William Bronson

Four out of the six people in my family of origen have had life threatening cancers that have required extreme interventions to survive.
The two of us that have not, probably have the "worst" diets out of the six of us.

My father has always been very keen on knowing how the food he ate affected his health.
At 88, he's still doing rather well, but he has Alzheimer's, like his father did.
This is the very thing he feared the most.
Ironically, his extremely low fat diet might have contributed to his mental state, even though it was supposed to do the opposite.

I've noticed once the body suffers from an unbalanced diet, just balancing the diet might not be enough to set things right.

I'm insulin resistant, probably started  from my teenage habit of drinking lots of highly sugared herbal tea!
It wasn't soda, which I had ni access to, but I always got sleepy after drinking it.
When I got a job, I would eat a handful of candy bars for lunch...
I'm not going to be able to eat "normal" amounts of sugar of simple carbs and be ok, that ship has sailed.

But, I recently gave up caffeine, to avoid prostate cancer and incidentally greatly reduced my artificial sugar intake, and now my body is less reactive to eating simple carbs and sugars.

At the same time I started experiencing pain and weakness in my thigh muscles.
It turned out each serving of the energy drink I used to imbibe was fortified with 100% of several important vitamins, and I had been megadosing by drinking multiple servings every day.
You can buy drinks that have the vitamins but not the caffeine and taurine, but they cost a lot more than the ones with the stimulants!
I'm back to supplementing vitamins B, C, and D, now in pill form, and at more moderate levels.

Like my father before me, I find myself creating odd drinks and unusual meals to try to bring my body back into balance.

All of which to say, once you start messing with the body by feeding it extremes of anything, you will likely trigger cascading effects, and your "fixes" will as well

I definitely think whole foods, as a rule, will keep you from going to extremes.
I don't see artificial colors and flavors as very threatening to my family's health, because the cheapest and best meals are made from items that don't have any of those things.
Yesterday at my mom's house I ate a microwaved potato with butter and salt.
Dirt cheap, delicious and no worries about additives.
Flaming hot Cheetos, mountain dew code red and Kraft macaroni dinner  might have crazy stuff in them but no one needs to eat those, just like no one needs to drink whiskey, but we are allowed to do so if we want.
I see white flour and bread as similarly suspect, but also no one is forcing them on me.

I wonder if j chokes in buckets might work well.
Grow them in the bucket, feed the greens fresh, leave them outside overwinter, pull them inside to thaw, feed most of the roots to the bunnies, plant a few roots back into the soil along with fresh rabbit bedding.

Or maybe, bring them inside and grow them out?
Sunchokes can grow in low light, producing blanched sprouts.

If bunnies can eat beets, swish chard/beets are incredibly resilient.
The roots might have too much sugar, but I keep pet rabbits so my criteria for feeding is different.

I use a wine bottle, just like mom always used .
Should be green glass, because that's what mom always used!

This photo makes it look like the riser exhaust is pointed almost directly at the  by pass opening.
Is that actually the case?
You mentioned a hot spot on the back of the bell, maybe this has something to do with that?
Also, can you please tell us about the  chimney bypass damper?

thomas rubino wrote:Ommm... Morgan Super wool is a non-ceramic fiber alternative.
Morgan also makes non-ceramic boards as well

Woops, my bad!
It seems that Lynn Manufacturing sells Morgans super wool plus, so it's not a new material after all.

I had to edit my post-I didn't mean to question if your set up could start seeds, I was questioning if mine could!
You shared even more cool experiments as a result of my flub.
I love that your medium is composted wood chips, not peat, that's one less thing to buy.

For people wanting less plastic, Solo makes an aluminum cup as a semi disposable/reusable , completely recyclable alternative to their big red cups.

For a food safe plastic bin, consider bus bins, available from restaurant supply stores.

I wonder if a mesh cylinder, lined with burlap and stuffed with grow medium, would give us wicking,air pruning and maximum  roots.

Maybe make the cylinder out on this:

The build is so clean and the documentation is so clear.
Thank you for this amazing contribution!

I think the ability to use conventional bricks in the top half of the build is notable, is this due to how the shorty core works?
The concrete block with refractory parge is also great, using cheap/conventional materials expands the possible use cases of rocket mass heaters.
I will be looking into that ceramic fiber alternative, it's very exciting to have new materials to consider.


That the shorty core used a metal frame seems both limiting and expansive.
It makes it harder to diy on the one hand but it could make it easier to standardize/commercialize.

Id like to see your 55 gallon and 1 gallon systems.
If you get the roots to grow out of the cup, will you remove the cup before transplanting?
I ask, because I can see that leading to damaged roots
Maybe cut the plant loose?

When I last messed with a similar set up, the potting  soil itself was the wick.
I used it to nurse volunteer tree seedlings, so I'm not sure if they wicked enough water to start seeds

Hey, Mart, looks great!
I think you could use 3" net cups to combine this with air pruning.
Can you elaborate on using this hack with air layering?

It's interesting that this system mirrors hydroponic systems, but the nutrients are in the medium, not in the water.

Thanks for sharing your design and building process!
I love that you are documenting your process, making it easier for the next guy.

I was wondering, why put the sumps in the ground, and why use culverts?
The great website you linked above shows a barrel vermifilter sitting on a barrel sump.
This would seem ideal, for avoiding extra digging and making maintenance easier.

The other thing I was wondering was about the medium.
Does it have to be degradable to work?
Could it be expanded clay balls, biochar, rockwool, sand or some other neutral material?
That way, you might avoid ever needing to empty the primary tanks.
Presumably,when you switch from black water to grey, the amount of incoming solids will drop precipitously, giving the worms time to convert every biosolids in that filter to humus.

I wonder,could the filters could work without worms at all?
Might aerobic digestion, aided by forced air, be enough on its own?
I think commercial aerobic digester sewage  systems exist, but the tanks are much larger.