Growing Food when the Oil Runs Out

[Peter Goodchild]

[quote="biffvernon"]I gave up at the post Peak Oil wheelbarrow that doesn't have pneumatic tyres (aka tires). I'm mean, its not as if rubber grows on trees, is it?

Here in sunny Irondale, Ontario, if I have a puncture in a wheelbarrow tire, I have to have all the necessary materials to fix it. Either that, or drive 45 minutes to the nearest good-sized town to get a new tire. But in any case, the pneumatic tires that are sold on most wheelbarrows aren?t really fixable. You just have to buy a new one. As with so many products in our ?disposable? age.

So in a PO situation, it makes more sense to be owing a wheelbarrow with a tire that?s solid rubber, not an inflatable tire. It took a while for me to find a solid-rubber tire that would fit on my present wheelbarrow, but I got one at last.

That was my only point in those four words, ?with a non-pneumatic tire.?

As with the other 5,000 words in that essay, what I?m writing is based on several years of working at a 1.2-acre vegetable garden here at 45N 78W, combined with the reading of a great mountain of books on gardening, nutrition, and so on. I leave fantasy writing to more-gifted minds.

But I think the tussle over ?non-pneumatic tires? may be due to a feeling that the word ?pneumatic? means ?rubber.? It doesn?t. It means ?inflatable? ? from a Greek word meaning ?air.?

Britain seems to be in a PB (post-book) era, not a PO one. I could send a dictionary by email, if necessary.

I?m not really very concerned about ?scoring points? in these arguments, however. If you score a thousand points in the Internet debating games, you?re still going to be in sorry shape one day if you?ve never learned a few simple survival tricks ? starting with a packet of seeds and a few gardening tools.

But on a slightly friendlier note (it IS Christmas, bah humbug), I?m always willing to pass along information I?ve come up with, regarding country living, and of course I?m always interested in hearing of the rural adventures of others.

PG

[Norm]

I gave up at the post Peak Oil wheelbarrow that doesn't have pneumatic tyres (aka tires). I'm mean, its not as if rubber grows on trees, is it?

Here in sunny Irondale, Ontario, if I have a puncture in a wheelbarrow tire, I have to have all the necessary materials to fix it. Either that, or drive 45 minutes to the nearest good-sized town to get a new tire. ......

So would you then try and aquire a bycycle with solid tyres?