Can Farmland Grow Food Without Electricity? Inside Euladora Rose's Project Aster 2.0
Project Aster is a multi-year experiment testing whether previously unused farmland can support meaningful food production with no electricity, no mechanization and minimal external inputs. It is run by Minnesota artist and designer Euladora Rose on her family's undeveloped, marginal land in Taunton, Minnesota. The 2026 results are still being collected, so this article explains how the test is built and what the site data already shows, not a final verdict.
Aster is one project in a practice that spans fine art, architecture and design, and this post focuses only on it.
What Is Project Aster?
Aster began as a question about food security during COVID-19, when Euladora was ten, and became a field experiment in 2024. Her write-up on the Project Aster 2.0 page describes it as a mix of agriculture, soil science, geospatial analysis, environmental observation and system design. Instead of asking only what can grow, it asks how land, labor, water, soil and crop choice interact when resources are deliberately limited.
| Aster 1.0 (2024) | Aster 2.0 (2026) | |
|---|---|---|
| Approach | Hand-prepared plots, crops tested across the terrain, a simple off-grid shelter | A structured field experiment with separated variables |
| What it taught | Problems with deer, weeds, labor and crop establishment | Which variables to isolate: site, soil, crop placement, water retention, external inputs and human labor |
The failures of the first season are what shaped the second. That is a useful lesson for anyone starting a low-input garden or farm: the first year mainly reveals your constraints.
Why Does Marginal Land Matter?
The Aster page lists the land as undeveloped and marginal, meaning ground with limits that make conventional farming difficult. Those limits usually include steep slopes, low fertility or poor water holding. This hillside shows some of them: a 23% upper plot, a severe phosphorus shortfall and runoff that carries rain downhill.
Testing food production here asks a harder question than testing it on good farmland, which makes the findings more informative whichever way they turn out.
How Was the Site Analyzed?
Before choosing crops, Euladora used LiDAR-derived elevation data, field observations and solar modeling to study the hillside's topography, drainage, exposure and ecological pressure. LiDAR is a laser-based survey method that maps ground shape.
The two main plots sit on very different terrain:
Lower plot: about 5% slope
Upper plot: about 23% slope
Both: strong southern to southwestern sun exposure
With sun exposure similar across both plots, the page points to water movement, wildlife pressure and soil conditions as what varies across the hillside. If you want a similar check on your own land, the USGS 3D Elevation Program offers free, open elevation data, mostly from lidar, across the United States.
What Do the Soil Tests Show?
Both experimental plots tested at an alkaline pH of 7.9 and only 8 ppm phosphorus, compared with 41 ppm in a nearby farm-field sample. Potassium also differed substantially between the upper and lower plots.
| Measure | Experimental plots | Nearby farm field |
|---|---|---|
| Soil pH | 7.9 (both plots) | Not reported |
| Phosphorus | 8 ppm (both plots) | 41 ppm |
| Potassium | Differed between upper and lower plot | Not reported |
Euladora's reading is that the soil wasn't structurally poor but chemically constrained, with severe phosphorus deficiency and evidence of nutrient redistribution along the slope. Those results guided crop placement and set a baseline for testing soil treatments.
A practical note: alkaline soil can lock phosphorus into forms plants struggle to use. University of Minnesota Extension says calcium-bound phosphorus becomes a concern above about pH 7.3, and that the Olsen test is the one to use when pH is above 7.4. Because labs use different methods, 8 ppm and 41 ppm are only directly comparable if both samples were tested the same way.
How Were Crops Chosen?
Crops were scored on caloric output, nutrition, storage, resilience, nitrogen demand, labor intensity, growth cycle and fit with different parts of the site. The final mix pairs calorie-producing staples with protein, micronutrient, storage and resilient crops.
The goal isn't maximum yield from one star crop. It's a food system that keeps producing when parts of it fail. Spreading risk across crops with different strengths is the same logic used in resilient system design, and it's a common gap in beginner plans that depend on one crop.
How Is the Experiment Laid Out?
Higher-demand crops go mainly in the gentler lower plot, while more resilient crops are tested on the steeper upper plot. Within the plots, control areas are compared with natural fertilizer and biochar treatments. Biochar is a charcoal-like material made by heating plant matter with little oxygen, used as a soil amendment.
Perimeter planting, fencing, hay mulch and crop placement all respond directly to the deer, weed and labor problems of 2024:
Perimeter planting and fencing around the plots
Hay mulch across the growing areas
Crop placement matched to each part of the site
Rather than removing every constraint, the experiment tests whether a system can be designed around them.
How Does a Contour Berm Help?
A contour berm is a low ridge of soil built along a slope's contour line to slow runoff and help water soak in. On sloped ground, rain tends to run downhill instead of staying available to crops. Aster 2.0 builds a contour-based berm into the 23% upper plot and compares bermed and non-bermed areas to measure differences in soil moisture and eventual crop performance.
It needs no pump, no electricity and no machinery, which is exactly the constraint the project sets. The comparison design matters too: without a non-bermed area, any improvement could just be a good year.
What Is Being Measured in 2026?
Aster tracks five outcomes: mass yield, caloric output, survivability, labor and resilience.
Mass yield: how much is harvested
Caloric output: how much usable food energy that provides
Survivability: how many plants make it through, accounting for real crop loss
Labor: the human effort required
Resilience: how the system holds up when parts fail
The page makes a point worth remembering: a successful harvest doesn't necessarily mean a successful system. A crop that needs excessive labor or outside resources may perform poorly under Aster's constraints.
What Happens Next?
The 2026 growing cycle and analysis are still in progress. The final analysis will compare upper and lower plots, control and amended soils, and bermed and non-bermed areas. It will also look at how much usable food is produced relative to the labor required.
Longer term, Euladora plans to expand the dataset, add statistical modeling, increase replication and test the system in different environments, and to keep treating labor as a design problem through more efficient hand tools. Results are being added to the project page as the 2026 harvest and analysis are completed.
What Can Home Growers Learn From Aster's Method?
Aster is a research project, not a how-to guide, and its results aren't in yet. Its method still offers a few habits that off-grid growers, small farmers and home gardeners can borrow:
Test the soil before choosing crops. Both Aster plots showed a phosphorus shortfall, and that result shaped crop placement. At high pH, ask the lab which phosphorus test it runs.
Keep a control area. Without untreated ground to compare against, you can't tell whether biochar, fertilizer or a berm made the difference.
Plan for the pests and weeds you will meet. Fencing, perimeter planting and hay mulch were added because of what went wrong in 2024.
Record labor hours next to harvest weight. Effort is part of the cost of food.
Spread risk across several crops. One failure then costs a share of the harvest, not all of it.
Local soil, climate and wildlife differ, so for advice on your own land, check with your regional extension service.
Why Does Aster Matter for Design?
Aster treats a hillside as a system, where slope, sun, water, soil, plants and human effort all affect one another. Changing one variable shifts the others, so the constraints have to be mapped before a solution is drawn. That is also how good buildings and landscapes get planned, and it is one reason a project about farming sits naturally beside Euladora's work in fine art, architecture and design.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Project Aster is a multi-year experiment by Euladora Rose testing whether previously unused farmland can support meaningful food production with no electricity, no mechanization and minimal external inputs. It started in 2024 and is now in its structured 2.0 phase in Taunton, Minnesota.
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Removing power and machinery isolates one question: how far can human labor, natural inputs and the resources already in the landscape take you if you want to grow food without electricity? It also shows how much effort replaces the equipment modern farming usually relies on.
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A contour berm is a low soil ridge built along a slope's contour line. It slows rainwater so more of it soaks in. In Aster 2.0 it is built into the steeper upper plot and compared against non-bermed areas.
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Both plots tested at pH 7.9 with 8 ppm phosphorus, against 41 ppm in a nearby farm field. Euladora describes the soil as chemically constrained, with severe phosphorus deficiency, rather than structurally poor.
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No. The 2026 data collection and analysis are still in progress, and results are being added as measurements are completed.
Key Takeaways
Aster tests whether marginal, unused land can produce food with no electricity or machines.
Aster 1.0's problems (deer, weeds, labor, crop establishment) shaped the structure of Aster 2.0.
Phosphorus was 8 ppm in both plots against 41 ppm in a nearby field.
A contour berm in the upper plot is tested against non-bermed areas.
Success is judged on five measures, not yield alone, and results are still in progress.
Have a question about Aster, or want to talk about the research? You can reach Euladora through her contact page.
