Tag Archives: Hands-on

How To Build a Worm Tower

Posted on by Milton Dixon

We’ve gotten a lot of traffic for our worm towers so we thought we’d feature them on this page by themselves. Worm towers are one of many techniques that permaculturists might use but knowing when and where it is really appropriate requires a broader understanding that permaculture, it’s ethics, and principles provide.

If you’re looking for the picture summary for our  Permaculture training you can find it here.

Last year during our Hands-on Permaculture training we built worm towers with the class and installed one in Bill and  Becky’s front yard. Once it’s installed all you have to do is add composting (red wigglers) and then occasionally add some table scraps. The feed on the food waste and in turn, fertilize the garden bed.  No muss or fuss with kitchen scraps anymore, it is so incredibly easy to use.  The only maintenance that’s needed is to clean out worm castings once a year to make room for more .

View inside the installed Worm Tower before it’s filled with worms, food, and bedding.

 

If you’d like to make your own we’ve made an instruction sheet to help you out.

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Chickens for the Orchard (Part 1)

Posted on by Bill Wilson

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 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:

  1. garner the greatest amount or number of yields
  2. from the minimum amount of work 
  3. while creating no waste (at least minimal)
  4. 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 and Cameron (our two work/study intern students) selected.  All were delivered through the U.S. mail.  All survived!   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.

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Photos of Winter PDC, Feb.2012, at Midwest Permaculture

Posted on by Hayden

Here are a handful of from this training…

This was one of our standard, full, and included an emphasis on the growing of food.  
We expect to continue to offer this winter training yearly which is well timed for those folks too busy during the growing season to attend a full PDC course.  Keep an eye on our schedule for this and all other future trainings. 

Our Group Photo with Rocket Stove in Foreground and Midwest Permaculture Homesite to the Rear. Mom (Becky) standing on left... me () standing on right...and all of our great students.
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Thermal Mass Rocket Stoves on our Minds…

Posted on by Bill Wilson

Why Thermal Mass Rocket Stoves are part of This Permaculture Design

Whereas wood gasification turns wood scrap into a flammable gas to run engines (generating electricity  power and heat), a thermal mass simple turns scrap wood into heat…. lots of heat…with a lot less wood!!! 

So, we have included them in our overall design, especially for Earthcamp Village, because they are:

  1. Relavtively simple to understand, construct and use
  2. Inexpensive to build
  3. Beautiful, functional and warm.
  4. Fueled from current sunlight (i.e. wood)
  5. Very…very… efficient at converting wood into clean heat!

Bottomline:  They burn 1/4 of the wood to generate the same heat from a conventional wood stove and the outgases are 90% cleaner as well.  

The Key?  They burn the wood…and…the smoke and gasses!

  Thermal Mass Rocket Stove

 

The exhaust system of Bev and Wayne’s stove before cobbing it over into a bench for heat extraction. More at bottom of this post.

Thermal Mass Rocket Stoves Explained

Not long ago, our friends and neighbors, Bev and Wayne, started to build a thermal mass rocket stove in their living room.  Wayne took one of our and was inspired by the rocket stove concept (See the illustration and links below).

Bev and Wayne have been sharing their adventure with us and we are very excited about the possibilities.

Imagine having a wood burning stove in your home that:

  1. Burns less than 1/4 the amount of wood you typically burn
     
  2. Keeps you as warm or warmer
     
  3. Allows you to easily burn sticks, twigs and branches instead of just large chunks of firewood.
     
  4. Burns cleaner than any wood stove ever made

The big thing for us, living here on the prairie in Illinois surrounded not by woods or forests but by corn and bean fields, is the very real shortage of easily available firewood.  

What I am talking about are the large hardwood trees with trunks and large branches which are typically chainsawed to length and then split to fit into a wood burning stove.  All of this tonage of wood then needs to be hauled out of the woods, dumped or stacked somewhere, then loaded back into a truck for delivery to be driven to someone’s home (a lot more energy) and then unloaded and stacked again for winter use.

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6-Day Family Friendly Training

Posted on by Bill Wilson

6-day “” Training - August 2011
Held at Midwest Permaculture in our Sustainably Oriented Community of , IL
We expect to be offering a ‘family friendly’ training every summer.  See Here for Details

 This Training is also Stage 2 or our 3-Stage PDC Certificate Course 
6 Students stayed on for the 5-day PDC Completion Training and earned their permaculture certificate.

This was our first training that fully welcomed families with children. Four families joined us along with 12 other individuals. Bottom-line... it worked out really well!

 

 “I so appreciated having families and their children in the course. 
It really added to the wonderful dynamic.” 
Kate – College Student 

 

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The Relationship Between Yoga & Permaculture

Posted on by Milton Dixon

This video came out a a couple of years ago and we think Vidya (now Swami Omkara)  really speaks to why we’ve been working to organize with the in Grass Valley, CA. The registration for our course at the Farm this year is officially closed, but we’re holding a 6-Day Hands-On Permaculture Intensive immediately following it. The Hands-On training is a great way to not only get a deep introduction to permaculture, but also to anchor your Permaculture Design Course training. 

Hugelkultur Video

Posted on by Milton Dixon

Check out this time lapse video we made of the construction of a bed…

Hugelkultur is a filled with wood. As the wood decomposes it slowly releases nutrients to the plants in the bed. It also acts like a sponge, holding more water for the plants to access in between rains. We built this bed in Bill & Becky Wilson’s yard as a part of our Hands-On Permaculture Training this past August. 

6-Day Family Friendly Permaculture Training

Posted on by Bill Wilson

 

 

Greetings from , IL. We are in the midst of a ‘permaculture training for families’ and took this photo in front of a bed that we built today in Bill and Becky’s back yard. This bed will now hold water and produce it’s own fertility for 5 years to come.  

We also want to say hello to all the folks visiting from The Survival Podcast. Bill skipped lunch yesterday to have a chat with Jack Spirko and returned to class, energized by their conversations. 

Permaculture is about a lot more than just gardening and growing things, it is about creating ways of living that care for people and the earth at the same time. We’re all having a really great week.  And what fun having young ones and families involved. 

The next 6-day hands-on training by Bill will be in California in early October.  With the experience of this training, Bill and Becky are planning to host another family training next summer.

 


 

 

Pictures From May 2011 “Hands-on Training” Week

Posted on by Bill Wilson
May 2011 Training Week
At Midwest Permaculture — , IL For those interested, here are some from our “Hands-on” work week.  It turned out to be a great time dispite the fact that it rained on most days.

The pictures are from student John Berton and myself, Bill Wilson. The narration is mine as well. You can learn more about our 6-Day course here.
6-Day (1)
Herb Drying – Lemon balm and spearment Continue reading →