Nancy Reading

Here's another 'living on a ration' video 'blog: She gets slightly more than normal as a pregnant woman apparently.



I'd have liked some greens with that potato loaf.

(1 teaspoon of tea leaves for the day would be tough!)

You can't grow trees on Skye...



Hmm, you can if you have time and don't let the sheep in.

Ned Harr wrote:The thing I don't understand is why, in the rendering on the right, water can be simply diverted around the structure, but it can't be on the left--why wouldn't the left-side structure-builder use whatever those same means are to divert water?
Even with the excavated foundation, a well-planned and -executed French drain ought to work. And of course you'd have a gutter at the low end of the roof, with a downspout that channels water off to the side where it can continue downslope unhindered. And there are other tricks we've got up our sleeves as well, like sump pumps. This should all work especially well if the structure is not monstrously large.

I think the point is that the lower the structure, the more and complex are the design features that need to be built in to compensate for the water ingress risk. Simple (minimising the risk) is generally better and will probably end up cheaper.

And of course there's no reason you need an excavated foundation; you could instead build up a foundation on the downslope side with a retaining wall and backfill, a design which I'm favoring lately:

I think if I were building this, I'd be tempted to make the space underneath useful space - root cellar perhaps? rather than backfill, unless I had surplus soil to get rid of.

Anthony Powell wrote:Cherry plum suffers a lot from pocket plum, a fungal disease related to peach leaf curl. It results in deformed fruit that drop early. Dry weather early in the season led to many trees across the UK fruiting. Fingers crossed breezy Skye will keep spores blown away.

I think mine just don't get pollinated. I don't see bumblebees till mid - late March usually. There may be some flies and midges around who may do the job in less breezy weather, but that is also uncommon till end of March (the bumblebees 'know' this!). Now the trees are a little more mature they have a better chance of having one or two of their many flowers pollinated though.
Some fungal diseases need warmer temperatures too, so as well as the wind keeping the spores away (?) we're actually less likely to have some diseases here because our summer weather is relatively cool.

I guess many people on homesteads have livestock guardian dogs and I believe they have a natural ability to look after their people too. Perhaps an additional dog isn't often needed, as the LGD might serve both purposes in many cases.

Carroll Shultz,
I have merged your topic into this topic. I hope that helps.

I merged your stuff with the following thread. I hope that is okay by you.

Harry Malecki wrote:Propagating dock seeds around the Abbey

Only on permies would you be able to write this and everyone know what you might be doing it for! I must admit it wouldn't be something I'd propagate round here as it isn't useful enough and is a bit of a pain to get rid of, but as a soil improver/dynamic accumulator it's almost as good as comfrey and rather easier to get rid of (apart from the soil seed burden).

I'm planning a somewhat similar earth sheltered structure here. I'm hoping that a rubble/gravel filled trench behind my wall will be enough to keep it dry. But my structure will be stone, so a bit of damp won't cause too much trouble. Have you looked a paul's wofati concept? The idea there is for the roof/walls to always go downwards so that the water pressure never builds up. He also lives in a somewhat dry cold climate, unlike Wales (or Skye)

wofati concept from'build a better world book'

more information about wofati here

I may even turn my building around to open up behind it on the uphill side, although my thoughts are that driving rain is just as likely to casue damp issues as soil moisture wicking.

Oh my! What a transformation! Is that the remains of the same fence in there?