Permies in the UK

Stephanie Newman wrote:
I've only recently ordered the book on rocket mass heaters and thought I would try to make a small one for a shed to make it into a spare room. Does anyone in the UK know what the insurance rules are about this.

RMHs don't comply with building regs and would definitely invalidate your building insurance.
It's so difficult to do anything here on a DIY basis- even for fitting heat recovery venting or new windows there's someone who's been on a course and has a limited monopoly in the form of governement certification schemes to charge you a fortune to do it.

I won't treat you to the rest of that rant, but no; RMH at home is a no-go unless you do it on the QT.

I am in Kent.
studied architecture at uni, now doing an admin job. I am not actively doing any permie projects as circumstances don't permit- joined this site in anticipation of buying a place of my own soon and doing a bit of an eco-renovation.

We're in Pembrokeshire, permie capital of west wales! We are trying/planning (hoping?) to set up a very small subsistence smallholding. Our site has some poorish quality pasture and some wetland scrub and not a lot else, so a lot of work to do! This is our first season so we're focussing on the vegetable garden, and birds - ducks so far and chickens hopefully soon. There are so many wonderful permaculture projects and communities around us, which is both inspiring and intimidating!

Hi.

I'm based in Devon. I have a very small garden and am attempting to find a way to have both chickens and food growing in a very small garden. When we first moved to this house (about 18 months ago) we were going to fit a woodburner, but that hasn't actually happened yet. We can't escape needing the cars, but I'm working on a lifeshare for my 57 mile daily commute.

Hello all

I live in south devon on a small holding.
I am currently building a basic PSP design house!

Loads of digging going on

Hello all.

I'm based in Bristol, where there seems to be quite a few permies. Me and my girlfriend have been into permaculture for about 18 months now, and in that time we've transformed most of the garden from overgrown lawn to a hugelkultur paradise (lol). We've also taken on three allotments between us that are handily behind the garden.

Regarding building a composter, I would recommend a three-cell one and make sure you humanure! We haven't thought about building a new house though...

Hi All

I'm in Surrey / Berks / Hants border.

Currently renting so not all that much I can do, but have raised beds / troughs constructed from reclaimed pallets with layered composting material for organic veg. I do let the garden pretty much do what it likes as my landlord doesn't really care what state it's in whilst I'm here as long as it's not re-landscaped! I've let the existing flowering plants and 'weeds' seed as they wish, so there are lots of bees living in the various bee houses, I have a bank between two levels left with long grass to act as habitat for the frogs and toads. My reward is that I've got a family of 4 fox cubs being raised under my shed by a young mother. Occasionally they dig at my food, but for the most part they've been quite pleasant lodgers.

I'm really interested in meeting other people locally in the UK and rest of Europe who are learning about permaculture and implementing the principles. I'd be keen to help other people on their own plots or community projects.

Natalie

I've been trawling permies for a month or so and just found this thread.

Bizzarely, I'm also based in Canterbury, Kent with family connections in Melbourne Australia! We are currently renting, but have some growing space at my parents place and vague goals to get a bit more cultivation going there, permaculture style.

*waving to everyone*


I am in manchester. I am just in the middle of making my first batch of hot compost and the weather is fantastic at the moment, i hope your all doing well.

xxx

I am in Liverpool not doing doing anything except dreaming! Anyone else in Liverpool or near by .....

Hi, I was wondering if anyone is in or around the midlands?

My husband and I are moving down towards Stoke for me to start my counselling masters. We have been wwoofing for a year and are passionate about permaculture and low impact living. We are looking for somewhere to live where we can continue to live like this rather than having to rent in the city, while saving money towards setting up a sustainable retreat centre for people recovering from addiction.

We are up for any kind of ideas, renting a caravan/ space for our own caravan/static, working in return for accommodation, house share etc. Let me know if you think you can help or if you have any kind of advice that might help us.

Thanks!
Harriet

Hi folks,
I'm in Greenisland, just outside Carrickfergus in lovely Northern Ireland. Not sure whether many permies exist in our little province, but 'Bout Ye anyway 3 chickens, 3 kids and a garage full of bits for TLUDs. Life is sweet.
Cheers,
-Shane

Anyone in uk midlands ? There is a permie party on the 9th November see below link for info

http://www.permaculture.org.uk/civicrm/event/info?id=530&reset=1

Am I going? Yes!! hope to see folk from this forum!

Much Love namaste and Plenty of greens

Gah, I'd have gone to that but I'm off to see a bunch of mates graduate from CAT's graduate school on the 9th!

Hello, Im based in N.Wales, ive made a rocket stove and quite a few of the more standard type of gas bottle woodburners. Do a bit of gardening, poultry keeping and wine making. Currently living in an old welsh cottage and slowly ripping out the 70s bodging and trying to get it as close to the original as possible.
Im just about to make some more rocket stoves, would love to exchange ideas with any locals.

Iorweth Caradog wrote:Hello, Im based in N.Wales, ive made a rocket stove and quite a few of the more standard type of gas bottle woodburners. Do a bit of gardening, poultry keeping and wine making. Currently living in an old welsh cottage and slowly ripping out the 70s bodging and trying to get it as close to the original as possible.
Im just about to make some more rocket stoves, would love to exchange ideas with any locals.

Welcome to the forum Iowerth! I live in Wales too but in the south east. I have a friend who was involved with designing and installing a rocket stove in Machynlleth, Powys but he's no longer in the country I'm afraid. Rocket stoves aren't something I've had a go at (yet).

Hi Iorweth - I'm not local to you I'm afraid but wanted to say welcome - it's nice to see some more people who can understand the permie problems associated with never ending rain :

Hi everyone,
I'm in Norfolk ... not as green as it looks >
but interested in rocket stoves and earthship building. Im currently gathering materials to upcycle to build a houseboat with plans to liveaboard in a semi sustainable way
Any hints, help say hello or just a meeting of minds
I think my email is visible if not i'll sort it

I never posted my intro on this thread! I live in balmy West Yorkshire, near Doncaster. I'm from the US, my husband's from London, but our son's a Yorkshireman

We live in a small village and have a small garden, but have been learning about and working permaculture for about 3 years now; I've been interested in it ever since I saw a documentary in 2008 on the BBC called A Farm for the Future. This last Christmas my husband gave me Gaia's Garden, and I've been putting together my micro food forest in a whirlwind this winter/spring.

dave collett wrote:

Stephanie Newman wrote:
I've only recently ordered the book on rocket mass heaters and thought I would try to make a small one for a shed to make it into a spare room. Does anyone in the UK know what the insurance rules are about this.

RMHs don't comply with building regs and would definitely invalidate your building insurance.
It's so difficult to do anything here on a DIY basis- even for fitting heat recovery venting or new windows there's someone who's been on a course and has a limited monopoly in the form of governement certification schemes to charge you a fortune to do it.

I won't treat you to the rest of that rant, but no; RMH at home is a no-go unless you do it on the QT.

Is there a course or any kind of certification available in the uk? ... I would love to go on that course and ruin the fuel/heating monopoly

Hi UK permies, I'm Oliver.
I have an organic (not certified, but totally in the spirit) market garden in Sussex.
I'm hoping to learn more about permaculture, and maybe form some like-minded friends.

Great to meet you all,

Oli

Hi Oli, welcome to the site! Would you care to tell us more about your market garden? It'll be interesting to see how you apply permaculture to it.

naomi rose wrote:I am in Liverpool not doing doing anything except dreaming! Anyone else in Liverpool or near by .....

Im from Liverpool. Not many farms there apart from maybe Stand Farm, a rough pub near where I used to live.


But Ive been in the Czech Republic for eight years now. After owning small cottages here and gardening, we've moved up to a small farmhouse and stable with an acre of land and more to grow into, in a friendly little village about 45 mins drive from Prague. Will grow veggies and try to raise a flock of sheep, maybe some horses in future too.

Hi Sam, thanks for your reply. I've only recently started trying to apply permaculture principles on my market garden. I use raised beds, mulching and minimal tillage where I can. I usually grow things in small blocks and mix different types of plants around the garden, I find that can work quite well with creating a succession of quick maturing crops. Oh, and I'm also planting trees for shelter as my site is very exposed.
I'm on here looking for ideas about how to make permaculture work on a commercial scale.

oliver moss wrote:Hi Sam, thanks for your reply. I've only recently started trying to apply permaculture principles on my market garden. I use raised beds, mulching and minimal tillage where I can. I usually grow things in small blocks and mix different types of plants around the garden, I find that can work quite well with creating a succession of quick maturing crops. Oh, and I'm also planting trees for shelter as my site is very exposed.
I'm on here looking for ideas about how to make permaculture work on a commercial scale.

It sounds like you're well on your way to adopting PC!

Shelterbelts do appear to make quite a difference from what I've read and seen. We've planted shelterbelts, hedges and blocks of woodland in order to mitigate some of the damage caused by the strong winds where we live and to help reduce erosion on our steeply sloping land (as well as for producing firewood and other woodland products in the future).

Are you just growing food producing plants in your market garden or do you have nursery aspects to your operation too?

Hi,

I totally agree it would be nice to have a UK sub forum or have I missed it?

I'm from the far North of England and heavily into forest gardening and vegan but sadly don't own any land.

Scarlet Hamilton wrote:Hi,

I totally agree it would be nice to have a UK sub forum or have I missed it?

I'm from the far North of England and heavily into forest gardening and vegan but sadly don't own any land.

No, I don't think there is a sub-forum for us Brits unfortunately - just this thread.

If you don't own land, do you practice PC in the space that is available to you, or with community groups?

There was a dedicated Permaculture UK forum at www.epfsolutions.org.uk/forum/ but it seems to be defunct since 2012 (and the URL has been hijacked by a domain name squatter)

I'm in Hampshire and have a small forest garden.

Most of my questions are not specific to the UK, so I just use the relevant section of this forum. I don't post a lot though.

Useful to know: you can specify how cold your climate is using USDA Zone system (which applies to the whole world).
Most of the UK is zone 8, coastal regions are zone 9. Highlands are zone 7.

See map here: http://www.trebrown.com/hrdzone.html

dave collett wrote:

Stephanie Newman wrote:
I've only recently ordered the book on rocket mass heaters and thought I would try to make a small one for a shed to make it into a spare room. Does anyone in the UK know what the insurance rules are about this.

RMHs don't comply with building regs and would definitely invalidate your building insurance.
It's so difficult to do anything here on a DIY basis- even for fitting heat recovery venting or new windows there's someone who's been on a course and has a limited monopoly in the form of governement certification schemes to charge you a fortune to do it.

I won't treat you to the rest of that rant, but no; RMH at home is a no-go unless you do it on the QT.

if you ask, they will always say no ... just don't ask

fly under the radar

Checking back in. As well as my garden (which I have now measured to be about 4.5m x 10m, with about a third patio) I am now involved in a community garden project. The garden is about 3 acres, and we've only really started growing stuff this year. We only have about half a dozen regular volunteers so we cant get any livestock yet but theyre definitely part of the plan. So far we're just conventionally growing stuff but in a couple of weeks time we're building the first part of our first hugelbeet. I say first part because we're planning a large horseshoe shape and hugelbeets seem to take a lot of resources. Im glad of the opportunity to learn. I would like to get out and volunteer on other stuff but my dog and my health keep me at home. But I would like a homestead in the future so the skills im learning are valuable.

Sadly many of the people living round here arent so interested. But we are hoping to put together veg boxes for members in the future and then hopefully add honey and eggs, and maybe meat in tbe more distant future.

Im now also a member of the RHS so I can visit rosemoor whenever I can get up there. They have a young forest garden, but I love the cottage garden and herd gardens too. I get their magazine every month and I got the latest issue today. There was a bloke claiming he put in nearly 300 hours to his garden, spend a couple of hundred quid and got £1200 worth of produce. It looks guide like that but then I priced up 300 hours at minimum wage - working and paying for food would take fewer hours than growing the food. I don't count that as a good return!

Sam White wrote:

Scarlet Hamilton wrote:Hi,

I totally agree it would be nice to have a UK sub forum or have I missed it?

I'm from the far North of England and heavily into forest gardening and vegan but sadly don't own any land.

No, I don't think there is a sub-forum for us Brits unfortunately - just this thread.

If you don't own land, do you practice PC in the space that is available to you, or with community groups?

Nope I'm out on my own with this stuff in my garden. I read a lot a bit of youtube helps too.

Anyone in/around gloucestershire / worcestershire area? Would be nice to meet some other people.

Hi,
I'm new here, Glad there are other more local people here. I have a tiny garden in Devon, mild and wet, full of slugs. I've been trying to grow more fruit trees and veg, so far, the best success has been my tayberry (not sure of spelling). Has anyone tried the Hugel beds in the uk?

Yeah, I've made loads of hugel beds in Bristol. They work brilliantly, but make sure you use enough soil, as they are prone to collapsing a bit over time.

Thanks Mike, Good to know about the soil.

No problem. It's a bit alarming when holes start appearing in your hugel. Best thing to do is to fill as you're stacking the wood. That way there aren't so many gaps.

This weekend we removed a slab of concrete from my garden, dug down, filled the space with logs and branches, compost and other juicy bits, then replaced the soil. I've transferred some white strawberries that were struggling in a pot, planted squash, peas and beans. The main reason behind this is to manage water run off better, before, all the water that hit that slab, ended up a a drain outside my back door, occassionally inside for very heavy rain. But trying a buried Hugel bed, and increasing the green in my garden is great.

Hello fellow Brits!

First post on permies, been using the forum for a few months now and thought it's time to get involved! Introducing ourselves:

My partner and I are currently planning to pursue a One Planet Development in West Wales (if you've not heard of them you can find out more here - http://www.oneplanetcouncil.org.uk). We're still in the early stages, and currently are looking for land to buy. We think we've found the right place, 10 acres just a few miles from the Lammas eco-village, but won't know until early Sept if our offer will be good enough - fingers crossed!

We're new to permaculture. My partner has spent the last couple of years reading about it. I'm newer to it, having become interested around 6 months ago and since then devouring as many books as possible on the subject! We spent some time on a few permacultured farms for a few days and since then I've been convinced how effective a system it can be. As I write this we're actually sitting on a train to Norwich, where we'll be commencing a two weeks PDC.

We're interested in all things gardening, food systems and security, ecology, agriculture and so on. The other side of things we're learning about at the moment is natural house building - for our OPD we're looking to build a straw bale and cob house - along the lines of the examples on this site - beingsomewhere.net . We completed a week course with Simon and Jasmine, where we learnt about natural house build design from a permaculture point of view, along with basic permaculture principles and techniques and took part in building their new house including stone wall building, basic carpentry, cob wall building, roof laying and so on.

Anyway this is just a post to say hello and introduce ourselves to the community. Echoing others, it would be great to develop a thriving online community for UK permies.

I probably should have done this a while ago. I live in the central belt of Scotland, and have an interest in forest gardening and an almost obsessive interest in ecosystems. I'm ready to make the big jump into finding the right place, but I'm without the right person (I also have a post in the personals thread), so I'm also keen to meet other people interested in the same kinds of things (and hopefully with a practical bent) in real life. Feel encouraged to PM me if you think we'd get along.

Henry Jabel wrote:Anyone in/around gloucestershire / worcestershire area? Would be nice to meet some other people.

Hey there Henry (and everyone else on this glorious island)
I'm a worcestershire resident (malvern) looking to connect with like minded people.
☺