Garden Tipi

Posted by Tao on February 23rd, 2012

Justin came out last night and this morning we went out to the middle field and took down the tipi he’d built from a billboard tarp and assembled there a year and a half ago and hauled it to the garden and reassembled it.  The plan is that I’ll be staying in it this summer to keep critters out of the garden.  I’ll also have Kita on a run in the garden, together I doubt we’ll have any problems.

We set it up in a position where it would get the best shade, but I won’t be in it during the day anyway.  There’s a few things to fix up and tweak on it still.  It needs a door flap, some new smoke flap adjustment poles, and it needs to be staked down.  I’m putting a raised tent platform inside of it and I’ll have a mattress on that.

Being up in the garden will be nice too since I’ll be a lot less likely to neglect the plants.  I’ve decided to dedicate at least 30 minutes every morning to working in the garden.  I think it’s going to be fun, besides it’s not too often you get to say you live in a tipi.

Posted in Food, Shelter, Sustainability |

Tao’s Hard Lemonade Cider

Posted by Tao on February 20th, 2012

Out of all the things I brewed last year, this was the most popular.  It was also the easiest, fastest, and cheapest to do.  I’ve tweaked the recipe a little, but here’s the recipe for my hard lemonade cider.  This should give you around 10% alcohol, and cost about $17/5 gallons.  5 gallons is about 50 12oz. bottles and American beer for example is typically ~5%.  This means you’re only paying about $0.17/beer equivalent of alcohol.  This is much tastier than typical American beer.

Ingredients

  • 5 cans frozen lemonade concentrate w/o potassium sorbate
  • 5 cans frozen apple juice concentrate w/o potassium sorbate
  • 4lbs table sugar
  • 1 packet champagne yeast
  • 5 tsps. yeast nutrient
  • 2.5 tsps potassium sorbate
  • 2.5 tsps. pectic enzyme (optional)
  • 1 campden tablet (optional)
Equipment
  • ~4 gallon pot
  • (2) 5 gallon bucket
  • (1) 5 gallon bucket lid
  • Air lock for bucket lid
  • Large stirring spoon
  • 3-4′ of 1/2″ inner diameter tubing for racking (optional)
  • Specific density meter (optional)

 

Directions

  1. Clean your bucket, lid, spoon, and large pot well with antibacterial soap and/or a little bleach.
  2. Heat up about 2 gallons of water.  It doesn’t have to boil, but it should be steaming at least.
  3. Stir in 2.5lbs of sugar, or a little over half of a 4lb bag of sugar and make sure it dissolves completely.
  4. Depending on the size of your pot you can add the cans of juice concentrate into that or pour the hot sugar water into your 5 gallon bucket and then mix in the concentrate.  I like to mix it in the pot to melt the concentrate faster, but it doesn’t matter really.
  5. If you haven’t already pour the sugar/juice mix into the 5 gallon bucket and pour in enough water to make it 5 gallons total.  The 5 gallon mark is right about level with where the bucket handle usually attaches.
  6. Wait until the mix has cooled to roughly room temperature or a little warmer and stir in the yeast nutrient as well as the pectic enzyme and crush campden tablet if you’re using them. (The pectic enzyme makes the brew more clear.  The campden tablet is to protect against other bacteria or yeast getting in your mix.)
  7. Put the bucket in a room temperature area out of direct sunlight and wait 24 hours.
  8. If you’re using a specific density meter to measure the final alcohol content, you’ll want to measure now and record it.
  9. Add the champagne yeast by just sprinkling it on top and then make sure lid is tightly sealed and air lock has water in it and makes a good seal on the lid.
  10. Wait about 2 weeks, it can be faster or slower depending on the temperature.  Ideal is around 75F degress.  After a day or two the air lock will start to bubble as the brew ferments and makes the precious alcohol.  When the air lock stops bubbling after a week to 10 days or so you’ll want to let it sit for an additional 2 days to let the yeast settle out.
  11. You now have very dry hard lemonade cider.  The yeast will have eaten just about all of the sugar and turned it into alcohol.  This is the time to measure the specific density again.  By comparing it to the previous measurement you can calculate the percent alcohol accurately.
  12. Now we want to sweeten it, but if we add more sugar the yeast will just eat that too.  Stir in 2.5 tsps of potassium sorbate to force the yeast into dormancy.
  13. Wait a day or two for the yeast to go dormant
  14. Rack(ie siphon) the lemonade/cider into the other freshly cleaned 5-gallon bucket using the also freshly cleaned tubing.  The key is to get the tubing positioned about 1/2″ from the bottom of the bucket with the cider so you don’t siphon out all the yeast and other fermenting biproducts that have settled to the bottom.  (You don’t necessarily have to do this, but you’ll want to carefully pour off the lemonade/cider and leave as much of the dregs behind in the first bucket as you can.)
  15. Stir in sugar to taste.  This will be roughly 1.5 lbs of sugar depending on taste.
  16. Bottle it or just drink it straight from the bucket
  17. Thank your buddy Tao for sharing his wonderful recipe.

That’s it.  It only takes about 2 weeks altogether.  Beer takes a month, 2 weeks to ferment and 2 weeks to carbonate in the bottle.  Because this isn’t carbonated it takes half the time and doesn’t  have to be bottled at all.  Let me know what you think!

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Posted in Fermentation, Food, Sustainability |

Starting Onions

Posted by Tao on February 20th, 2012

I started some onions from seed today.  I used some of the peat pots instead of the soil blocks.  Soil blocks aren’t ideal just because of the way onions grow and how many we’d like to grow.  Each of the pots here have 20-30 seeds in them and will be pulled apart for planting when it’s time.

We haven’t gotten very large bulbs the last few years, and since we eat a lot of them I’d really like to solve the problem.  I originally tried starting from seeds without much luck, and the last couple years I grew from sets.  Unfortunately I picked the largest sets to start with thinking they had the most stored energy and would make the largest bulbs, but the opposite is true because the biggest sets go to flower instead of making bulbs.

I also read that onions were light feeders and did not need especially good soil, but other things I’ve read since say that to get good-sized bulbs they do need good soil.  We did get plenty of green onions in the poorer soil.  I tried inter-planting them with other crops previously, but this time I will give them their own space and make sure they stay well-watered.

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Posted in Food, Sustainability |

Seed Starting with Soil Blocks

Posted by Tao on February 19th, 2012

This is my second year using soil blocks to start transplants from seed.  A soil blocker allows you to press soil blocks out of a sort of potting mix specially made to hold together on it’s own.  The benefits are that no plastic trays, which inevitably breakdown and make a mess, are needed. Biodegradable pots made out of peat or newspaper is a good option, but another reason makes soil blocks tempting.

Because the blocks are separated by air only, when the roots reach the air they stop growing. This is called “air-pruning” the roots and avoids the plants becoming “root-bound”, which is when the roots hit the side of their container and wrap around.  When those roots grow they essentially choke the plant.

There are various sizes of blockers and the plugs that make the indentations for seeds in each block can receive smaller blocks.  For example these 2″ blocks we’re using for tomatoes and peppers fit into the large 4″ blocker.  We likely will plant them out before they outgrow the 2″ block, but you never know and some people have shorter growing seasons and need a bigger head start.   We’ll be using the micro 1″ blocks for starting our greens in a few weeks.

Home » Seed Starting with Soil Blocks » Spring '12 » Soil Blocks

The mistakes I made last year were to put to many different kinds of plant in one tray.  Tomatoes and broccoli have different temperature, light requirements, and germination times.  This year,  I put them together.

Last year we had a late frost and we lost most of our first planting and didn’t have enough for a complete 2nd planting.  This year looks to have an early spring, but just to be sure I’ll be starting at least 2 different batches several weeks apart to insure we have enough transplants and don’t have to buy any.

One thing I’ve already noticed that I’ll do next year is to write down what I plant in each row.  The rows are marked A-I on trays that are numbered.  I ran out of seeds for one of the peppers and had to go back and change my notes.

Also, in case you missed the video I made last year, you can check it out below.

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Posted in Food, Sustainability |

Healing Up and Breaking Down

Posted by Tao on January 21st, 2012

As some of you already know I suffered a serious hand injury at the end of October.  I was sharpening a shovel using far too much pressure on the file, lost control, and gashed my wrist open.  I was wearing gloves for protection, but the shovel caught me just above them and severed 4 tendons and one of the 2 main nerves, narrowly missing one of the 2 main arteries.

John and Jesse were nearby and we got to the hospital right away.  Luckily, I have health insurance and so won’t be gashed too badly financially on top of it.  We were in the process of winding down construction for the year anyway so the timing, if it had to happen at all, isn’t terrible.

My doctor and hand therapist both tell me I’m recovering remarkably well. I’ve gotten a considerable amount of feeling back and my range of motion and strength is starting to return. I should be good to go when Spring rolls around.

Apart from that minor tragedy, John has moved into the new mini-cabin. He’s sealed it up better, but it looks like we should have dug deeper for the insulation barrier in the floor. We’ll fix that in our future cabins.  Jesse was staying in the common house, but just departed for a month and half trip to Denver, Portland, and Seattle. I’m staying mostly with Jessica in Columbia, although I’m hoping to start transitioning back out to MC over the next several weeks.

It’s been an incredibly mild and sunny winter and the new solar array has been pumping out the power.  Our peak power output last I checked was 847 watts from panels rated at only 800 watts.  Normally you never even produce the rated watts for panels, but thanks to the reflected roof sunlight we’re probably making an extra ~25%.

We’ve started really planning and prioritizing for this coming year and have created a project breakdown to keep track of it.  The big projects will be putting in a cistern for collecting rainwater, building a mini-duplex similar to the mini-cabin we built last year, building a shed with a root cellar in it, finishing the outside of the mini-cabin, and doing a lot of interior work on the common house.  That ought to keep us busy.

All the while we’ll be maintaining the garden.  I’ve done some planning and have put together a page of garden notes.  It has on it all of the seeds we’ve ordered with pictures and descriptions.  We’ll probably add a few more plants before it’s all said and done.  On the same page I’ll record all the pertinent information on when and how much we plant, when and how much we harvest, and everything else noteworthy.  I’m also going to record the rainfall and high and low temps in the garden.

We lost all of corn to raccoons last year, but this year we’re moving the tipi up into the garden and I’m going to spend the summer in it along with the dog.  That along with the solar-powered radio playing predator noises during the day ought to minimize our pest problems as far as mammals and birds go.

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Posted in Cisterns, Firewood, garden, Guest Cabins, Organic Gardening, Pest Control, Raccoons, Solar, Straw Bale |

Stick It Where The Sun Does Shine

Posted by Tao on October 25th, 2011

It’s hard to believe another summer has come and gone, and as the colder weather has set in we get less and less things done.  We’ve wrapped up construction on the common house for this year and I’ve moved into the loft for the winter.  John has been taking refuge in the common house as well until we get the floor totally finished and the doors and windows installed on the cabin he’ll be in for the winter.  Jesse’s managing in his camper, but he’ll probably move into the common house when John moves into his cabin.  So, there’s lots of shuffling going on as we prepare for the winter.  I think we’re all looking forward to the nice long break.

Hot Showers

We’ve gotten our first hot indoor showers at Maya Creek now.  It’s still very primitive, we have to heat up the water via the cook stove or rocket stove and pour it in a feeder bucket above the shower.  One of next year’s major projects will be installing the water system including the cistern and solar hot water panel and tank, until then we’ll be just fine with what we’ve got.  It’s probably hard for an outside observer to understand how grateful we are for the low pressure showers that we take right now, but that goes for a lot of things out here.  It’s rare that people understand the amount of time, labor, and general effort that have gone into what we’ve got so far.

Mini-Cabin Progress

We’ve gotten a steel roof installed on the cabin, with an old billboard tarp as a second layer of protection taking the place of tar paper.  We extended one side and added a small covered porch area.  We’ll finish filling in the gaps on the roof gables and plastering the outside next year, but we did put all of the layers of plaster and floor in on the inside.  We haven’t worked with the finish coats of plaster or earthen floor to this point and we used the cabin as an experiment to get some experience before doing the common house.

We wanted to lighten the walls some so we incorporated some masonry lime into the mix, and a little really went a long way towards lightening up the color.   That’s good to know so that we can use it for the exterior finish coat on the house and make the burnt sienna coloring stand out more.  The lime is a little rough on the hands, so next time we do an interior finish plaster that we want to lighten we’ll try to find some white kaolin clay, but for an exterior plaster the lime adds extra protection.

The floor is currently drying out after applying a couple of coats of linseed oil cut to different strengths with mineral spirits.  Then we finished it off with a mixture of oil and beeswax to finish it all off and waterproof it.

John’s building an insulated door improving the design of the doors used in the common house.  They’re kind of a pain to build, and in the future we’ll probably just build the door and window bucks to fit whatever doors or we can salvage.  The benefit of building our own is that we can make them super-insulated, so there’s a trade-off.

Reflecting on Solar Power

When I first picked the unpainted galvanized steel roofing I was mainly thinking about our rainwater collection system and how I didn’t want any toxic paint residue in the water supply.  I was also thinking about reflecting some of the heat in the summer.  That reflected light goes all year really and is actually blinding when you hit at the right spot.  After putting on the porch on the back of the house this year at a lower angle than the roof the effect was even greater.  It occurred to us to harness all that extra light by mounting our panels behind the house on a raised rack to catch all of that extra light.

We’ve never seen something like this before, but now that we’ve done it we’ll pretend like we had it planned this way all along. Hehe.  The panels are all in one long row to catch to orient with the roof more closely and catch more reflection.  We’re still putting the finishing touches on everything, and we had to buy a few more pieces of hardware since we’re moving from a 12V system to 24V, but so far the panels appear to be putting out 25-50% more power!  As you can imagine we’re quite pleased and have doubled our battery bank to hold more of that goodness.

Granting Wishes

We’ve been looking into trying to get some funding help for our projects out here at MC.  Next year we’re planning on holding several free workshops on the things that we think we’re confident in teaching.  We’ll post a schedule some time over the winter about those.

Anyway, we feel that since we’re actively providing education opportunities by giving tours, work parties, setting booths at related events, and now with workshops that we should be able to receive grants to help us along.  We’ve been pouring our own money into everything so far, but it’s consistently a restrictive factor and one causes significant amounts of stress.

We’ve explored the option of becoming a tax-exempt non-profit, but the paperwork and legal rigmarole is disenchanting to say the least.  However, we’re in talks with Mid-Missouri Peaceworks to become a project of theirs and fall under their non-profit umbrella.  We’ll probably know if that’s going to work out by the end of November.

In the meantime, I went to a grant-writing workshop for SARE(Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) grants last week.  It was moderately helpful, although I was told that many of things I’d hoped to get grants for such as permanent structures like greenhouse, root cellar, etc wouldn’t be allowed, I found examples of SARE grants funding those exact same things while researching it later.

We understand that grants are not meant to build private structures, but everything we’re building is meant to be both for our own use as well as to be a demonstration for tours and for use in workshops.   It seems like most grants do not want to pay for physical items, but if they want to pay us to do what we were already intending to do then we can use those wages to buy the physical items that we need.

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Posted in Cisterns, Earthen Floor, Greenhouses, Guest Cabins, Solar, Solar Hot Water, Water |

The Big Chill

Posted by Jesse on September 15th, 2011

My name is Jesse, and I am the newest full time Maya Creek resident.

Weather Vs. Progress

The weather here has turned to Fall literally overnight. The temperatures were in the upper 90′s for most of August, then suddenlyplunged to the upper 70′s last week. Today the high was 65 and rainy. Its going to be 36 degrees tonight. The rapid change was the perfect opportunity to get some of the sweaty work out of the way.

As of yesterday we are now about 3/4 finished with the second layer of the floor. Once we finish that, we can put in the indoor shower.

In the garden, we dug up the oldest compost and piled all of its goodness on thebeds, then created a new compost pile. We are still waiting for the floor in John’s winter cabin to dry, then we can put on the finish coat and then window and door. He should stay nice and warm in there. Now Its cold and wet. We can’t do any work so, I have time to write a blog as well as catch up with friends and family. Having time is important, kill your TV.

Winterizing

Since the chill we stacked strawbales on the roof of my camper, and created a small wall around the bedroom for insulation. It has helped noticably, especially on the hotter days when it stays much cooler in there. I hope it will keep the heat inside this winter too.Its going to be 36 degrees tonight, it should be an excellent test to see if I will make it all winter. The camper has heat but…even if we finish the solar upgrade, I’m not sure we can supply the electric blower through the winter. What an unusual year of weather.  Since it just rained and it was cold last night, we decided to have a campfire.

Visitors

 

We had a great visit from Caitlin for a week. She learned about earthen floors, composting, alternative energy, straw bale building, and we also attended an Organic Beekeeping workshop at the Possibility Alliance. Caitlin ended her stay as a “Master” earthen floor installer.  Thanks for all your hard work Caitlin!

As soon as Caitlin left, we welcomed 3 new visitors. Dustin, Janet and Oatie the quaker parrot. Everone helped pour more earthen floor and sift clay on their first day. The second night is looking pretty chilly.

Sustainability Fair

Come Join us at the Sustainable Living Fair in Columbia, Missouri this Sunday from 11am to 6pm. Look for the Maya Creek, Sustain Missou, and Peace Nook booths! Details and directions can be found at http://www.slfcolumbia.org/ Sponsored by Peaceworks’ Center for Sustainable Living.

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Posted in Compost, Earthen Floor, Guest Cabins |

Growing Possibilities

Posted by Tao on August 23rd, 2011

Visualizing the future of Maya Creek can be double-edged sword.  The possibilities for this place are incredible and less and less difficult to see even to outside observers.  On the other hand, the amount of energy needed to realize those possibilities can be stifling and disheartening.

Still, over time I get used to the pace of growth and accept that it may be many years before it even approaches what it could be.  Every year and every day is different and fulfilling, and there’s really not much more you can ask for out of life.  The work here will never be done, or at least I should hope it never ends.  As the saying goes, the day you stop learning, is the day you begin to die.

Guest Cabin Progress

We’ve finished applying the last thick coats of earthen plaster and floor to the cabin.  It’s a very labor intensive process since the infill coat of plaster can be a couple inches thick.  It’s worth it though, because it really smooths out the walls, and is going to provide lots of thermal mass to moderate the temperature.

We also installed the foundation insulation, and mortared in the scrap granite chunks around the base to protect the bottoms of the walls from rain.  We stuffed the area behind the granite with misprinted polypropylene feedsacks filled with scrap alpaca wool, which we affectionately named, “fur turds”.

Yesterday, we went looking for a screen door and found one at the Habitat Restore for $20.  It was the only one they had and it was heavy duty and just barely the right height.  We took it back and it fit perfectly.  Dumb, but very awesome luck.

John should be able to move into the place after the walls and floor finish drying in several weeks.  We’ve still got to put the metal roof on, install the doors and windows, and put the finish exterior plaster on, but we’re getting close.

Garden Raids

The garden has been under siege ever since the sweet corn started coming in.  We’ve trapped ~7 raccoons and 2 opossums, and we probably would’ve gotten more if they hadn’t finished off the 400 sq. ft. of corn completely.  The fence we’ve set up works well on deer and rabbits, but climbing critters don’t mind it at all.

We’ve got a new solution though that I think will work.  We’re going to set up a stereo hooked up to a small solar power system.   We tried it out for about 5 days and the garden was left alone all that time.

Playing conservative talk radio seemed like the best bet, because it has the most yelling and angry sounding voices… and it’s just scary in general.  However, I had the idea of making a long MP3 recording of the sounds of common predators in the area and having it loop.  I’ll probably throw in some weird tiger roars and other foreign animal sounds too just to keep ‘em freaked out.

The tomatoes are still coming in pretty heavily, and so are the squash and cucumbers.  I’ve been dehydrating a lot of the squash and tomatoes for winter soups.  They should go well with the ~50 lbs of potatoes we’ve got left from out harvest earlier this year.

The Possibility Alliance

Last Saturday Jesse, Jessica, John, Nic, and I went up to the Possibility Alliance in northern Missouri to take a short class on sustainable forestry.  It was actually more about just seeing the place and meeting the people.  It was a short, but sweet visit and I was really excited to see a project working that’s so similar to what I currently hope Maya Creek will turn into.

They’re creating a sustainable community, teaching workshops, and permaculture certification.  All just for donations!  I’d noticed that all the places that teach these types of skills and certifications were really pricey, and it seemed to defeat the point.  Most people interested in learning these skills don’t have a lot of money, and if you think the skills are that important then I would think you’d want to give as many people access to them as you could.

Today John and I went back for a more in-depth tour.  We got to explore the site fully and get a lot of questions answered.  The amount of energy that Ethan exudes is staggering, and I’m amazed he’s able to maintain it.   He and others at PA are part of the superheroes organization which ride bicycles in superhero attire offering help to people.  Perhaps he really is a superhero in more ways than one.

I’ve created an album of photos from the tour here.

Visitors

We had a nice visit from Bob and Kelly earlier this month.  They were out from California looking around the area at permaculture related projects.  They’re planning on moving out this way in the near future, and are planning to help out at Maya Creek after they get settled.

Nic just left to help set up a camp at Burning Man.  He was here for about a week helping us put in some earthen floor and just checking the place out.  He came down from Minneapolis, but has been traveling around all over.  It’s always nice to have a new person with new stories and perspectives come and share that with us.  I’ll be seeing Nic again at Burning Man in a few days.

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Posted in Guest Cabins, Intentional Communities, Organic Gardening, Pest Control, Raccoons, Solar, Solar Dehydration |

Riding the Heat Wave

Posted by Tao on July 29th, 2011

As I stepped out of the St. Louis airport and the wall of thick steamy air hit me I began to realize that Egypt isn’t all that bad this time of year.  At least the oppressive heat there is dry.

I had a good 12-day trip with my family.  We saw all the major tourist attractions, rode camels, sailed up the Nile, and saw enough hieroglyphics, temples, and tombs to last me a lifetime.  Summer isn’t the ideal time to visit Egypt, nor is it an ideal time for me to take a vacation, but when given the chance to go I had to take it.

John and Tom kept working away while I was gone.  They got most of the first coat of earthen plaster on the outside, harvested the potato crop, and picked up a truck load of waste alpaca fiber.  Tom headed back to Canada a few days before I got back.  He was the voice of reason, hard working and wise for his age.  I have no doubt he’ll be back someday.

The severe heat forced our work patterns to change.  We’re now getting up around 6-7am and working until about noon and then depending on how we feel we’ll work a few hours in the evenings as well.  For the hot part of the day we sit in the common house and read, watch movies, nap, etc.  The hottest it gets in the house is about 80 degrees, the only problem is that the floor is not completely dry and won’t be until we leave the doors open.  That also means it’s very humid in the house and doesn’t feel as cool as it should, but with a fan going it’s more than tolerable.

Straw  Bale Cabin Progress

Despite the heat we’ve still managed to finish the interior and exterior plaster coats on the straw bale cabin, as well as fixing and reinforcing the roof.  While we wait for that to finish drying to add the next layer to the floor and walls we’re going to work on the granite footing.

We’re going to dig a trench about a foot deep and fill it with used styrofoam packing peanuts and then place the waste alpaca fiber in old polypropylene feed sacks before we enclose it in granite pieces like we did on the common house.  Insulating the floor helps to isolate the earthen floor from the outside and acts as a thermal mass keeping it warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.

Porch

Before I left for Egypt we finished getting the roof on the porch.  It’s dramatically increased the storage area, but it won’t get screened in or have the floor finished until next year at least.  The common house actually looks like a homestead now.

Compost Piles

John and I made a large compost pile from horse bedding, garden weeds, and humanure earlier this week.  We get the horse manure free from the stables at a local university, they even load it up for us.   By building the pile all at once it gets incredibly hot, so we put all of the humanure in the middle of the pile and use the heat to sterilize it.

Every time we fill up all dozen or so humanure buckets we’ll make a new compost pile.  The piles take about a year to break down completely.  It could be sped up significantly if you turned it, but since we’re not in a hurry and turning it would take a lot of energy and time, we’ll wait.

 

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized |

Rock, Wood, and Clay

Posted by Tao on June 21st, 2011

It’s turned into something of a running joke here at MC that just about any problem can be solved with rocks, wood, or clay.  Andrew and John made replacement stove knobs from pieces of wood, and I built a replacement starter for it from clay.  We also cleared a path along the creek, and to deal with all the creek crossing and drainage we either used rocks as stepping stones, or logs for steps or water diversions.  We planned on making a wooden bridge, but opted for redirecting the path and using stepping stones instead.

House Progress

John, Jesse, and I finished putting in the base layer of the earthen floor last week(clay and rock).  It will probably take a month to dry, and so during that time we’ll be working on the porch area.  The wall on that side is not well protected from the weather until it gets built so it’s a priority.  We’ve already done some prep work, prepared the back wall and cut and cleaned the cedar support posts.

Straw Bale Cabins

The straw bale house has performed amazingly with all of the above-average hot weather.  So much so that we’ve started dreaming up a small ultra-cheap and easy one-room straw bale cabin design.  Our current cost estimates put it at about $300 for ~80 square feet.  If it performs anything like the main straw bale house it may be all-season housing.  We’ll probably begin on that later this week.

Garden Deficiency

All of my new garden beds have been quite a disappointment.  The new beds have some severe nitrogen deficiency. I noticed that there is quite a bit of wood chunks mixed in the compost I get from Columbia.  I think that it’s not finished composting, and when I mix it up by spreading it onto the beds it’s like turning a compost which reinvorgates the decomposition process and locks up the nitrogen for months.

I’ve added blood meal and urine to the beds and it has certainly helped, but some of my crops have died and others are stunted and will likely be delayed significantly.  I think the key to using that compost is to make the beds in the fall so they’ll be ready in the spring.

Inhabitants

As far as inhabitants of MC go, John has been here for about a month now.  Tom arrived from Canada via 31 hour bus ride last week and will be here for a month or so.  Andrew from St. Louis spent 10 days out here helping on the creek path.  Jesse spent the last week out here and I think he plans on spending this coming week as well.

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Posted in garden, Kita, Natural Building, Nitrogen Fixers, Organic Gardening, Recycled Materials, Straw Bale, Summer Cabins, Visitor Lodge, Volunteers |

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