Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:Thanks Paul.
Is it being used currently with anyone's greywater, or would it be the bootcamp's greywater that would supply it?
This might be a good inspiration for people to join the bootcamp.
There's also the question of what could be grown in this greenhouse now that it's here...even if that isn't its purpose, it can win over taste buds and stomachs to permaculture.
Rambutan, lychee, longin, soursop, mango, banana, orange, pineapple, avocado, coconut? tilapia, eels? do these need a really hot climate to thrive, or simply to be free of frost long enough to get big? Apparently the big fruit-growing region of Vietnam ranges from about 50-85 degrees if my memory serves, not in the high nineties and hundreds as I'd assumed.
I can answer a couple of those. Mango doesn't like frost even when it's several years old, though it does get somewhat more tolerant with age. The cultivars of banana I grow (dwarf namwah, dwarf orinoco, and blue java), which are supposed to be a bit more frost tolerant than most, lose all leaves below 32 degrees F but didn't die-- leaves grow back in spring, and two of them fruited heavily this summer. The fruit is not ripe yet, and I have them wrapped in incandescent Christmas lights powered by a $20 greenhouse controller that kicks on under 40 degrees. But bananas only fruit once and then you cut them down. The pups (baby plants growing from the same root system) will then get more sunlight and grow to give you your next crop. So you can't just protect the banana plants while they're young and then continue to get fruit. Also, depending on your setup, they're often too tall to fit in the greenhouse-- my dwarf plants are about 8 feet tall. The fruit takes a long time to mature as well. From what I can tell, oranges are more frost tolerant than other citrus. We definitely get below 32, and my orange tree is thriving. Coconut I'm told does need to be warm, and you can't really fudge it. Avocado develops significantly better cold tolerance after the first year or two. Pineapple I'm told will tolerate frost without protection. Something I didn't realize until moving into a hot climate is that almost nothing actually wants to be over 90 degrees-- even your tropical plants would prefer 80 or often even 70. However, they can tolerate hot days better than they can tolerate cold nights. There may be a few exceptions, like plumeria cuttings will not propagate unless you keep them really, really warm.
