www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpK5XGfAXV4

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhMvn2G3Zuk

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Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNVwqV9f2GY

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This video series will trace the aquaponics system over the next 10-12 weeks as I bring onboard a number of new elements such as new grow beds (including deep water culture) and improved fish tank designs. It will also demonstrate the amazing growth potential that aquaponics seems to be displaying no that the weather is warming up.

So without further ado, here is week ones installment.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9YmFK8S04g

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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

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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)

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A couple of months ago I decided to revegetate a sacrificial paddock. A sacrificial paddock is one in which the animals are maintained for longer than would normally be prudent.  This would normally be a landcare nightmare but in this case a small area was chosen, which was already significantly degraded, which could be intensively revegetated following the animals.

I chose to build 2 sacrificial paddocks near the front gate for this purpose as the soil in that location was already bare hardpan, and their location would be ideal for quarantine/holding/calving paddocks moving forward. They are approx. 0.2 acres in size each.

A pair of the mischevious maruaders...

The plan to revegetate was to cover the soil with straw to a depth of about 1-2cm, and then broadcast sow a mixture of forage brassica, plantain and clover into that mix. The hope was that the straw would help retain moisture and provide some protection for the seed, and it would grow through. Unfortunately I didn’t consider the Sulphur Crested Cockatoos…

The practical upshot was that the Cockatoos had a GRAND time eating my carefully sown seed, and tearing up a few nearby plants to boot. Now that some of the remaining seed has germinated, I can see the patchy growth pattern that is the result of their stirling efforts. Bless them!

However it isn’t all bad, and I have recently discovered a ‘blessing’ in their arrival…

Recently I have noticed that the ‘paddies’ of cow manure haven’t had their usual shape, and were in fact being broken up and spread. At first I thought it might be the action of dung beetles, as spring is almost upon us, but that didn’t really ring true as it seems to be a little too cold still for dung beetles. But the other day I noticed the Cockatoos in the paddock tearing apart the dung. Why?

Well it would appear that they are looking for undigested grain. I have recently changed the diet of my cattle to include a small amount of barley grain. Most of the grain is digested by the cattle, but some ‘goes through’ undigested. The Cockatoos have learnt that the grain is ripe for the picking (in more ways than one) and are therefore spreading the manure for me. They are doing a great job.

So the next step will be to find a bird scarer that I can erect over the paddocks for short periods of time (to allow germination and initial growth) which will work amongst the trees. The first attempt was an artificial hawk, but so far this has proven not to be terribly effective (mostly due to tree cover). However this apparatus will be relocated and its effectiveness reassessed. Otherwise some other steps will need to be taken.

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So this weekend was spent pottering, doing a few homey things such as planting seeds, chopping wood and building strawberry towers. In fact, the strawberry towers are what this post is all about…

So what is a strawberry tower? Well in this case it is a length of PVC drain pipe (100mm diameter x 1400mn length) with a series of small holes drilled in the side (24 in all). The bottom of the tower is capped, the cap having drain holes drilled in it, and the top is hung by chain from the verandah fascia.

The strawberry crowns are planted in the holes, into enriched potting mix, and are watered by a central ‘weep’ line down the centre. The top section, where the chain joins the pipe, is then filled with clean straw to minimise evaporative losses.

The concept is that the strawberries grow against the clean PVC outer, allowing one to just pick and eat. They are also at an easy height for picking without bending, are kept free of the ground and therefore snails and slugs, and take up very little floor space (the strawberries are growing in the vertical space like a vine). In fact there is still room beneath for a pot of herbs, say mint, which cab collect the drainage water from the tower.

This concept of ‘stacking’ is very important in all permaculture designs as it allows us to significantly increase the yield from all available space. For example, if I planted the strawberries in the garden (using the same area of about 30cm diameter) then I’d have room for 5 plants yielding about 1.75Kg of strawberries (~7 punnets). However by planting the strawberries in the vertical plane I have managed to squeeze in 24 plants which should yield about 8.4kg of strawberries (~33 punnets) AND a herb crop such as mint from the pot underneath. All up this is an increase of yield of over 400% which is just phenomenal.

A fact sheet detailing the design/construction of these pots will be available on the Green Phoenix Permaculture website in the next few weeks, so if you are interested in creating some strawberry towers then head over to there.

UPDATE

Today I noticed a ‘fault’ with the irrigation system. Essentially the piece of ‘weep hose’ which watered the towers has failed leaving the plants dry, and some dying. Unfortunately I think I’ll lose about 6 crowns due to the failure, but they can be replaced.

I had honestly thought that this might be a problem, the chance of the tubing clogging with small particles was always pretty high. As a result the ‘back up plan’ was to place a dripper in the top of the tower, and let gravity do the work. So that’s exactly what I have done… I’ll let you know how it gets on.

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Because most of what we’re consuming today is not food, and how we’re consuming it — in the car, in front of the TV, and increasingly alone — is not really eating. Instead of food, we’re consuming “edible foodlike substances” — no longer the products of nature but of food science. Many of them come packaged with health claims that should be our first clue they are anything but healthy. In the so-called Western diet, food has been replaced by nutrients, and common sense by confusion. The result is what Michael Pollan calls the American paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to become.

But if real food — the sort of food our great grandmothers would recognize as food — stands in need of defense, from whom does it need defending? From the food industry on one side and nutritional science on the other. Both stand to gain much from widespread confusion about what to eat, a question that for most of human history people have been able to answer without expert help. Yet the professionalization of eating has failed to make Americans healthier. Thirty years of official nutritional advice has only made us sicker and fatter while ruining countless numbers of meals.

Pollan proposes a new (and very old) answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. By urging us to once again eat food, he challenges the prevailing nutrient-by-nutrient approach — what he calls nutritionism — and proposes an alternative way of eating that is informed by the traditions and ecology of real, well-grown, unprocessed food. Our personal health, he argues, cannot be divorced from the health of the food chains of which we are part.

In Defense of Food shows us how, despite the daunting dietary landscape Americans confront in the modern supermarket, we can escape the Western diet and, by doing so, most of the chronic diseases that diet causes. We can relearn which foods are healthy, develop simple ways to moderate our appetites, and return eating to its proper context — out of the car and back to the table. Michael Pollan’s bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating.

Pollan’s last book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, launched a national conversation about the American way of eating; now In Defense of Food shows us how to change it, one meal at a time.

Read the Introduction… (PDF)

If this title appeals to you, the please consider purchasing it through the Amazon Store by following this link. Doing this means you are supporting the ongoing maintainence of the This Sustainable House Website.

The video below outlines the new Mandala Gardens being set-up at TSH, and the reason they are laid out the way they are. The system being adopted was originally designed by Linda Woodrow (The Permaculture Home Garden) so credit where credit is due.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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