Annie Hope

I would like to raise the thread with the question of how to practically use solar hot water and wood fire heat (including stored heat) to make power in the KW.  Is there an easy go-to DVD or website somewhere?

Also, is it possible to use the same unit both to generate thermo-electric heat, and to create heating and cooling with electricity.

I am in in a place with both solar and wind in abundance, but am interested in peltier for the following reasons:

- I would want to pump water in summer anyway to irrigate my gardens from a sand-trap bore
- I would want to pump water in winter anyway to take heat from my heat store, and put it under my heat-loving plants, (or to put heat into large bodies of water to 25-30C like my pallet swimming pool or water around a methane middy).

A also want to produce heat when needed for things like:
- A backup for under seedlings if there is several days without sun
- to keep things like youghurt at a constant temperature

I also want to use cold for things like the following without spending big money on the appliances that do this:
- Making ice cream
- cooling down mushroom rooms in summer
- Cooling a temporary cool room to 4C or less to hang meat for a week when the yearly calf is butchered
- Putting excess electricity into heating a heat store above boiling temperature
- Putting excess electricity into a cold room to give berries their sufficient chill hours and then grow berries out of season.

I have inherited 3 blackout tents, with lights for each and ventilation fans for at least one.  This is an example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1suSz5ObVs

The details are:  
40cm x 80cm  floor x 50cm  high propagation tent with two 20W led lights.  these will cost 23c a day to run lights for 18 hours.  

Grow Tent 60 x 60cm floor x 180cm high with 250W Halogen bulb.  It will cost $1.60 a day to run for 18 hours.
Grow Tent 150 x 150cm floor x 120cm high with  500W Halogen bulb.  It will cost $3.20 a day to run for 18 hours.

I have had no previous experience using grow lights at all, but do have tables of seedlings in front of the lounge room window each winter/spring.

I am in a very temperate climate on 8 acres.  I can understand the use of a propagation tent to ensure that emerging seed/seedlings stay warm enough to sprout well, but don't grow long and sideways towards a window light.  Especially fussy tropical things like Bottle gourd or papaya seeds that want to stay at 25C soil temperature.  I also appreciate that they will help keep the soil most with tiny seeds like celery etc. I do wonder about whether they will easily damp off, however, in a closed environment.
Are these of any greater benefit than a cheap Temu seedling tray with clear top and LED lights built in put on top of the fridge or on a heat mat?  (Which I have just bought to try for the first time with $1 per seed papayas when I got these tents.)

I wonder about the Grow tents, however.  Unless you are growing something illegal or have free excess electricity, can they ever be cost effective to grow plants to maturity?  Are they just a fancy hobby for apartment dwellers, and why would they not want to have the plants in full view with just grow lamps - unless it is for places that have very cold and low humidity winters?

This is maybe a topic for another thread, but if I do make my dream greenhouse with passive heating and wood fire back-up heating, and have over 9 hours  of natural light on our shortest day, and minimum temperatures that never go below -4C, is it worth the cost to extend the daylight hours with LED lights unless the plants require it for fruiting (e.g. Capsicum)?  

I have heard a few references to Peltier power generators being using off grid in Europe.  Can any give a link to how to make one of these or where to buy one?

This really interests me as an alternative to plastic.  Would it be possible to make it out of any other type of paper or make cloth from second hand sheets?

This is picking up an old post.  My water table is only about 4-5 ft down on sandy soil 7km from the beach.  The grass can dry brown, but the fruit trees in the orchard will still bear, and I have never watered them.

Twice in five years, the water table has flooded 90% of the property including under the house, and sat for months.  The town council has finally put a ditch down our road where it flows down and into our property, but much of our property is still lower than the ditch.  The flooding takes months to build up in paddocks about a km away before it floods down our road and into our property, so we need to wait another few years to see what effect it will have if it drains the source of the flooding early enough.

What will happen if there is a heat sink and it gets flooded, will it still work?

The lowest it ever gets in winter is -4C as we as so close to the sea.  On an average winter there a frosts several times in winter.  In such temperatures is a heat sink so important?

I have just bought some expensive rare seeds (passionfruit, pawpaw etc.) that can months to develop, and it is recommended that I sterilise the seed-raising mix.  My usual theory is to use compost and soil on the theory that it already has a good balance of microbes and the bad ones can't get out of control.  It usually works fine for fast growing veges, but I am not sure about this case.  

How many of you sterilise your seed-raising mix?

I was wondering what spacing you use for asparagus in a woodchip garden.  

This gives three options for spacing and says the yield is the same for each one.  
https://askthefoodgeek.com/how-to-grow-asparagus-in-less-space/

I was wondering if the plants in wood chip will grow more vigorously / larger.  I have 8 acres so space is not an issue.  I also am growing some from seed, so plant cost is not an issue either.

With all the talk about micro plastics, I am wondering just how safe the stuff I use on my farm is and what are other options:

- Greenhouse plastic film

- UPVC piping

- weed mat / shade cloth / bird and bird netting / wind and frost protection cloth

- Seedling punnets

- PE piping to the house and gardens and a PE rainwater tank that supplies the house


Drinking Water can be made safer (?and more mineral content) by collecting water in jas gars from a hill stream and boiling it.
But not for all the farm amimals or the plants.

Weedmat is mainly to initally clear ground and can be replaced with woodchip / chickens to dig the ground.
Woodchip also reduces the need for water.

With some expense biodegradable or ceramic seedling pots could be used.

But what about the greenhouse plastic film and the wind/frost protection and bird netting?
I live in an area whether the average min max in winter is 2C to 12C and the average min max in summer is 13C to 23C.  
We get strong cold winds from the sea and we need our protection to grow year round.
Birds also strip our orchard trees (esp plums) within a day.