tiers of PEP gardening, but it quickly became in impossible amount of work (with a shovel and a bad back and lots of other chores) and so I "failed over" to building a 10x20 pad of hay bales on lawn and planted that. I haven't been posting any documentation to my GAMCOD thread because I'm pretty sure that you won't count the use of outside hay even if I account for the cost and explain how it's organic. But I have been taking occasional video and it's about ready to harvest (I've been dragging my feet to let the runner beans have as long as possible). Was my impression correct about the forbidden outside hay?

Hay, as mulch, is good.

Hay, as dirt, is good for growing, but is not valid for GAMCOD.  

paul wheaton wrote:

Christopher Weeks wrote:I started GAMCOD with the intent of building a 20 foot hugel that would also count for the first two tiers of PEP gardening, but it quickly became in impossible amount of work (with a shovel and a bad back and lots of other chores) and so I "failed over" to building a 10x20 pad of hay bales on lawn and planted that. I haven't been posting any documentation to my GAMCOD thread because I'm pretty sure that you won't count the use of outside hay even if I account for the cost and explain how it's organic. But I have been taking occasional video and it's about ready to harvest (I've been dragging my feet to let the runner beans have as long as possible). Was my impression correct about the forbidden outside hay?

Hay, as mulch, is good.

Hay, as dirt, is good for growing, but is not valid for GAMCOD.  

Oh, wait ...  

If the hay is purchased hay, then that is not okay.   If it is hay from your "ghost acre" then that's fine.

You asked about any suggestions for the future. There was talk of expanding the project after a few years to include drier climates. With this in mind, I have to start planning now if I wish to participate.                                                                                                                                                                                      
I live in arid northern Spain on a small olive plantation on top of a hill. The soil has been ploughed continuously for over 30 years to discourage plant growth as a fire prevention method. So it's devoid of life, has a hard pan just below plough level and does not hold water. My goal is to get to a point where I am growing 60% of everything that I consume without external inputs.
Soil regeneration is hard where I live. Gardening is a struggle. Nothing is simple.  Almost every resource is offsite-including water. This poses 2 challenges:
1)Water. I refer you to your statement about the importance of unlimited irrigation in soil creation. I have no continuous supply of water on site. While I have water storage facilities to catch every drop of rain, they are plastic and insufficient to water a 200ft plot during the blisteringly hot,dry summer so I would be continually fetching water from the nearby town in an IBC. While my long term goal is to create soil in which to grow my food, my immediate goal is to eat. I cannot in good conscience empty thousands of litres of water into the dirt I currently have. It's labour intensive and expensive to get on site - 2 of the GAMCOD criteria to keep low . So I have started container garden using half IBCs with a water reservoir underneath and drip fed, above ground polythylene pools. This reduces my water usage by at least 80%. If I drip feed plants growing in the dirt here, I use 1000lt water every 2 days-even mulched using cardboard (a no no) and bark chip (a no no). The same amount of space in my containers use 1000lt water every 3 weeks or so.

2)How to get enough fertility onto my plot. It is definitely dirt with no soil life, not even grass grows successfully here. Currently I make my own compost using stable muck from a nearby stable which use wood shavings as bedding, household scraps, olive branch chips, urine and water. As mentioned, I live on an olive plantation. These trees need pruning at least every 2 years on rotation. Burning is prohibited in my area so my only option is to chip. If woodchips from my site were allowed I could use them to make compost without the stable manure. I have no other raw materials available onsite and you cant make something from nothing.


I understand GAMCOD has a very rigid set of criteria for a very specific reason-to encourage newbies to start soil regeneration and growing food by demonstating how simple it is. But with my conditions, I have been discouraged time and time again in my attempts to create soil or garden for food even though I am fully invested in regenerating my landscape. So while I am busy on numerous projects involving soil regeneration, food production is a separate but very important activity. If I was a complete newbie, I would quit before I started with the strict restrictions placed on what I could  use. Being a dedicated amateur gives me just enough enthusiasm to try as many different approaches as possible and I look forward to gaining some valuable insights and fresh ideas from more experienced growies facing similar challenges. Again, I understand the need for a strict control group for the parameters of the existing project. But as a lot of us live outside of the temperate zone and have limited access to water, the current project has little value or relevence.

You are looking at low cost, low effort, no outside imput ways to turn dirt into soil and grow calories in a defined space. Plastic is frowned upon (I hate the stuff myself, avoid single use plastics and try to repurpose and avoid landfill) but I would have about 200sqf in total and it would be in 1 block. Beyond setting up the system, my input would be minimal as I plan to use a close planting, continuous plant cover system. Cost is low too as damaged pools and IBCs are free. Although not in the ground, I would still be turning my dirt into soil and could provide the proof thereof. And it would be using solely on site ammendments. Once I have built enough soil in my containers, I plan to return it to the holes I have dug the dirt out of so that the dirt surrounding these pits can be slowly regenerated too while still providing more than 60% of what we consume.

The alternative would be to dig out the pits, line them with pond liner and refil with dirt and compost etc. But I would still need a barrier to prevent moisture loss-at least for 2-3 years anyway.
This is long winded and probably premature-being only at the end of year1 of the original project.  Your project just dovetailed with my intentions and goals regarding food production at little/no cost and minimal effort. I have started on a smaller scale already and the results are encouraging. It would have been nice to be part of a larger, documented trial. I followed the thought process and implementation with great interest.

Sarah, what is your annual precip?  How cold does it get there?

For GAMCOD, I would definitely require zero plastic and zero cardboard.  Of course, the hoses that bring water have some plastics.  So there is the whole concept of "the ghost acre".

Fertility:  Here at basecamp, we started with gardening on a giant rock.  And we had only 5% of the water required for there be a home here.  And for years we grew food anyway.  Of course, now that we have water, we are able to build soil about ten times faster!  We do, however, have an excess of trees.  And we do have things growing that we can cut and use as mulch.

Stable muck:  super organic feed for those animals?  

These trees need pruning at least every 2 years on rotation. Burning is prohibited in my area so my only option is to chip. If woodchips from my site were allowed I could use them to make compost without the stable manure.  

Can the big chunks of wood go inside hugelkultur?  

I can't remember, are raised beds allowed, if we make them new after Jan 1?

Rebekah Harmon wrote:I can't remember, are raised beds allowed, if we make them new after Jan 1?

Yes.

Hey Paul I want in!
2025 lets do some good in the world.
My ground will not be thawed till March but I will do a hugel and see how she goes.
(Central BC Canada)

I think now is the time to contemplate changes for 2025.

I think one thing to shoot for is to set the kickstarter "goal" to be $100,000.  And then all conversations about coin are hyper focused on a much larger payout.

Anything else?