Winter Farming Question

[kalos72]

I need some help.

I am having issues with the time line and making a Staten Island NY campaign work in the opening days of my campaign. My story line drops my group in NYC in Nov and needs to prepare for a larger military force to drop by end of Febuary or so.

I am trying to figure out how to feed a division landing in NYC come spring. Fishing of course but I need farms up and running come spring for food as well as fuel.

I was thinking the PC's could build "square foot farming" cold boxes, have a heating cord (wouldnt this just need to be a power cord under a simple metal half pipe or soemthing?) run under the soil powered by a bicycle. These boxes would be inside out of the elements. Could that sort of condition be possible to grow in?

I am trying to resolve the issue with a division landing in Spring and not getting any produced food until fall. How do I feed them for 3-4 months while my crops are growing? Hehe...

I am not looking for, other alternatives, as I am aware of most of the other options since I have been involved in this topic before on the board but more so how I could prepare Staten Island for the landing of a division size force come spring and have food production in progress.

[Cdnwolf]

Any abandon wharehouses or airplane hangers? Or the upper floors of apartment buildings? Just need to keep the temperature above 10C and plenty of light.

[kalos72]

Yes places to keep them out of the cold and in sunlight are there. Plus you can make the boxes mobile, in at night...out in the sun during the day.

[Legbreaker]

My guess is that fields in Europe were harvested just before the ships left. Therefore it's entirely possible the first six months food stocks for the evacuated soldiers was brought with them. This many also help explain why the enclaves did not begin to move as a whole until spring/early summer 2001.

I just can't see anyone giving up the crops they'd toiled over without making any effort to take the produce with them. Leaving it there would be a waste as with roughly 50k people gone, there's the possibility of an oversupply in Germany. This could cause further upheavals as civilians rush from the homes and shanties they'd occupied for the past several years in a desperate effort to secure their own little peice of paradise.

[kalos72]

Ok so how they are fed during the trip back and for the interim in Norfolk is clear.

Ok so the unit is fed for 6 months, but once they land in NYC, during winter, they will need to wait another 3-4 months until the next crops are ready for harvest yes?

So that means I need to start growing food, during winter in NYC to feed the unit after the initial 6 month supply runs out.

I know crap all bout farming, can you feasible plant crops in January in NYC, keeping them in cold boxes with a heating element, out of the elements and expect a decent yield come March/April? Would that technique work?

[Targan]

My suggestion consists of two words - Rat Farming.

[Legbreaker]

I don't know a lot about farming in colder regions, but I would think that planting on a large enough scale to support Omega isn't going to be possible until Spring - right about when it's decided to evacuate the area.
There could have been planting in autumn I suppose - I've heard of a technique where wheat and other grains are planted just before the first snows. The snow insulates the plants from the cold and allows the crop to get an early start when the snow thaws. But would there be sufficent manpower, tools and, lets face it, organisation to do that in late 2000?

It's possible the expected winter snowfalls were a bit light too, with not enough falling to sufficiently insulate the winter crop. It also means less spring run off filling dams for summer irrigation. The growing season may have only just started, but any experienced farmer could probably see the danger signs as early as Christmas.

[kalos72]

I am not talking about feeding Operation Omega. I am just talking bout feeding roughly 5000-6000 people that would be moving from Norfolk to NYC.

[Legbreaker]

Well, in that case you are talking Omega, or at least what's left of it plus the local inhabitants. If they're moving from Norfolk, first you need to sort out how the region is being fed (or not fed as the case may be). Once you've got that, then you can assess a smaller section of the population.

As I seem to be saying more and more, nothing happens in isolation.

[kalos72]

Leg - This unit is split from Norfolk and operates on its own once it lands in NYC. The local population will not be assisting the unit with food production.

The question is not anything more then can you grow a suitable food crop in a cold box for 2-3 months using a supplemental heating element as an additional heat source and expect to get decent yields come Spring?

[Legbreaker]

Ok, so if they're moving, they're not growing. They're restricted to whatever they could take from their starting point and whatever they can beg, borrow, and steal along the road.

In other words, the local populace is supporting them, it's just not necessarily consensual.

Now, can you grow food in winter? Yes, using greenhouses.
Is there likely to be any greenhouses available, or suitable clear materials to make them? Very unlikely - the place was nuked remember...

Heating the soil isn't going to be enough either. You need to protect the crops from frostbite. For that you need the aformentioned greenhouses or similar.

Unbroken glass or plastic sheeting could potentially be found outside of the Norfolk area, but you still need to transport it back. Rolls of plastic could be simply thrown on the back of a truck or wagon but glass is going to be problematic if a) the roads aren't in good condition, b) the glass has be be removed from existing windows and doors, and c) suitable transportation is unavailable.

[Webstral]

Farming in the mid-latitudes in winter is a tough prospect under the best of conditions. Heat isn't the only problem, though it's a tough enough problem to solve. The quality of light in mid-winter just isn't high enough to make most types of food production worth the effort. You can sprout seeds, because they don't need light. However, once the starch in the seed runs out, the plant has to have enough light to grow. New York in the winter just doesn't have enough light for long enough in the day for most food purposes.

This isn't to say that you couldn't do something worthwhile with enough planning and the right crop mix. However, arriving in mid-winter without the appropriate facilities, etc. in place is not a promising start to the effort. Even winter wheat doesn't really grow during the winter--it survives in hibernation. A force of 5000-6000 probably will need to requisition supplies from the locals.

Using a bicycle to heat a planting box to grow crops is probably represents a net energy loss. A windmill or a water wheel might be a better bet.

Greenhouses can extend the growing season significantly. This is especially true in locations where the late-season temperature is more of an issue than the quality of light. In southern New Hampshire, for instance, the growing season is in excess of 120 days, which is long enough for most crops. In Berlin, NH the growing season is less than 90 days. Greenhouses enable real-world gardeners to start their seeds early and, if the plants are kept indoors, harvest them later than would be possible outdoors. The best option for subsistence farming in marginal areas like Berlin, NH might be to start the seeds early, then get the sprouts into the ground right after the last killing frost occurs. The locals still would need a lot of greenhouses to start seedlings for the acreage to support 10,000 people, but the space demand for starting seedlings is a fraction of what would be necessary to keep the plants indoors past the first killing frost at the end of the season. Greenhouses don't grow on trees, so some sort of compromise between growing practices and infarstructure will have to be made.

Webstral

[kalos72]

Thanks Web, that hits the issue I was trying to discuss.

I didnt think of the sunlight during the Winter time as an issue, I only thought about the temp as the crucial factor. Greenhouses or cold boxes would be common since finding plasitc/windows/glass in the NYC area isnt going to be a problem, but making enough of them to feed a few thousand people during the middle of winter doesnt sound like an option.

Looks like fish stew and hardtack until the first crops come in. What is the growing season, like when do most people plant food and when does it get harvested?

Side note - I need to start a garden.

[Legbreaker]

I tend to disagee. Glass is going to be a huge problem.

Sure there's plenty of it around, but how much is going to have survived the effects of a nuke in one piece?

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Glass is going to be a huge problem.

Sure there's plenty of it around, but how much is going to have survived the effects of a nuke in one piece?

In some areas of New York City (we are talking about New York, aren't we?), glass will be entirely unavailable in the form that is required. Staten Island, which took the brunt of the effects of the New Jersey refinery strikes, probably will have little or no glass suitable for use in greenhouses. What glass might be found shouldn't be looked for, given the ongoing radiation hazard. According to Armies of the Night, those parts of Manhattan nearest the blast lost a bunch of glass, too.

By late 2000, a lot of ground floor windows also will be broken. I'm not in a position to say what percentage, which would vary condierably by neighborhood in any event. We should bear in mind, though, that New York City has become considerably more violent since 1997.

Nonetheless, windows above the first floor and away from southern Manhattan should be increasingly intact as one goes up. Obviously, the second story windows will receive a fair amount of whatever abuse falls on the ground floor windows. Nevertheless, I would expect an overall trend of lessening damage as one moves away from the ground. Turning this theoretically available glass into greenhouses is another matter.

Webstral

[kalos72]

Not to argue the realism of the option, just curios if it would work in RL...

What about artificial light? Can it provide the needed elements to allow food to develop?

[kato13]

Originally Posted by kalos72

Not to argue the realism of the option, just curios if it would work in RL...

What about artificial light? Can it provide the needed elements to allow food to develop?

In my games greenhouses were used primarily for exotic medicinal crops which would not survive in the outside environment.

In real life it could work but the scale and power requirements would be enormous per person fed. I wish I still had my notes from 7th grade when I helped a friend plan out a Biosphere type enclosure (for 24 people) for her science fair project.

In general if there was an economic or resource advantage to greenhouse production it would be much more common in areas with poor growing conditions. Greenhouses that are successful economically become so over the long term. Therefore a mad dash effort to construct them would lead to a very inefficient yield per hour of effort ratio for that first winter.

I like your desire to be self sufficient, but I think trade is going to be the answer for that first winter. No shame in that, Krakow trades for food .

[Matt W]

Well step 1 is protecting the only farm on Staten Island
http://www.tpl.org/tier3_cd.cfm?cont...&folder_id=631
(apologies if your research has already discovered this)

After that, you need to decide on crops. I'd suggest Kale. It's the traditional German solution to the problem of growing vegetables in Winter and the returning troops are probably familiar with it

Also, you could try to build plastic greenhouses (or rather "hoop houses"). These are a cheap, simple, low-tech way of growing food in winter.

BTW, Winter doesn't get REALLY cold in New York/Staten Island (same latitude as Madrid, Spain), so you shouldn't need to heat the hoop houses

The hoop houses will need a supply of plastic (not glass) - that might be the problem

Option 2: lots of 'cold frames' (small greenhouses). These are less efficient that the bigger hoop houses, but are simple to make: you just need some sort of transparent top: For this, I suggest using glass from vehicles: cars, trucks, buses (even subway trains) and/or transparent plastic from signs, bus shelters, buffet counter tops etcetera, etcetera

BTW, The Staten Island Zoo could be a good place to start farming (just hope that the reptile collection has been eaten rather than escaped)

For animal protein, your best bet is shellfish http://www.nrpa.com/clamming.htm

[Adm.Lee]

Maybe a spot you would want to secure would be a glass-recycling center. According to wikipedia, it takes less energy to recycle than to make from scratch. Should be lots of broken bits around to work with, right?

For that matter, a glass-making operation sounds pretty important. Windows for insulation and greenhouses, bottles & jars for food storage.

[Legbreaker]

This site has some interesting information life support and food production in closed systems.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3g.html