Sandra wrote:
>I have not had a lot of success growing food plants indoors. The
>main limiting factor seems to be humidity rather than light for me.
>I'd make the first attributes I would look for in edible plants for
>indoor growing to be ability to survive low humidity and cramped
>roots.
Yes, food plants seem to have evolved (with our help) to need
a high performance environment. The common houseplants are
often from very harsh environments and do not waste time
producing edible parts. This would explain the narrow scope
of most books on houseplants.
I wonder what would happen if we began searching for edible
houseplants and encouraging adaption. Would it be possible
to develop something called "house ecology"? I know.. this
probably sounds bizarre or impractical, but why not? We have
these totally artificial homes that keep getting more
mechanized each day. What would happen if we began to
reverse the trend?
I suspect our culture becomes less ecological due to
attitudes more than the reality of this world. For example,
most of us believed that plants added mold and humidity to
the air in homes. It now looks like this is a myth. When we
did begin to test houseplants the results were strange. The
humidity did rise but sometimes the air also became cleaner.
How many of our other assumptions need closer inspection? We
know that many artificial materials out-gas and are not
healthy. Our waste systems are not ecological and become a
bigger problem each day. The common attitude is that we need
sanitary systems to control disease. This attitude is now
slowly being converted into myth. Things like integral
composting and worms may be able to deal with wastes and do a
better job than our sewers.
jeff (preparing to fill the house with plants, first is a bay tree).
