This Sustainable House

Just a few hours, if that, old...

Approx 21 days ago I placed some 40 chicken eggs into the incubator comprising 22 pure breed eggs that I purchased, and another 18 eggs collected from my own hens. Unfortunately, during the incubation process, candling revealed the purchased eggs to be of a very poor quality and 12 of the eggs were subsequently discarded as totally infertile. However the eggs from my hens proved to be more fertile, with only 2 eggs having to be discarded during this process.

As you might know, chicken eggs have an incubation period of 21 days so this evening I returned home to the comforting sound of the peeping of chicks coming from the office. Both Kailash and Tara seem bewildered, not quite sure what to make of the sound, and definitely unwilling to leave the door. They are ragdoll cats.

So please welcome the first 5 chicks hatched at TSH… hopefully only the first 5 of some 26 but time will tell.

Update – Well ultimately 15 chicks made it through the hatching process with almost all of the chicks from my girls making it through. Unfortunately, of the bought eggs only 2 hatched, and one of those died soon afterwards. Poor little thing…

The incubator is fired up again though, this time with Guinea Fowl and, hopefully soon, some Araucana’s and Welsummers.

Chicks in Brooder - About 1 week old

A few months ago I wrote a post explaining the strawberry towers that I have decided to use at TSH (see link below). I thought that this was a good time to provide an update.

As was previously noted, I lost a few crowns when the irrigation system failed, but since re-jigging the system I haven’t had any issues. As you can see from the photo’s, the remaining crowns are doing really well.

The one change that I would like to make to the system would be to add a fertiliser ‘injector’ into the system which would make adding liquid fertiliser much easier. At the moment I periodically stand on a ladder to pour a seaweed fertiliser into the tubes. This isn’t the end of the world but it would be easier!

The other option is to perhaps integrate the system with the proposed aquaponics system, but we’ll see how that pans out as the season progresses.

Update (4/12/10) – After a week of almost solid rain another ‘problem’ has become apparent… slugs! Today when harvesting some fruit I noticed some slug damage. I think they are getting to the plants via the mint beneath which has gone beserk, and grown taller than the bottom of the tower. I think the slugs are then just bridging the gap. However there is nowhere for them to hide, so picking them off and eliminating the bridge should do the job nicely.

Photo Updates

Strawberry Tower on 7 November

Strawberry Tower on 20 November 2010

One of the disadvantages of living in a rural area, at least in Australia, is the flies. They lay their eggs in animal manure, and as a result can be legion in an area in which one is surrounded by animals. In the case of TSH we have the cattle, pigs and chickens, as well as the sheep & horses surrounding the property.

To add to the problem, the flys aren’t just annoying but can cause issues with the stock through biting. We therefore need to control them.

Control can take one of three possible routes, or a combination thereof. These protocols are chemical control (pesticides), trapping and biological control. At TSH, chemical control is always the last resort, or act of desperation, and therefore doesn’t apply to this scenario. So we are left with trapping and biological control.

Before I go any further, let me point out an important fact… I’m a lazy sod! I don’t believe in doing something if someone, or something else, would like to do it for me. I am therefore naturally inclined towards biological control. In this case, Biological control will take two paths. Read the rest of this entry »

How often have you thought about where your ‘meat’ comes from?

Have you ever considered the suffering modern ‘farming’ production involves?

I have. At TSH we pride ourselves on providing an environment in which we can balance the competing pressures of animal production vs animal welfare. From my experience the two concepts are rarely found together, as animal production is all about producing as many animals as possible whereas welfare is about providing the opportunity for animals to behave naturally and be, well animals.

Unfortunately much of the meat we purchase in Western society has been produced under the former concept. This is why we have 14 ‘free-range’ chickens to the square metre in commercial sheds, why we have pigs raised in crates unable to turn around or escape the smell, and why cattle on feedlots need to be kept pumped full of antibiotics just to say alive. The abuses of the system are many, and there are more than enough websites on the internet dealing with these already. However for a ‘fun’ primer check out The Meatrix.

However at TSH, rather than just bleat about the problem, so to speak, we thought we’d do something about it. Enter the TSH “CSA Meat” scheme. Read the rest of this entry »

Unless I am mistaken, I thought that the fairy tale involved 3 little pigs, not 5 not so little pigs. However, it was 5 little pigs that arrived at TSH today.

New Garden Area prior to Pigs

The concept behind the arrival of the pigs is that we are planning on building a new vegetable garden. However this area is currently significantly overrun with grasses/weeds as well as being extraordinarily uneven. In short, this area needs to be dug over and manured before it can be used. The problem is that I am a lazy sod, and am not overly keen on digging over some 500m2 on my own.

The solution… Pigs!! Read the rest of this entry »

In another fabulous book by Michael Pollan (can you guess that I am something of a fan?), looks at four distinct families of domesticated plants asking the question… who domesticated who? The plants looked at are the Apple, Tulip, Marijuana and Potato.

In this very entertaining book, Michael shows that much of the success of these plants in our world is predicated on their ability to meet certain human desires and how, through judicious breeding, these plants have improved upon their ability to meet those needs.

For example, whilst considering the apple, Michael delves deeply into the history, and controversy, surrounding John Chapman (aka Johnny Appleseed) who simultaneously preached to the frontier as well as bringing them applejack (a hard liquor made from cider). He demonstrates that by providing the settlers with apple seedlings he was meeting their needs for the familiar (each apple orchard ‘tamed’ the wilderness), stability (apples take many years to fruit), and social lubrication (let’s not forget the applejack!). This combined with their natural genetic variability, assisted them to acclimatise so rapidly to the new world.

When looking at the potato, he looks at the important role this tuber has played in the civilisation of the Inca’s, the growth of the potato as a crop in Ireland (and most of Europe), the tragic impact of the potato blight, and modern methods and refinements to this delicious crop. Central to this discussion is the “New Leaf” potato, a genetically engineered spud created by the Monsanto corporation to produce it’s own BT toxin.

I’d highly recommend this book to any gardener or farmer as it is not only an entertaining read, but also provides us with a different view on 4 very familiar species of plants. I know that I will no longer look at these plants in quite the same manner.

Note: If you are interested in purchasing The Botany of Desire, the please consider purchasing via this link from Amazon. In this way you will be supporting the This Sustainable House project. Mind you… if the local library has it then get it there!

Every weekend I set myself a task to complete around TSH that keeps the vision moving in the right direction. Sometimes this task is large, such as fencing a new paddock, but at other times it can be quite small such as improving an existing system. This weekend, my task was to build a new vege garden using the wicking bed system.

A wicking bed is a marvellously efficient garden design in which you water from below. It is basically a giant self-watering pot in which you water via a filling tube. The water creates a reservoir under the soil of the bed, and the water then ‘wicks’ up to water the plants. The major advantage of the system is that there is no free water on the surface, so evaporation is minimal.

At TSH we have two beds, both located on the back verandah, which have been designated to be wicking beds. And this weekend I created one of the beds. The location of the beds was chosen so as to allow year round growing (it’s under the eaves so shouldn’t be too effected by frost) as well as to be close to the kitchen (virtually in zone 0, if you are permaculturally inclined). It should also help reduce the amount of reflected sunlight into the entertaining area during summer which should help make this area feel much more comfortable.

And let’s not forget… produce a mass of picking greens, herbs and other vegetables for the kitchen.

A video-essay of the building of this bed can be found on Green Phoenix Permaculture.

I’ll post an update in a few weeks around how it is going. Below are some time staged photos… click on them to zoom.

Wicking Bed (Week 1)