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Tag Archives: Best of Blog
Our Cal-Earth Permaculture Course 2012 – Picture Summary
Pictures and Text by Bill Wilson
For a second year we co-delivered with the Cal-Earth teaching staff a combined Superadobe Earth Building and Permaculture Design Certificate Course. At the close of our training we were pleased to host Geoff and Nadia Lawton of PRI-Australia who shared their work in desert environments with us while they were in the USA for a brief visit. This workshop was also opened to the general public seen here at the end of a really great day of learning.
Our 2012 Cal-Earth PDC on Guest Day with Geoff and Nadia Lawton – Picture taken on one of the Cal-Earth buildings.
Chinampas Gardens
Why Chinampas Gardens are part of This Permaculture DesignChinampas Gardens are artificial islands or peninsulas created by scooping nutrient-rich lake, swamp or pond muck into a woven cage so that crops can be grown above the waterline in a wet environment. Within this simple design, several unique functions are accomplished at once: a micro-climate that prevents early frost damage; an extremely productive soil that is mostly self-sustaining; a self-watering system created by water wicking in from the sides as moisture evaporates from the surface of the beds; and the growing of plants and fish within the same area. In Particular we want to:
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Wood Gasification
Why Wood Gasification is part of This Permaculture DesignWood Gasification is the process of converting wood (any kind of scraps or trimmings) into flammable gasses by burning it at very high temperatures in an oxygen starved environment. These gasses, once cooled and cleaned of tars, can be piped directly into an internal combustion engine as a fuel substitute for gasoline…!!! We have designed in the use of wood gasification units for:
And the wood gasification units burn much, much cleaner than wood stoves because of the high temperatures. They actually burn off almost all of the smoke and gasses, turning even these into additional energy. |
 Truck Runs on Woodgas |
Linear Food Forests along Hugelkultured Swales
In this design we will be planting linear-food forests all along the downhill side of each of three hugelkultured swales. What is a hugelkultured swale?
While the tress and shrubs are in the early stages of growing (small) we will use the open space to grow some of our annual vegetables. We will also plant some nitrogen fixing ground covers and dynamic accumulators to help build the soil.
Chickens for the Orchard (Part 2)
Part 3: 8-13 Weeks of Age (As Adventurers)
Part 2: 4-8 Weeks of Age (As Kids)
Part 1: 0-4 Weeks of Age (As Chicks)
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| This is where we ended in the first blog post of 3 weeks ago. We had just moved the 4-week old chicks to the orchard to begin the process of weaning them from ‘chick’ feed and encouraging them to eat the grass, weeds, and bugs in the orchard for daily sustenance. |
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| From the moment the chickens hit the grass, they were eating everything they could peck at and swallow. They seemed to visibly grow almost daily even though the amount of feed we were giving them did not increased since we brought them to the orchard. Each day they are getting more and more of their food and nutrition from the orchard floor. We’ve even seen them catch flying insects. |
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Chickens for the Orchard (Part 1)
Part 3: 8-13 Weeks of Age (As Adventurers)
Part 2: 4-8 Weeks of Age (As Kids)
Part 1: 0-4 Weeks of Age (As Chicks)
Objective: Raise some chickens for food and to also help with insect, grass and weed control in our 2-acre organic community orchard…!!!
As most of you know, in permaculture design we attempt to:
- garner the greatest amount or number of yields
- from the minimum amount of work
- while creating no waste (at least minimal)
- and restoring the environment.
Let’s see what additional benefits we can obtain from this project other than just the insect, grass and weed-removal help from 100 chickens. This will be our chicken saga as it reveals itself in real time. We’re always learning too and raising this many chickens at once, and in this way, is stretching us some.
We will take the experience we do have, plus apply permaculture design principles, while adding in good-ole common sense (with help from some great books, friends and the internet) to work creatively and see what we might come up with.
It all starts with an order of 100 chicks (multi-heritage breeds from McMurry) that Hayden and Cameron (our two work/study intern students) selected. All were delivered through the U.S. mail. All survived! Hayden created a safe and warm habitat from a yard-storage container, a heat lamp, and some old boards and fencing. This structure lasted almost 2 weeks before they outgrew it. During this time we worked on a more permanent home/coop.
Burning Wood to “Cool” an Entire Lodge
Arbor Day’s Lied Lodge:
It is Air Conditioned with Current Sunlight (i.e. Scrap Wood)
| In our last post we talked about thermal mass rocket stoves and the great benefit they held by being able to heat our homes using current sunlight in the form of firewood. (The sunlight energy stored in coal, oil and natural gas is millions of years old.) With these stoves we consume as little as 1/4 the amount of firewood it would take to heat the same amount of space with a traditional wood stove. This is a huge savings in energy consumed for the same results.
Last February, Becky and I visited Lied Lodge and were surprised to discover that they not only heated their water and the Lodge with scrap-chipped wood, but they also air-condition the entire Lodge using the same fires…!!! How can this be? Continue reading |
Water Wheel Pump
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This is just too cool…! How many people live near a running creek, but the creek sits low enough on their property that there is no good way to get the water up on to the land for irrigation or for a small pond without running electricity for a pump? This simple, homemade device will do the trick. Of note, the water pump wheel will lift water 2 to 8 times higher than the diameter of the wheel. Basically, the more loops you have in the wheel the higher and farther you can ‘pump’ the water. However, the more loops in the wheel makes the wheel heaver and harder to turn, so one needs a larger or faster running creek to do the work. Regardless, there appears to be a happy median, and to move any amount of water uphill on a piece of property gives one a very valuable resource to work with. Here is a link to a simple article about how the water wheel pump works and how to build one. Just had to share this with you…. Bill Wilson |
Cal-Earth – The PDC Portion of the Combined Earth Building and Permaculture Training
Week 2 - The Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course.
(Click here for Photos of Week 1)
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