This Sustainable House

Posts Tagged ‘Indoor’

Like a lot of people, I love sourdough bread. The complex flavours, the aromas, it’s enough to get the mouth watering just by thinking about it. Wonderful!!

However the key to a good sourdough is the starter… a colony of living breathing organisms (fungi and bacteria).There are a number of ways to create a starter such as seeding it with a commercial/existing starter, using commercial yeast to kick it off, or relying on natural yeasts/bacteria in your local environment. It is this latter approach that I have taken to create… “The Mulloonian!”

The starter is being created by mixing equal quantities of water and flour together, and then leaving the mix to ‘collect’ some local yeasts & bacteria. The mix will then need to be ‘fed’ every day for about a week. Feeding is pretty simple, basically we dump half the current mix and replace it with fresh water/flour mix.

After about a week, give or take, the mix should be good and bubbly, with a pleasant slightly sour smell. Bingo! We have starter…

Keep your starter in the fridge and feed it once a week or so. It’s pretty hard to ‘kill’ a starter unless you let it get too hot. Even starving it to death is difficult! If oc

casionally fed, then a starter can live for centuries… think of it as a family heirloom.

The TSH “Mulloonian” was kicked off earlier this evening and I’ll keep you posted on it’s developments… I feel like a father.

1/2/11 – Update – The Mulloonian burst into life this morning with some lovely bubbles appearing throughout the mix. It is also begginning to develop a little hooch, and a distinctly sour aroma… Live, Damn You! Live!!!!

7/2/11 – Update – The Mulloonian is definitely alive and breathing. It took about a week for the cultures to really get going, and now they are bubbling and boiling with that gorgeous distinctly sour smell. In addition, if you take a little taste it is so sour it’ll make your face screw up! Next step is to try our mix to make some bread…

The Mulloonian - Day 1

The Mulloonian - Day 7

The reality for a lot of people living in cities is that they don’t have the space, or time, to grow their own food. Of course there are a number of initiatives that help to address this, such as the allotment movement. But how do you grow your own food at home, or how do you make the most of allotment resources if you are frail, infirm or have other ‘issues’. The solution is easy… Sprouted Seeds

The Benefits of Sprouting

Sprouting seed is one of the easiest, and most productive form of gardening available. It is something that anyone can do and, in fact, it is a wonderful activity for children.

Sprouts are an alkalizing, living food which continue to grow until such time as they are eaten. They contain a greater concentration of vitamins, minerals, proteins and enzymes than almost any other food, and have been used for centuries to invigorate the body’s immune system, work against toxins and even counter cell mutation. Think of them as a super food you can grow right on your bench top and you wouldn’t go far wrong… Read the rest of this entry »

So far so good…

It has now been about a week since the trial was started and already the plants a visibly growing. Wonderful!

The issue to do with gurgling was addressed by reducing to flood cycle to one cycle per night. This means that though it still gurgles it’s not causing too many problems with my sleep patterns. The more long-term solution is the insulated base but that will have to wait till the ‘alpha’ is completed.

However a new issue has arisen, something that is more of an aesthetic problem than anything else… The direction of light.

As was originally hoped, it seems that the light entering through the window is more than adequate for sustaining the plant growth so far. The plants are growing well with no signs of spindliness (is that a word?). However the plants are ‘leaning’ into the light which kind of makes sense when one considers that the light is only coming from one direction. As noted, this gives the plants a slightly odd look in the garden but doesn’t seem to be affecting their growth.

A potential solution is to place a reflective source, at least 30cm tall and the width of the bed, on the southern side. This should bounce back the light that pushes through and provide some stimulation to the cells on the southern side of the plant.

To test this concept I have attached a piece of corflute, a type of rigid plastic with a reflective side, to the side of the bed. At the moment, as can be seen below, this is only temporarily in place but should the trial proceed into ‘production’ then a more robust frame will be built.

Perhaps making the ‘mirror’ movable, ie up and down as well as angled, would add value?

Well it has been less than 24hrs and the first ‘issue’ has arisen. Location! To explain…

The best location for these gardens is on the second floor of the house as this location has the most available light resources, affords excellent opportunities for maintainence/supervision, and is naturally the warmest part of the home. However, the second floor is also the master bedroom and our flood & drain table gurgles as it drains. Dag Nammit!

At this stage it’s not too problematic, there are only 2 cycles throughout the night and the gurgling only lasts a minute or so. However should the trial prove a success then an insulated base would assist with muffling the propgation of the sound. If worst comes to worst, the master bedroom can always be moved.

Winter is starting to close in at TSH and in this climate that has implications for what can be grown. Specifically we have very harsh winters at Mulloon with very heavy frosts. This makes growing the kitchen garden somewhat challenging.

In order to alleviate the ‘issue’ of fresh greens over winter I am trying a new gardening technique… indoor hydroponic gardens. The system I am trialling initially is a flood and drain table placed alongside a north facing window. It is hoped that the window will provide enough light without artificially introducing additional light.

Of course there are other benefits to indoor gardens not least of which is humidification of the air inside the house. This is a fine line between adding a little moisture and creating a mould farm so a hygrometer has been installed to keep an eye on the ‘issue’.

The way that a flood and drain system works is that there is an electric pump in the resevior which turns on for 15mins per hour during daylight hours, with an additional 2 x 15min intervals during the evening. In this case we are running the pump for a total of 3.5 hours per day (in total). The pump floods the table to a predetermined depth during each flood cycle, and the nutrient enriched water then drains in-between.

The plants are growing in an inert media, in this case expanded clay, and are fed purely from the nutrient rich water which floods the table.

At this stage the garden has been planted with seedlings purchased from a nursery (kale, parsley, coriander & rocket) however over the weekend seeds will be planted in rockwool cubes to further populate the garden. Planning on planting silverbeet, basil, beetroot, chives & warragul greens. The garden isn’t very large so it’ll only be one or two of the above… but it’s a GREAT opportunity to test the new system.

Check out the photos below. I’ll keep you updated on it’s progress.