303 Vertical Gardening for Small Spaces
"There are wonderful ideas for what people are doing, working with small spaces. There's lots to get you excited about growing -- anywhere." Stephen Hindrichs shows three approaches to growing vertically in limited space in his backyard garden. One is a south-facing wall made from a wood pallet filled with soil held in with weed cloth. The second is a tower garden, an aeroponic system alternately drenching the plant roots with nutrient-filled water, and then air. Its yields are 5-6 times that of soil-based plants. The third is a DIY Barrel Garden. Stephen cut the top off a wine barrel, and drilled 40-50 holes in the sides for plants. In the middle is a mesh cylindrical tube where kitchen scraps are added, along with compost worms. Worms migrate into soil packed between the tube and the barrel sides, fertilizing and aerating. A pan below the barrel collects water so nutrients can be recycled.
304 What About Veganism?
"The more we take back our ancestral roots and eat the diet our ancestors ate, we go back to what is the most natural for our physiological makeup." The author of Primal Body, Primal Mind considers a short-term vegan diet excellent for detoxifying and anti-aging benefits. She notes, however, that human digestion isn't designed to make optimal use of an all-plant diet for the long term. There can be "significant compromise" to neurological function, because we require high fat levels from animal sources for optimal brain function. She cites studies of brain shrinkage for vegans and vegetarians, and her experience working with them using neurofeedback. "Many people eating a paleo approach to diet, and a lot of raw food vegans, have more in common than they don't have… We all want a sustainable, healthy, humanely-raised food supply."