Monday, 2 January 2012
Cob house
Here is a link to a person who is building a cob house - they have some posts about it http://sculptingearth.wordpress.com/category/environmentsustainability/the-evolving-dream/natural-building/
Monday, 26 December 2011
Wild Foraging - enjoy nettle soup, rose petal syrup, bambles and poor mans potatoes....
Hedgerow by John Wright is a good read if you enjoy food :D I bought this book a year or two ago and was having a early morning Boxing day read, next to our cozy fireplace, with the winter wind storm howling outside.
Its all about "Wild Foraging" - which is collecting your food from nature ...a traditional, age old, hunter, gatherer skill.
Obviously the fruits of the hunt vary from region to region, country to country but the more that one learns about useful 'weeds' which are easy to grow, without pesticides and tasty to boot - the sooner you too can be enjoying your hunt.
Each year, we personally enjoy yummy treats like nettle soup, rose petal syrup, bambles and poor mans potatoes. You can grow your own from slips etc, just be absolutely certain with your identification!
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
More on Earthships
Source: greenheadmoss.org.uk
Source: Wikipedia
Source: vector1media.com
What is an earthship?
An Earthship is an alternative method of building. An earthship is often created out of recycled materials such as tyres. Although it has become a type of passive solar house made of natural and recycled materials. Earthships also usually incorporate their own special natural ventilation
Earthships are now also formally designed and marketed by several companies such as Earthship Biotecture of Taos, New Mexico.
They are still generally made of earth-filled tyres and thermal mass construction naturally regulates indoor temperature. They also usually have their own special natural ventilation system.
Earthships are generally Off-the-grid homes, minimizing their reliance on public utilities and fossil fuels.
Earthships are built to utilize the available local resources, especially energy from the sun. For example, windows on sun-facing walls admit lighting and heating, and the buildings are often horseshoe-shaped to maximize natural light and solar-gain during winter months. The thick, dense inner walls provide thermal mass that naturally regulates the interior temperature during both cold and hot outside temperatures.
Internal, non-load-bearing walls are often made of a honeycomb of recycled cans joined by concrete and are referred to as tin can walls. These walls are usually thickly plastered with stucco.
The roof of an Earthship is heavily insulated – often with earth or adobe – for added energy efficiency.
History
The Earthship, as it exists today, began to take shape in the 1970s.
Mike Reynolds, founder of Earthship Biotecture, a company that specializes in designing and building Earthships, wanted to create a home that would do three things; first, it would be sustainable architecture, using material indigenous to the entire planet as well as recycled materials wherever possible. Second, the homes would rely on natural energy sources and be independent from the “grid”, therefore being less susceptible to natural disasters and free from the electrical and water lines that Reynolds considered unsightly and wasteful. Finally, it would be economically feasible for the average person with no specialized construction skills to be able to create.
Source
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Source: practicalenvironmentalist.com
earthship.co.nz
treehugger.com
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
Water-less Toilet Systems !
Why do people get queasy when the subjects of toilets come up? Its a natural body function and water - based toilet systems pollute huge volumes of water unnecessarily. Imagine that with a world population of 7 billion!
We, personally successfully used a compost toilet system for 2 years on our small farm. It was virtually oudorless too. We used sawdust as a sprinkling on top each time.
There are a variety of water-less toilet systems. I have seen some that seperate solid and liquid waste and use the liquid waste for ammonia/urea.
A friend posted this link on her fb page, so if you are interested, have a look here too: http://www.loowatt.com/
Others are:
http://files.uniteddiversity.com/Permaculture/Compost_Toilets_and_Permaculture_Design_Principles.pdf
http://www.separett.com/
http://www.rotaloo.co.uk/
http://www.lowimpact.org/factsheet_compost_toilets.htm
http://www.ecoethic.ca/products_wl.html
http://www.clivusmultrum.com.au/
http://www.sunfrost.com/composting_toilets.html
Courses: http://www2.cat.org.uk/shortcourses/index.php?cPath=3_14&gclid=CIKEvv7J8KwCFQMPfAodjH9tLg
We, personally successfully used a compost toilet system for 2 years on our small farm. It was virtually oudorless too. We used sawdust as a sprinkling on top each time.
There are a variety of water-less toilet systems. I have seen some that seperate solid and liquid waste and use the liquid waste for ammonia/urea.
A friend posted this link on her fb page, so if you are interested, have a look here too: http://www.loowatt.com/
Others are:
http://files.uniteddiversity.com/Permaculture/Compost_Toilets_and_Permaculture_Design_Principles.pdf
http://www.separett.com/
http://www.rotaloo.co.uk/
http://www.lowimpact.org/factsheet_compost_toilets.htm
http://www.ecoethic.ca/products_wl.html
http://www.clivusmultrum.com.au/
http://www.sunfrost.com/composting_toilets.html
Courses: http://www2.cat.org.uk/shortcourses/index.php?cPath=3_14&gclid=CIKEvv7J8KwCFQMPfAodjH9tLg
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
Planting out
We spent the afternoon planting out a few of our little seedlings. We planted some naturtiums, beans and gooseberries and some tomatoes - all seedlings. This year we tried something we saw at our local polytunnel project:
toilet rolls cut in half and placed in a long germination box (instead of the plastic trays). We felt the plastic trays are not strong enough to last more than a season and then they just become a waste product as they cant be reused so we felt that using the toilet rolls was a recycling project.
The one problem we did have though was that they seemed to cause? a bit of mould but the seedlings recovered and we seemed to get it under control. This did not happen when we planted in other seedling trays.
Not sure what we will acheive this year as the past two years there were way to many slugs, snails and the wind was too harsh even in the short summer season for anything to grow. As we dont use any form of pesticides we are at a loss of what to do. We also had trouble with neighbour hood cats burying their business in our seed boxes. Because the soil is so poor, mostly beach sand below the grass we use compost and bagged soil in recycled fisherman trays. We use odd pieces of fishermans nets that wash up on the beach in storms to cover these trays and protect them from the neighbourhood cats.
It works quite well and we have quite a few herbs and onions and chives that are now about 3 years old growing very well in them. We also have a recycled tyre tower which we fill with manure and compost during the winter and then plant potatoes in them in the summer. Last year we grew quite a few.....
We also have a couple of herbs and veges growing on the more protected front porch. We have managed to grow celery from bottom offcuts, onions the same way and have time, mint, sage, an apple tree, a blackthorn berry tree, strawberry planter and a few others crammed in there with some willow cuttings in a big pot besides.
It really is proving to be difficult growing things in this climate of very short, windy summers. Luckily we have a suplus of horse manure that we have access to from our ponies and also ample cattle dropping from the common grazings (which are writhing with earthworms) so thing should inprove. Its just a process and time passes by.
toilet rolls cut in half and placed in a long germination box (instead of the plastic trays). We felt the plastic trays are not strong enough to last more than a season and then they just become a waste product as they cant be reused so we felt that using the toilet rolls was a recycling project.
The one problem we did have though was that they seemed to cause? a bit of mould but the seedlings recovered and we seemed to get it under control. This did not happen when we planted in other seedling trays.
Not sure what we will acheive this year as the past two years there were way to many slugs, snails and the wind was too harsh even in the short summer season for anything to grow. As we dont use any form of pesticides we are at a loss of what to do. We also had trouble with neighbour hood cats burying their business in our seed boxes. Because the soil is so poor, mostly beach sand below the grass we use compost and bagged soil in recycled fisherman trays. We use odd pieces of fishermans nets that wash up on the beach in storms to cover these trays and protect them from the neighbourhood cats.
It works quite well and we have quite a few herbs and onions and chives that are now about 3 years old growing very well in them. We also have a recycled tyre tower which we fill with manure and compost during the winter and then plant potatoes in them in the summer. Last year we grew quite a few.....
We also have a couple of herbs and veges growing on the more protected front porch. We have managed to grow celery from bottom offcuts, onions the same way and have time, mint, sage, an apple tree, a blackthorn berry tree, strawberry planter and a few others crammed in there with some willow cuttings in a big pot besides.
It really is proving to be difficult growing things in this climate of very short, windy summers. Luckily we have a suplus of horse manure that we have access to from our ponies and also ample cattle dropping from the common grazings (which are writhing with earthworms) so thing should inprove. Its just a process and time passes by.
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