this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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That's why you go for the potato. This fucker will grow under any conditions. I'm sure we could figure out a way to make up for some of the hours lost too, solar panels + battery + grow lights. Doesn't need to run that much, just enough to make up the lost few hours. Maybe I should start investigating this now.
I don't know where you are, but they're guaranteed to not grow below freezing. You could use a greenhouse, but you better get building now because you're going to need an acre or two per person.
An acre? I got 200 out of my 2x4 raised bed this year that I've been playing around with and like 170 last year. Why do you say two acres per person? Google tells me that you usually get 16-24 tonnes per acre.
Now, obviously yield will be down during this but I'm not expecting it to be that bad. Tents could be an option if temperatures do get bad it's really not difficult to heat the tent we grow our palms in.
In all likelihood if the shit hits the fan I plan to organise a local group and we can commandeer the nearby golf course for land, while encouraging everyone to use what green space they have on top. Fuck allowing that land to go to waste in those conditions. This is all obviously assuming we don't die in the nukes or radiation.
It's been a while since I did the napkin math, but I thought that's roughly what it came out to. How much time from seeding is that including? You need 2000 calories a day about, and there's 365 days in a year, so that's 730,000 calories per year.
PS Unless you're near a missile silo, fallout is overhyped. Airbursts are the best way to damage light infrastructure and are pretty clean.
Nah you don't need 2000 calories a day. You need that to be healthy. We're talking about survival here.
The fastest way to destroy the enemy today is to cripple their economic centres. Every major city in the country will be a smoldering crate. And the ports will be turned into 2 smoldering craters. Every major town probably has at least one weapons factory somewhere. It'd reasonably only take 20-40 missiles to wipe most of this country off the face of the map. Hopefully you're right about fallout.
Either way I think I'll do ok if we survive the initial shit. Can't say the same for everyone but with some effort I can also help local people get the same thing up and running. There'll be no government left so we'll be on our own.
You might be less sedentary too, though. That can double or triple if you're trekking through arctic conditions. I don't know, that's what I plan with.
It's not impossible, especially if you're somewhere warm or in the other hemisphere. The people that survive the initial exchange will disproportionately be actual farmers, since they almost all are rural, and there's less mouths to feed.
Where I live in Canada is kind of fucked. I either need to hoard a lot of grain afterwards or evacuate to somewhere else.
I'm going to contradict you there too, I'm afraid. They'll crawl back out or their bunkers and try calling the shots. Whether people listen is another question.
Potatoes have a bit less than 800 calories per kg, which then works out to about 900kg/year on a 2000 calorie diet. If you can get the yields you were talking about you'll be fine on less than an acre, but they sound high to me. Growing some other stuff at the same time might be worth it for your sanity in a hard new world; staples don't very all that much in productivity.