The mycelium is running!

These are some of the fungus's that are fruiting in the three month old sheet mulch I have laid over my front lawn. I was terribly excited to see mushrooms in the garden because 

1) Reading Mycelium running by Paul Stamets will turn you into a full blown fungus fan and

2) Fungi are the 'teeth of the soil'. Their presence in the garden means that humus is being created and that their is life in the soil. The fungi are the decomposers of ecosystems and they are important in turning death into new life. Fuck yeah

So far I have only seen these two types of fungus, but I cannot wait to see what else will pop up over time in my very first ever forest garden...

The sprouts all around are from a broadcast of seed to build the soil, shade the soil and give me something to eat; obtain a yeild! I have sown: Alfalfa (nitrogen-fixing, edible), Mustard (edible, build soil with root mass), Dandelion (healthiest vegetable ever tested by US Dept. Food and agriculture, nutrient accumulator, remedies soil compaction) and Garlic (just for kicks) among others.

I had never seen this peculiar fungus but was so stoked to see it I jumped right ouf the car all excited. I probably have seen it before I was a fungus fan actually, but just never acknowledged it.

Wicking Bed/Self-watering container

 Here is an easy garden project that once set up doesn’t need much maintenance. We were inspired to do this after seeing the lettuces my sister was growing and were lamenting the fact that we didn’t have any fresh salad greens growing. So using some scavenged materials we put together a wicking bed, a salad garden that waters itself.

Plants do really well in these because of the constant access to moisture they enjoy. This means plants never suffer water stress making their growth vigorous and more pest/disease resistant. Leafy greens do really well and plants that need extra attention are not a problem when grown in wicking beds. As with any plants in containers though, nutrients need to be added over time. To address this problem I thought I would put some “worm towers” (mini worm farms) in the corners and see what happens. I just put a handful of worms from my worm bin in with some scraps and shredded newspaper. I could go on forever about the benefits of wicking beds but let’s just get stuck into it, shall we?

To make one of these you need:

Some kind of container, imagine a plant pot but without the drainage holes- the bigger the better

A drill or other holemaking thing

Some soil

Some seeds or plants

A length of PVC pipe (optional)

A fat length of PVC pipe for worm towers (optional) with 2 lids for the pipes

Some gravel or rocks

Fill your container to about half with the rocks or gravel.

The PVC pipe may be inserted here to use a refill tube. Watering in this fashion may prevent some degree of nutrient leaching from soil.  

Then lay down some sort of permeable barrier, we used old hessian from my pallet garden but I have heard that shade cloth or a thin layer sand works.

This permeable layer allows water to leach into the soil and plant roots and prevents the soil from washing into the rocks.

 Drill a hole in the side of your container for an overflow. This hole will mark the high water level, it needs to be level with the rocks.

Now put soil in and plant.



Drainage holes in wormtowers for worms and their poos and wees to move into the soil.

Mulched and planted with brahmi, chives and seeded with salad greens

Sadly our container buckled and began to sag on the sides because it was old and weak in places. The buckling hasn’t affected the bed much; it just looks ugly. Watering is done very occasionally, using a dipstick in the refill tube can be useful.

Happy Gardening!



What I am reading...

A DIY mentality and a small concern about the future of civilisation have led me to research all kinds of things. After a while the impression is gotten that I absolutely need to know how to do everything! Well Jackie French does and she is the bomb! Robert Heinlein said something once about specialisation being for insects. A man needs to know a great many things. However, how does one remember everything that one has read? How does make the most out of reading? And how does one manage to study for a degree without disturbingly unbalanced levels of stress?

The answer: Tony Buzan.

What a flippin’ revelation! Buzan comes through early in his book ‘Use Your Head’ with some big calls. He says things like he’s gonna show you how to unleash your mind, give you a ‘Swiss army knife for your brain’, show you the way to greater memory and make studying any subject a breeze. Sounds pretty good, but, come on…

However, after reading the book I am sold on all he has to say. He is a legend. He is the guy who created MindMaps, a concept most people are familiar with. Like Mollison and Holmgren (co-creators of Permaculture [capital P?]) were doing around the same time, Buzan drew inspiration from patterns found in nature to come up with solutions to human problems. Buzan had trouble studying and began to enquire about how to use his brain better. He found that unlike our preferred method of transmitting information linearly with books and words, our brains do not operate that way. Our brains are more complex, non-linear, integrative and associative things. So Tony created Mind Maps to match studying to the way our brains work. A Mind Maps inherent characteristic is a complex branching pattern that efficiently and effectively links, orders and presents information for the purpose of remembering; the brain cells in our brains, the mycelia of fungi and the internet (most likely the entire universe as well) house and access vast amounts of information in similar ways.

Visual representation of systems sharing nature of the internet

Dark matter (majority of universe is made up of this apparently) on the left and myclelia of mushrooms on the right

After some minor experimentation with mind mapping for some exams I found it to be very helpful. It is especially relevant to studying systems and permaculture type stuff because of its integrative and visual aspects. Complex ideas and theories can be simplified and presented in a way that is pleasing to the eye. Also, studying is actually fun with mind maps, with all the drawing and the colour and you get to kind of create your own mini work of art; and each one is different. I reckon everyone with a brain should know about Tony Buzan and his Mind Maps and study techniques, get on to it and spread the word!

Here are a few of the first Mind Maps I have done

Humanure part 2

Some of my favourite things about Humanure composting are:

·         The pile never needs to be turned!- The use of straw traps pockets of air which aids aerobic digestion of the pile, plus turning the pile would destroy the helpful bacteria

·         The collection of urine means the pile is not in danger of drying out. A waterwise compost pile is an asset to gardeners in dry climates like mine

·         The compost pile is not fussy and will digest everything from the kitchen and nothing needs to be done to the scraps, just chuck em on and cover ‘em up

·         Its low cost to start and maintain

·         It is resource recovery as opposed to the current thinking of poos as waste that needs disposal

·         It’s off grid living baby!

·         I can’t think of anymore just now

From a permacultural or systems perspective this system closes an otherwise very open-ended nutrient cycle. Energy comes onto the site via food, exits through you, is captured by the compost and returned to the soil where more food is created. This ‘closed’ cycle is sustainable and resilient as it consumes less energy and resources than an ‘open’ cycle by keeping energy and resources cycling through the system and by making use of renewable resources like trees and straw. An ‘open’ system in comparison relies on constant, expensive, unsustainable inputs (fossil fuels for sewage treatment and water purifying, off-site food, infrastructure and water to carry poos and wees from site, etc…) to construct maintain it.

Bearing all these benefits in mind it is still important to remember that ecological solutions and designs need to be aware of context. For example, adoption of this method would not be appropriate for people living on flood plains because the risk of raw faecal matter coming into contact with freshwater would be very high- the solution does not fit the context.

The need for composting humanure could be eliminated entirely if a new house is being built. Homeowners could design systems that take all the manual labour and work out of dealing with the poo’s a la Earthship style septics and treatment cells. Composting humanure works for me as I am a renter with a long term lease in a suburban area who thinks and cares about the effect my life has on old mate Mother Earth. I seek to adopt sustainable living strategies that are low-cost, effective, efficient and also high yielding so this method works for me. The small amount of infrastructure I have put in is easy to remove. The downside is that I if we decide to leave we need a year to let the compost decompose to make moving easier. Ways to transport partially composted fecal matter could be conceived but my guess is it would expensive, risky and unpleasant.

The chooks were let out under careful observation to investigate the pile, it was found that they CANNOT be trusted!

Another pallet makes a chook proof door



A star picket rammed into the ground on one end creates a hinge

Shit just got real... Humanure part 1

The ninth of June, that was the day folks, and what a glorious day! To start it outside, overlooking my modest suburban expanse atop my most thrifty of thrones; perfect. It was the day that I pooed without a plop, people. Following the dry toilet method outlined by Joseph Jenkins in the Humanure Handbook, I have been pooing in a bucket for over a month. It is awesome, no smell, easy and cheap to start. Using a dry toilet eliminates problems associated with using a flush toilet while also providing a valuable garden resource. Here is a very rough outline of what the process involves, if you are interested in this process please get a hold of The Humanure Handbook by Joseph  Jenkins. The book will answer all of your questions, I can answer some to if you leave a comment or email me.

You do your poos and wees in a receptacle and cover the deposit with sawdust, leaf mould, rice hulls; or anything of that sort that is locally available, rich in carbon and not too chunky. The less air pockets the better, this is what cuts out the smell. I use sawdust as it is abundant around Bunbury and very cheap to obtain.

This is what the sawdust is kept in, also showing some bogroll and fancy scoop for sawdust

A full shit bucket about to be put on compost pile. Notice lack of unsightly sights, a full bucket also has no smell

When the receptacle is full it is emptied onto a compost pile. The compost pile begins with a layer of about 45cm (18inches) of leaves or straw, this layer acts like a ‘biological sponge’. Its purpose is to provide somewhere for your first toilet deposit to sit and prevent any leaching of poos and wees. Three bays are necessary for a never-ending compost making cycle: One bay is getting filled, the middle bay is used to store cover materials such as weeds, straw, leaves, grass clippings etc. and the final bay will contain ‘aging’ compost. As the finished compost needs to be left to age for a year and it apparently takes about a year to fill a bay, as one bay is filling another is aging. I have only got two bays at the moment; it’s no big deal to add an extra one. 



Compost bays made from scavenged pallets and star pickets. The bay on the left is the one going to be deposited on. The leaves are the biological sponge.



First make a depression in the CENTRE of the pile

Stay with me people, empty the toilet receptacles contents onto the pile

Cover deposit with hay, straw, weeds, leaves etc. Remember if it looks or smells bad: cover it!

Once the toilet receptacle’s contents are emptied onto the compost pile they need to be covered with straw or leaves or some kind of dry carbon rich material. The use of straw or hay traps air in the compost pile, this is important as aerobic conditions are necessary to achieve the temperatures that will kill harmful bacteria and any potential pathogens.

The receptacle is rinsed and the rinse water is put on the compost pile. The process starts again.

That’s pretty much it. As Joseph says the number one rule is that ‘if it looks bad or smells bad, cover it up’.

How about that? A simple technology that saves water, prevents water and land from being polluted via sewage and sewage ‘treatment’, has low start-up and running costs, is super energy efficient compared to flush toilet systems, captures ALL household organic waste flows AND then turns them into a valuable garden resource that can be used for growing food. Boo-ya!

NOTE: If you find yourself feeling utterly repulsed and/or queasy, faint or nauseas whilst considering the idea of recycling your poos and wees, I suggest you find professional help to aid you in discovering the root of your fecophobia. Once your fear is dealt with, you will be free to live in prosperity and harmony with the earth.

Yarrow!

This plant is a new friend of mine. I have read that it is a good medicinal plant, an attractor of ladybugs, hoverflies, lacewings and parasitic wasps as well as being an excellent nutrient accumulator and compost activator. It is truly a multi-functional plant, a permaculturalist’s best friend!

As well as its myriad uses, yarrow is easy to grow. A tough plant, it is suited to dry, sunny and exposed sites. I planted mine out of the way in a place that I never water and it is thriving. I even ripped some shoots off of the mother plant and planted them. Having forgotten about the cuttings (I thought they would die) I discovered them the other day doing very well.

A few days ago I had the perfect opportunity to test out yarrow’s ability to stop bleeding after slicing a finger in the kitchen. It works great and really fast, it has to be seen to be believed. If cut yourself just crush some yarrow in your hand and apply it to the area, yarrow is also anti-septic. Once the bleeding has stopped you can clean the wound and apply raw honey. Also, for a blood nose just roll up some yarrow and ram it up there. I am looking forward to my next blood nose to try this, I daresay it will make a discreet alternative to the billowing white tissue paper I usually ram up there.

NOTE: Red yarrow is the prostrate variety, yellow yarrow grows up more.

The Goals for the Homestead for 2013

 Here is a list of goals that I have for our homestead this year. They are all things that I am totally excited about and think will be rad. If I had all these things on the go I would surely be a busy guy but I reckon that day to day life would be so exciting and our ecological footprint would be much, much smaller. However, 2013 is nearly halfway through and I still haven’t made much progress on any of these. I have just finished my first semester at university though and my new parent sleeplessness has begun to fade so I intend to make lots of headway over the winter.

·         Setup and operate humanure compost system- A few speed bumps with this one. Firstly finding a material to construct the bays out of that isn’t wood. I’ve heard horror stories about termites from the landlords. I’m going just use wood anyway and have an epic bonfire with it when we leave. Post on this one in the next few weeks!
see- http://humanurehandbook.com/

·         Setup aquaponics system- This is a pretty technical subject as far as gardening goes but we have done a bit of research and have decided to go with Murray Hallam’s CHOP mark II system. It’s made re-using IBC’s (international bulk containers) and the productivity looks amazing.
see- http://www.aquaponics.net.au/

·         Grow edible mushrooms- I love mushrooms. I have neglected this goal altogether but recently inspirado has struck and I am on the lookout for spores, and specimens. Meanwhile a mushroom grow kit box thing will have to do.

·         Get a car and run it on veggie oil- Dabbled in research on this one, there is lots of information online. I am on the lookout for an old Mercedes now, everyone seems to be in agreement that they are great for veg oil conversion.
see- http://veggieoilconversions.com/

·         Plant herbs, fruit trees and other interesting perennials to improve soil- The time of year is ripe for planting in W.A. and we have several areas being prepped. Also running through a design with the landlords to cover half the lawn in the front yard with natives and a few fruit and nut trees. I just watched Geoff Lawton’s Food Forest dvd and that really jump started everything. Post on this in the next few weeks too!
see-

·         Get chooks, build sexy chook house and plant a little chicken forest for them to hang out in- We got chooks! Well we are babysitting chooks for three weeks while the landlords are on holiday. A rudimentary pen has been put together to keep them safe and there is a second hand chook house for them to sleep in. A few chook essential plants have been planted (tansy, wormwood) and some ferns, with more plants on the way (comfrey, lavender). The bulk of the plants are going to be put in later though after the chooks have scratched around and shat everywhere.

·         Catch and store rainwater- An essential for any Australian I haven’t put any serious thought into this for a while but it is definitely a goal!

Some old projects...

At risk of these blog becoming all about my eating habits here are some early shots of things I was doing in Melbourne a few years ago. These were my first forays into the homestead scene, deeply inspired by Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne who run \http://rootsimple.com/ (an awesome blog and resource) and wrote "The urban homestead" and "Making it" two of my most favourite books ever.
Indeed around this time my housemates would rarely see me without a well dog-eared, ragged copy of "the urban homestead" by my side!

A worm farm, this worked pretty sweet. Rats broke into the other one though, they just chewed throught the polystyrene and ate everything in there, including my poor worms. As simple as chucking a handful of worms in with some scraps. Pay extra attention to not over-feeding the worms

 Toilet roll seedling trays. In a climate like Melbourne's you can get away with stuff you can't do in dryer areas like W.A. This setup dryed out so fast in W.A. but worked awesome in Melbs. They make planting so much easier just plant the hole thing and the cardboard quickly decomposes

Blueberry in a self-watering container. This is still alive with my old housemates years later! Must have done something right...

Little salad garden we experimented with, right outside my "shed-room" door. I was sleeping in a swag in a dinky shed to cut down in rent expenses. I planted nasturtiums to keep the bugs from coming in the windows.

Super simple compost pile. We just kept throwing stuff in and forgetting about it, everything breaks down eventually. We got really good compost in the tyre wells...

Another haybox cooker, featuring sexy bracelet

First rocket stove attempt, I balls-ed up the insulating material so it became really frustrating to use. Expect a detailed post on rocket stoves in the future.

My rock n roll patch. I loved this. Quirky things like this really breathe life into a garden and give it a personal touch.

Weed Foraging!

Here is some more kitchen action. I made a frittata the other day, a recipe from ‘the weed foragers handbook’. The key ingredient as you might have guessed was weeds.

 Lovely, glorious, nutritious weeds. I used the recipe in Grubb and Fraser-Rowlands book ‘weed forager’s handbook. Just fry up some onions and garlic, turn the heat down and add eggs. Then, stir in some steamed weeds cook for a little while on a low heat. Top with cheese and place under a grill to finish cooking. Enjoy!

                                                          Sow thistles hiding among the grass

A view of the side of the house, unruly looking to some, Appetising to others

                       A close up of the area. It consisted of a health patch of sow thistle and amaranth.

  A couple of slice tomatoes always hads some steez to a dish like this

NOTE: Al-foil protecting plastic handle form grill

                                                                        With a side of mash, sorted.

What is most striking to me about foraging weeds is the metaphor of discovery it hides. Some photos below show the side of my house and a few out of the way and un-maintained areas of the garden and they are chockers with weeds. Everyone, predictably, was letting me know that I had to get some weed killer on them weeds, stat! To this I would cooly reply “what for? I am letting them grow”. 

People don’t like it when you're being clever, but it is fun to do sometimes. I would just leave the comment hanging there until finally, “Right lets have it, why are you letting them grow?”   I would then explain that some weeds, most weeds, are very good for you and that having a wild patch here and there was like having little salad gardens scattered around your house. Salad gardens that NEVER NEED WATERING, NEVER NEED PLANTING, NEVER NEED SOIL PREP, NEVER NEED PEST CONTROL AND NEVER NEED ANYTHING EXCEPT POPULATION CONTROL THROUGH EATING!

Back to the metaphor...

Before I knew I could eat them, that patch of weeds down the side of my house was dreadful. It meant work and lots of it. Weeds were looked at with disdain, annoyance and frustration. However, upon learning about the nature and uses of weeds my perception was shifted. I learnt weeds are critical parts of the biosphere, holding down soils and mining nutrients, and some are very good to eat as well as being good for the soil and having many other uses.

Through learning and experience our world view shifts and with new perceptions doors open up to new possibilities........... Like frittatas with weeds in....instead of....... spinach?*

*For fans only- It has been said that the concept of ‘weeds’ is more like a human psychological phenomena, rather than any actual plant. Humans seem to dislike the disorder the presence of weeds suggests. Weeds are seen to invite chaos as they spring up in strange places, outside of edges and borders. With this concept of ‘weeds’ in mind it is interesting to think that any old perception could be altered with learning and experience. A problem turned into a solution  If there is a problem area in your life, If there are weeds in the garden of your mind, find out as much as you can about said problem and see what happens, I’ll do the same!



Haybox cooking...

In case you need to take your food out of a solar cooker before it is ready for whatever reason, (maybe its cloudy or the food is cooked but you’re not hungry) it is handy to have something like this; a haybox cooker, to keep the food hot. It’s basically a box with a tight fitting lid that’s stuffed with insulating material with a space left to put a pot, it’s called a haybox cooker because back in the day, hay was used as the insulating material.  On the day I took these photos, I was cooking rice in the solar oven and some clouds blew over. The rice was nearly done but it was still at least another two hours until dinner, so I hastily whipped up this newspaper-box cooker and it worked a treat.

On this occasion I used the box as mainly a way to keep the food hotter for longer, but you can use it to cook food. Simply heat the food right through then place in a haybox cooker, the food then cooks in its own stored heat, thereby reducing the amount of fuel needed to cook. For most effectiveness it is better to use a pot that is full than one that is half full.

I am going to build a more permanent haybox cooker and do some more experiments with it very soon, at least in time for winter soups!

                                                                      Rice in the solar cooker...

An old veggie box, very versatile. For a while I tried to get as much use out of one as possible before they went to landfill, now I avoid them like the plague

Stick the still hot pot in a cosy bed of insulating material

Stuff that sucker with crinkled newspaper, this traps lots of air in little pockets an essential component of good insulation

Cap that sucker

A nice, snug, tight fitting lid is a crucial component. This ensures maximum heat retention 

Bobs your uncle. Haybox cooking is a very old, yet very effective technology. Any honest homesteader seeking to reduce energy usage and time spent pot watching would do well to own one. While you are on the internet, have a quick look around at some designs, they are  super effective and simple.

Have fun!

Mulberry Foraging...

Mulberries are great. They are one of the rare soft berry fruits that can tolerate the hot West Australian climate. The tree is also relatively pest free, and for some strange reason the birds don’t seem to go for the berries! Maybe they know something we don’t?

Foraging is also great, for obvious reasons. The food is freely gathered and there is no maintenance, no watering involved and no pruning. Just adventure and harvesting! Of the many reasons why foraging rules, I love the one Adam Grubb came up with in “The weed foragers handbook” (an essential guide and a must have!). He says we all have a ‘foraging instinct’ as a result of our long evolutionary history and that it is better to satisfy it by looking for food, instead of scouring record stores looking for obscure Jazz records.

This particular session went down around November of 2012 at a not so secret spot in Bunbury. I went down two or three times to get some berries. It was really cool, every time I went down there, some local crew would be there picking away. We would just be picking away and shooting the breeze, sharing recipes and plans... My original plan was to make a big batch of wine (that is coming soon readers!). They have just been sitting in the freezer for months. We just had dinner party and I was thinking of a nice dessert to make, mmmmulberry tart popped into mind. I’ve never made anything of the sort but found a great recipe here (http://cindyjespinoza.blogspot.com.au/2010/05/moms-mulberry-tart-recipe.html)... It went down a treat with some custard, I tried to make some syrup out of some leftover mulberry juice too, that ended up as toffee though.

I encourage you all to get out and have a scout around for some wild and semi-wild goodies, it is always an adventure!

p.s. Some cities have maps available that show fruit trees that can be foraged. If anyone lives in Melbourne I know of an avocado tree that grows over the beer garden of a certain pub in Fitzroy, on Fitzroy st in fact! Beers and avocados! Fuck yes...

http://feralfruitmelbourne.wordpress.com/76-2/

                                          The specimen, loaded with the little buggers...

The biggest load I got, and just a sample from one of two trees!

                                                   A batch getting ready for the freezer...

Transformed into goodness

                                                                Shot of the innards...

The judges were tough, but the decision was unanimous... Good shit!

                                                        NOTE: Stained faces for days!