Jim's Ant log

A few more pictures

Thanks for letting me take pics of your sweet palace Jim!

Your quick work is such an inspiration Jim!

Jim, your house feels so spacious inside! Much larger than you would think from the outside. Nice!

Thanks for the pictures, Janet!

After several months of use, 75 watts of solar power is more than enough. I only ran out of power once because I forgot to turn off the power for a day while I was away. The real test will be December and January.

Jim, What type and capacity (watt-hours) of batteries are you using?  Thanks for posting this, BTW.  I would have thought it would take alot more than 75 watts.

Also, how are your plants doing?

Hi Kerry, I use a sealed AGM battery. It is 12volt 35Ah (420Wh), the kind used in mobility scooters. It still is meeting all my low power needs. But every once in awhile I think about how nice it would be to have a freezer.

Some of the plants seem to be doing well. I have harvested radish and turnips. My potato plants look big. Bean pods are forming.
But, tomatoes seem like a total fail. The corn took forever to shoot up. I dont see any watermelon.

Im not sure I like the hugelculture. Maybe I did it wrong. But it seems like plants are doing really well in the foot paths where the water all runs off to.

I don't think you did the hugelkulture wrong.  It's just that in the first year, the wood isn't very spongy, and the fact that you've raised the plants up makes them more likely to dry out, not less.

It should get better in the future.  At this point my advice would be to mulch as much as you can and water whenever you can.

jim forster wrote:
Im not sure I like the hugelculture. Maybe I did it wrong. But it seems like plants are doing really well in the foot paths where the water all runs off to.

Hmm, I wonder if a terraced mound would work better... or if it is even worth the work. Perhaps now that the earth has settled and compacted a bit it would take some shaping though. (just some "armchair" thoughts)

Added some shingles that the workshop participants helped make. Thanks Garret, Pete, and Ken!

Mike Oehler stopped by early last october (2015)

Its a good thing I decided to clean my stove pipes....

Check out more random pictures on the blog I am starting.

I put this page together about my house build
http://woodstead.org/build.html

Looks familial; horizontal pipe run, damp wood, not enough mass and space to run the fire full open draft.  

I really like the new website, Jim.  Good balance of pictures and details (I thrive on details).  Looking forward to seeing the other project pages fill in!

Beautiful website, Jim. I hope you'll find some time to blog ...

Oooh, love the new website... step by step... almost live action ;)  

Also really enjoyed the blog of your build Jim!
Thanks for sharing.