UmbraWrites

Red Avadavat aka Red Munia aka Strawberry Finch (Amandava amandava), male, family Estrildidae, order Passeriformes, India

Have you ever seen a violinist going APESHIT?!

Obviously there are black string players. We just don’t see them because they “don’t look like” string players.

teapot dragons!

Me, already vibrating from the dopamine and adrenaline: Let's talk about espaliers

okay, so espaliers are beyond sexy, they are so unbelievably productive

The basics are just... pruning growing trees so they are more 2 dimensional, usually placed against walls. It takes a few years to form/ raise, but they are much easier to maintain than free growing trees in the long run.

(source)

Not only is it more accessible, easier to harvest fruit, but the design has a double purpose; the walls hold and release heat that can keep warm-weathered plants alive during Northen winters!

There are people who use this method to grow avocado, fig, etc trees outdoors without electricity in -20C weather.

my ultimate vision is buildings on city blocks with interlocking systems of courtyard gardens, but i first got the idea for a single courtyard garden like this when i was living in a warehouse community (sadly the community fell apart as it was acquiring access to the warehouse next door which would have allowed something like this to be tried)

the idea is to create a courtyard garden featuring multi-graft espalier trees along each wall and various vertical gardening tower designs around the middle

and then, in a super ideal world, in each corner you'd have a different agricultural animal installation. A small pool in one corner, with a mix of like, catfish and tilapia (these fish are easy to care for, will happily eat kitchen scraps to keep their feeding costs low, and if you keep their water clean by adding fresh water to the pool then the "used" water you take out makes great nutrient rich irrigation water for your garden). Now you can keep their population the right size for their pool by having fish for dinner sometimes. Add some chickens in another corner for eggs and the occasional chicken dinner.

(the chickens and the fish eat a lot of the bugs that you don't want in your garden courtyard, but bees, butterflies, and worms will still be able to service your veggies, and the chicken poop can be a fantastic source of nitrogen for your plants)

In the other corners you'd have about 4 total sheep or goats. This gets tricky, because you can protect your garden from them with wire or something and let them have the full garden to move around in, with a fenced bed shed area in a corner, and that alone miiiiight be enough space for two, depending on your courtyard size and breed of sheep/goat. (let your chickens out around the garden too)

But for 4ish sheep or goats you'll probably need to give them access to some other outdoor area somehow. Ideally you'd maximize their usage and combine their need for exercise/enrichment with an avenue of value and source of food by getting the city to rent you and your goats or sheep as foliage control instead of hiring teams of dudes with weed-wackers - this is better for the city because the goats and sheep eat the weed's seeds while the weed-wackers actually act as seed dispersal for a lot of the plants they are used on.

If you get creative you can probably grow a chunk of their food requirements in your garden without sacrificing toooooo much space, and if combined with rental as foliage control their food costs should stay low, and, like the fish and the chickens they give manure back to the garden.

This gets you access to milk, cream, butter, cheese, yogurt etc. Wool if you pick sheep. And, depending on how you manage them and how you feel about it, the occasional supply of red meat.

Antonio Campana Beaufontaine

Age: 31

Gender: Cismale

Pronouns: he/him

Marjorie Sojournborne

Gender: Ciswoman

Pronouns: she/her

Age: 29

Hello Villagers!

I have finished my newest Wallpaper and Calendar set, available on Gumroad now!

It's an Animal Crossing Calendar with 12 wallpapers, 2 homescreens and 28 icons in a journaling theme 💚