All posts in the topic Documentary on urban agriculture in Cuba (Short link)

2006 Jun 23 09:27 NZST

Hi All,

I just got a copy of a DVD about urban agriculture in Cuba:

http://www.communitysolution.org/cuba

Very interesting, starts with a little Peak Oil primer for the
uninitiated and details Cuba's response to a drastic reduction in fossil
fuel supply in 1990 due to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

This quote seemed relevant to the NZ situation:

"Several Cubans expressed the belief that living on an island, with its
natural boundaries, breeds awareness that there are limits to natural
resources."

You have to hope ... :-)

Cheers, Andrew.

PS. I'm happy to lend my copy to anyone in Christchurch who's
interested, or to those in other centres I can be sure to get it back
from :-)

Andrew Groom wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Just to kick this off, I thought I'd mention one of my latest experiments in
growing food at home - mushrooms. I found this site a while back
(www.14u.co.nz) and bought some shitake and oyster mushroom dowels for growing
the mushrooms on logs. The idea is you drill holes in the logs, insert the
dowels, then wait 3-6 months for the logs to start fruiting. Depending on the
type of wood, etc., you can get 30% of the weight of the log in mushrooms over
3-5 years (harder wood takes longer to get started but produces for longer).
>
> I set my logs up in April, so will probably have to wait for spring to see
the results (they naturally fruit in spring and autumn). I'll keep you posted.