Amen to that! The only way I can get rid of the stuff is to hack it out with a mattock, prybar and shovel.

I have more golden bamboo (Phyllostachys aurea) than I need at the moment. It makes great bean/pea/cucumber poles. With the right kind of fiber to join lengths of cane you could build complete trellises, seedling tray racks etc etc.

There are species that get MUCH larger than P. aurea. You're talkin' boatbuilding and building materials with some of that stuff. It'd be a handy thing to have growing if you've the space and climate.

[quote="Shannymara"]
As for getting rid of unwanted bamboo, my in-laws suggested pouring concrete over the area! [quote]

Not the same plant, but I had friends that were doing some remodeling and changes outside their house, and poured sidewalk over some rhubarb plants. The next year the rhubarb came back, cracking the sidewalk, and growing up through the cracks. I'm not sure if bamboo is that tenacious, having no experience with it, but from what I here, some varieties might be!

Most bamboos I know of will easily split concrete. They can separate a 6 inch slab and shove it a few inches in a few years.

I wonder what the burning characteristics of bamboo in any sort of stove are like? It seems to have some coppicing potential. Once established and of a minimum critical size, it is wickedly prolific. Most varieites have "saw grass" like leaves that will serve as a physical deterrent to anyone not wearing long sleeves, pants, gloves and a hood. It makes a great barrier and windscreen for both movement and privacy.

Oh my! Supplemental lighting for greenhouses: High Intensity Discharge.

For me, going to get this for current apartment indoor winter growning 8x8 with large glass door exposure. Also going to enhance with light redirecting mirrors. Summer, spring, fall, balconey more than doubles growing. Will get this all set up (much stuff growing now) within a month. Then move (and keep apartment). Just experimental to see that apartment can produce alot of vegetable/herbs for consumption year round. I experiment and prove what can be done and it is also a back up.

http://www.advancegreenhouses.com/why_u ... dening.htm

Looking into a bit of light redirecting including optical fiber to route light indoors, as well as mirror capturing/redirecting.

These HID's probably do the trick. Pick under $200 or under $300.

http://www.littlegreenhouse.com/accessory/lights2.shtml

Just jabbering some notes on apartment growing - might help a newbie like myself. (Actually I did a bit of gardening as a child and teenager, as my mother never gave up her farm depression habits of growing and preserving everything - even in the midst of prosperity - I even picked up about 7 jars of preserves she left - died over a year ago plus some manual processing tools of produce).

So for small city dwellers, some tips:

1) Find a pile of ready made compost - in my case a big pile of composted wood stuff at a land preparing to be made into housing lots - bull dozed good stuff into a large pile. Now I know to get some chicken wire sifter to just get the fine particle stuff - sort of like pure peat moss.

2) Planters should at minimum, be NOT heavy. Being light is better. Don't fill even 1/2 with heavy soil. 80-90% light peat moss like / sawdust like / vacuum cleaner fluf like light weight compost. Like they do at nurseries when they sell seedlings. LIGHT weight.

3) Do not over water - especially if you made the mistake of too much heavy soil. Digging out heavy soil out of planters (around growing stuff now), I see how water logged even twice a week watering made it. Now max once per week, and not heavy watering. Try and drought your plants out if you can - you won't.

4) If you are really low budget, you really can get alot of stuff growing in (easily found now, hard to find later) cardboard boxes lined with grocery plastic bags. I bought good plastic planters, but will now use the above to save money for time being, better spent elsewhere. Get a tub, chicken wire sifter and you get for free 90% to 100% of peat moss like planting material. Only need to get the seeds as an expense - maybe you figure a way to do that for free also.

5) Mirrors can double the light on plants. I don't even need mirrors, much less an HID for my southern exposure situation - even in winter in my northern climate, but mirrors are energy efficient - no electric bill.

6) Just do and learn. I've already figured to double planting space in smaller overall layout. I'm figuring what else to grow, because I have the space. And that's not counting doubling that doubled space when spring arrives and the balcony is availabe. Not heavy weight - light weight, so no problem.

It is all doable for a fairly productive amount of year round gardening for maybe $100 expense? Maybe $1,000 if you go for the gusto and get all nice planters and a supply of miracle grow, soil, store bought adjustable shelving, etc.

Next project is to find easily available source of high-mineral rich rock dust or volcanic dust, for a high mineral enrichment sprinkling.

Scratch that DOUBLED growing space. And scratch buying store bought shelving for plants. From materials gathered from 2 dumpsters, good shelving boards, light weight, I disassembled and saved all screws, hinges, etc. from discarded closet folding / opening doors for a future use. Found the perfect bar for hanging plants. Trying to figure how to make something stable that cannot be knocked over and voila!

Invented (using Buckminster Fuller principles) the A-Frame shelving which is stable enough for me to do a pull up on. However it created another problem, in that I have now approximately doubled yet again the growing space. Moved most of the growing planters into bedroom with only 4' by 4' window and this A-frame with mirrors on the inside side will reflect full overhead light onto plants. Extra light captured on sides, etc. And since I work weekend nights every other weekend part time job, this sucker will be bright inside the growing area but only ambient light over the top. I could grow 7 or 7 1/2' trees there if I wanted. Who says stuff can't be done. Probably in my nice 1 bedroom apartment, I will end up with quadruple back up food systems, only 1 alone could sustain me for months.

Everything just nearby, making good use of it all and my inventive engineering mind lucking onto accidental 2 birds with one stone discoveries. Thoroughly do I enjoy this so much, I may just stay in the damned apartment - getting attached to all and any land, greenhouse domes, etc. is for other people's needs.

Everything is doable by disassembling and re-assembling for maximized use. All do-able anywhere - especially if I figure it out and provide instructions.

Regarding greenhouses, I suspect the proper order of effective design would be in order: Geodesic dome, pyramid, A-frame and then the conventional designs - boxes, etc.

Another ready-made invention for apartment / home / greenhouse growing is the box spring. Grabbed one outta the dumpster, ripped off the outer covering and I would swear it is a perfectly designed wire mesh (to be elevated say 5') system for holding 2-3 planter boxes growing cucumbers / zucchini / melons (year round). It is light and doesn't block light, wire mesh holds the goods, though I suspect those produce will create quite a canopy that will block light from above, so I has to be sure with the mirror system, that plenty of light gets to the 5' below it layer of other food crop.

Mirrors are a critical component. Probably I'll end up spending $250-300 for a bunch of ($7) door mirrors. All this will be 4 season (or 2 season?) indoor availability. A bit larger wider-base A-frame for that one in front of a 6' x 6.5' sliding glass door.

Luckily I have 2 part time, easy, boring jobs and lots of in between time. This preparing for post-PO, I can get quite a workout, drinking coffee and skipping many meals as I get into it so much.

I bot a bunch of 10 cents a pack seeds (and 25 cents and $1) from Walmart. May not be heirloom, but I already spent $60 on a bunch of heirloom herbs and vegie seeds in addition to organic vegies / fruits / herbs which I also gather seeds and have some growing right now.

With all the increased growing capacity, I'm figuring what else do I wanna grow, because I got the space and technology available.

Anyone ever hear of an Eathbox? I think this could be an interesting modification for container growing. It would certainly work for indoor growing space. Here's a llink to a homemade one.

I would look at the dimensions and use the center of the lid, which they jsut throw away as the inside layer so that you only have to use one container instead of using two and chopping one up.

Well it is interesting to look at building an earth box. I would probably just buy a bunch, depending upon my available time and finances.

As far as growing inside homes, I will sometime probably within the next month show how any household contains most of the buidling materials in home. But I would recommend buying extra mirrors, plastic planter pots and the long planters, along with a large store of seeds, soil and much more ready to use mulch. Also I consider mineral rich additives to be of great importance, as the un-natural farming methods were shown as early as the 1930's to be lacking in food production with good mineral content. We've been eating depleted vegetable (and meats?) food for decades.

This part needs to be addressed. Minerals for the soil and the food it produces. Google and otherwise research it. Get the wide variety of minerals back into the soil, which has been leached out by bad practices.

Well do and learn. Now I know perlite is what was needed for indoors growing.

http://www.schundler.com/using.htm

Less than 2 months at it, and I'm setting up for maximum growing... experimenting still, but some perlite goes into every planter now - especially having transplanted some out and looking at the soggy oxegen-starved stuff in the pot. Plus it is volcanic material - probably contains a good mix of minerals.

Eeks! I don't know how this is all going to work out, but I keep on this apartment bio-intensive growing thing, and though I used largely free materials, most anyone can access, I do buy pots, perlite, mirrors and some peat moss - I keep buying more and more than my imagination can think possible for use.

I still keep coming up with designs that if I weren't limited to materials I pulled out for free, would... I seem to be headed towards a design product for 2 window situations - something I may submit for manufacturing by wood product / furniture manufacturer locally, if big finances come thru. I'm also thinking I'm nuts pursuing this to the maximum... either that or my something in my spirit knows this has to be done or else.

I know now that I have no essential need to move from apartment. I have plans to purchase would be natural wooded lots set for houses that I think not a one will be built. For me to use for green houses though - only 1/3 or less mile away - easy walk. Also I can rent a garage for storage.

I dare not look in the plentiful overflowing dumpsters, because I have the policy of waste not, want not, and also the yoga philosophy of being satisfied with whatever comes to one. Therefore, I save and find a use for anything I have grabbed. It alway seems to appear. But I'm approaching maximum. I'm not hungry and don't eat much and I'm going to have to sell or give away produce and other stuff. It all keeps multiplying on me.

OK, I take a break and do the math. It will not be possible in a couple of months for others to duplicate my bio-intensive designs, in full. But it can be done in part, maybe 1/3 (?) of the production I can achieve.

For a 1 bedroom apartment, facing south (in northern central US), with sliding window doors and bedroom 4x4' window, about 200 square feet of mirrors are required - about 50 door sized cheapo mirrors from Walmart is about $300. In a couple of months this will be near impossible to obtain or afford. To get the remaining 30-35 mirrors, I call Walmart and tell them I have a project, so replenish your inventory by 35 mirrors + whatever you want in stock for normal use.

Not do-able by the average person, as I cleared the local Walmart out of several items, including boxed up, yet-to-be put out stuff. If you are a bit ahead of the curve, you need that mirror stuff most for intensive growing, along with peat moss and perlite. Next in importance are planting plastic pots and long planters. The rest you can scrounge up from discarded-by-others stuff.

For most, apparently, who do implement when seen to be needed, it will be barely getting by. But 1/3 production is better than nothing.

I'll be starting on my greenhouse later in the year after I get the garden in for this summer. I have scavenged 30-40 sets of double planed glass in various sizes just from my neighborhood in Warsaw. I could easily fill a warehouse with all the windows set out for trash from the older block houses as people upgrade to more energy efficient windows. Note: I may actuallt do this if I can convince a neighbot in the village we are building in to let me use her barn for this purpose.

I am at the moment planning on building a greenhouse about 4x6m (13x20 sq ft). After seeing how heavy the glass and wood frames are, I am thinking about using some sort of clear plastic for the roof, Lighter on the south side, darker on the north. Thanks for all the ideas about insulating the north wall and putting some black water barrels alomg the north wall. I also like the compost idea.... I have enough scrap wood to build the frame.

As I mentioned in the general Gardening thread, I currently have an unfinished sunroom that I will be using this year as a green house to get things started.

peace..