Phineas Gulcher

r ranson wrote:

paul wheaton wrote:I'm trying to figure out a way to solve global problems.  

Underneath that problem, I see a different one.

We are trained to want a monoculture solution.  A single thing that applies universally across every aspect of human existence.  Lightbulbs, recycling, solar, or something that is a universal truth.

If monoculture social solutions worked, the environment would be fixed by now.  

What permaculture offers is a toolkit.  An "it depends" solution where people look around their situation and apply what works.  So even if one person proves that permaculture works, it's only proving that it works in that situation.  If someone takes that success and trys to extract a monoculture solution, we are back to the problem that caused the problems in the first place.

Exactly. Out here a commonly heard phrase is ‘try it and find out’.  And it isn’t ‘old dad’ suggesting you will get hurt, it’s homesteaders and ranchers and women who are mountain guides acknowledging that one size doesn’t fit all. It’s our common recognition that your solution, or next step on your path, won’t look exactly like mine.

FWIW I’ve seen urban landscapers shift to a permaculture/wellness track and successfully monetize this by selling people on converting their lawn and ornamentals space into a food growing and edibles oasis that fits their “I’m no farmer but a productive yard with raspberries, herbs, a fruit tree, a nut tree and all done with natural beauty and a patio in mind’ thinking.
It’s expensive for them but it saves some trips to their local mega grocery store and ends the ‘tend my lawn’ cycle.  Small steps are better, perhaps, than ‘no steps’.
Not an endorsement but this:

www.earthlightpermaculture.com

Is it permaculture? They think so.
At any rate it’s better than a fertilized, gas mower clipped, non-riparian lawn - unless, by using services like this, the home owner thinks they have earned ‘social license’ to do other ‘earth-evil’ things.

I hear you Donna, it’s too bad about material prices and the water table.  One day I’ll bring in a machine and put a green house in the top of a bank with not much more than the roof exposed.  That will be something! Our banks are eskers so drainage isn’t an issue and we have the material to make all the concrete we want so it’s kind of a ‘no brainer’ project.  
We go through our rocket mass heater book each spring and wonder if this is the summer for a test build. It might be just the thing for the stand alone gh you describe.  Your explanation seems well thought out and solid.  
It’s too bad about the set back but a small attached gh (sun room? Orangerie?) would still be plenty useful!

Donna Lynn wrote:Phineas I want your greenhouse!  If you would be so kind as to provide details of construction and any supplemental heat sources you use, it would be much appreciated!

We cheated. The kitchen had a south facing 12’ wide projection to which we added a 12’ x 12’ lean to greenhouse. Concrete floor, 2x4 insulated walls where there aren’t scrounged windows (it’s mostly windows) and a 2x6 insulated roof except for the centred 10’x6’ roof glass part. We put a glass door on one wall close to the house and then added to the kitchen by going sideways and wrapping up around the door.  The kitchen addition has windows to support sunlight passing through to the glass door.
The original kitchen wall looking in to the greenhouse has a 5’ high by 9’ wide window so lots of heat migrated from the kitchen to the greenhouse and the glass door is closed during summer but open (with a screen door) in the winter so even more heat passes from the kitchen to the green house. We have a wood stove in the greenhouse but never use it.  
In the kitchen we cook on wood and propane so there is some heat there to move in to the greenhouse.  
It’s more of an orangery than a greenhouse I guess.  
Heat from the greenhouse does not heat the house during the growing season because the windows open.  
In the winter the kitchen is warm despite the parasitical greenhouse - I’m sure the kitchen wood burning cook stove helps during the coldest times.  
We have not noticed an increase in wood consumption.
We may remove the wood stove that is in the green house. Because it isn’t used. But we may not.  
Currently we start seed in the kitchen in the early spring but may one day want to do that in the greenhouse (we start seeds when it still drops to -20 outside). If we decide to start seed in the gh we may need to light a gh fire once a day to facilitate that as otherwise it might only be 5-10 Celsius above zero in there and seeds like it warmer.  
Overwintering without ever lighting the gh stove is no problem.  Even for flowers.  
Winter sun days add a lot of heat through the glass, which must figure in to why we don’t seem to burn more wood in general.  
We do have a regular 20’x16’ gh and are slowly turning the north wall into something thick made of rock for additional ‘passive’ thermal mass - but that’s a dif kettle of fish. The increasing thermal mass there has helped with early and surprise frosts.  We expect it will get better over time - as more mass is added.  
We like how both greenhouses worked out.  Neighbouring ranches are trying it now.
You are not the first to ask about this.  
- - -
Understandably, no one ever wants to talk about composting human waste.
We don’t use the end product in the greenhouse though, but when I was in China in the 1980s we sure used it in the fields.
I survived that experience, but I wouldn’t be part of it now.
We have plenty of product from ‘normal’ composting for our gh and garden purposes.
This seems to make everyone happy!

People ARE trying.  I’d write more but I’m in the middle of tending the fenced area of composting human waste at the moment.  
Out here, off grid. In the middle of the middle of Northern Canada nowhere with government land on all 4 sides, a 200 mile round trip to ‘civilization’ and a thermal mass greenhouse that doesn’t freeze even at -50.

Tanwen White wrote:We have not started any digging as of yet, still trying to get more info about a project like that. I am thinking the slab would need to be supported like any ceiling? We would dig from outside the building and have stairs going down underneath to the cellar. So no destroying of concrete.

If it is reinforced, maybe.  If it lacks steel I would want heavy plywood at and 2x6 joists.  2x12?  Double 2x12?  Only an engineer can say for sure.  

Tanwen White wrote:We are considering digging a small root cellar under our slab foundation shop. Does anyone have experience or advice on this?

So what did you do? Around here it’s dry, well drained and half the houses are on pier blocks so adding a cellar, or even a basement, is done all the time and it’s pretty straight forward. Slabs are a whole different kettle of fish.  Most houses on slabs in our neck of the woods get an addition with a cellar under rather than anyone bashing through the concrete and undertaking an excavation.  Or people do a super insulated room in an existing structure and put it on a north wall.  

Pam Maz wrote:As someone who studied photography and it's history I always laugh at gate keepers who say editing is bad or try to brag about how they didn't edit. Like, get over yourself XD

Exactly!
I always enjoyed teaching art history when it came to the era of photography and its impact on painters.  Great stuff.

I say 'Edit away, be as mad cap as you wish. Or not. Whatever. Up to you.'

The advice about hearth.com is good. Their section on safely reducing distances is clear and accurate.

Legit photo of our house, a little editing to remove colour and light. Still a fair representation of the subject.  Now, if we had added a unicorn winged blue whale to the sky - well, that too would have been fine. It's our image to do with as we please.