A new chimney

We have a new chimney. The Rayburn has been connected and is functioning. We are now in the happy position of being able to cook and generate heat from the wood on our own land. The new flue draws well and burns cleanly. After a short period of time the oven was up to 200 degrees and the hotplate was able to boil water with ease. However, the most exciting aspect is that the kitchen was comfortably warm.

Meanwhile the solar panels are working well. They are generating about 14 Kwh per day in the recent sunny weather.

Tadpoles

The frogspawn has started its conversion. Now a mass of tadpoles are busy in the pond and the leat. Tailed but legless they have started their transformation.

The two cockerels have settled in. Jeff enjoys his polygamous life and has been very active and hopefully helping us expand our stock. We we have created a box in the hope that one of the hens may go broody. Made out of recycled materials from the work in the boot room it will not be a great loss if we have to change our plans to an incubator. In the interim, Scampy is is using it as a refuge as he regains his health as Jeff and the girls do not tolerate his company.

We have started to get involved in the local gardening group and even at this early stage it has proven valuable.

Spring Sounds

Spring continues to slowly evolve. The days are warmer and brighter and over the last few days we have seen the solar panels deliver about 10kwH. More flowers are showing their heads in the garden with patches of colour appearing in the borders.

The greenhouse has been pressed into action. A paraffin heater keeps the frost away and fills the greenhouse with a characteristic smell which is very evocative of old men and allotments.


We are trying to recycle the as much as we can. Hopefully the tubes from inside toilet and kitchen paper rolls will make pots for seedlings. If they survive long enough, without degrading, they should allow the plants to be transplanted into the ground with minimal risk of root shock. We are also using beans which we found from the previous owner of the house. These french, runner, and broad beans are quite aged so we are taking a bit of a gamble. However, if in a fortnight they have failed we should still have time to get beans going.

We found a large cold water header tank. This was rusted and holed in many places but has been recycled to act as a local incinerator.

Some heavy digging in the near end of the woods has uncovered a large drainage pipe. This should allow us to drain some of the bog down there. It might also make an outlet for a duck-pond. It looks as if, which some unpleasant muddy work, we could dig out a reasonable pond here. Fortunately we are probably having visitors in March who might be enticed into heavy manual labour.

Chicken looking amazed by recycled incinerator.
(Another chicken with a blasé expression was cropped out)

This clip might also give some idea of our recent activities :- Sound

Taking the piss .. ..

.. .. out to the garden.

Urine has all the hallmarks of a great fertilizer. It is rich in nitrogen as well as having reasonable amounts of phosphates and potassium. Indeed, fertilizers are rated by the NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium) system and in this regard the potency of urine is similar to that of proprietary fertilizers but with the advantage of being free. Research from the Stockholm Environmental Institute suggests that one person's urine can anually fertilize about 500 square meters.

Urine is probably too concentrated, when it is produced, to be used directly on plants. It should be diluted 8:1 with water, although other sources suggest stronger concentrations can be used. However, direct from the source, and undilutted, it can be added to the compost heap as an activator and as a useful way of adding nitrogen to a carbon heavy heap.

As there can be other salts in your urine it should be used around the garden. Apply at different sites each time and avoid always using the one site. When using the fertilizer it should be delivered to the plants roots not the leaves to avoid the risk of scorching.

As part of the drive to self-reliance we have decided that this is the next stage and will reduce our need for fertilizers. This, plus composting, should meet our needs. For reasons of practicality this will mainly be a male chore. I feel that we can probably allow visitors to skip this.

This is job number 1. However, there is an obvious job number 2, though this step is perhaps one too far at present. For those wishing more information about human manure I'd suggest The Humanure Handbook which can be downloaded here (or as kindle file here.)

Standing back for better perspective

As spring presses on, so do we. There has been so much activity in the garden today that we have had to stand further back to take a shot than includes all of the patch. Todays newcomers were the beetroots, swedes, strawberries and runner beans.

The main recycling activity has been on the cloches where, in addition to lemonade bottles, we are now using coat hangers and shelf brackets to support polythene sheeting. Time will tell whether this works or not.

The photomontage helps reassure that there is some change.

Signs of Life

April is now here and so are its showers. Mainly hail-showers so far rather than any gentle raindrops bringing water to the soil. However, it signifies spring and the tension it brings – will any thing grow ?

We now have clear signs of life. In the cloche five little lines of green have spread from side to side. Each identical sprout of two leaves giving no clues as to what they are. The garlic bulb from Tesco has sprouted and has been moved outdoors.

To try and protect them, and to keep the recycling ethos, they have been given their own individual greenhouses. These fairy greenhouses, courtesy of 2 litre lemonade bottles seem also to be a useful defence from predators such as slugs or chickens.

A perennial question remains. Can one garden and recycle and remain fashionable ? I have considered this deeply and now have photographic proof that the answer, quite simply, is no.

Despite the aesthetic problems the patch continues to grow and now starts to resemble a vegetable patch.