Denice Moffat

I've been experimenting with alternative building for 3 years now. I'm ready to start and earthbag foundation/wall for the next building. We are in the Panhandle of Idaho (about 23 inches of rain/year) and a different zone and precipitation than Arizona. I can see where cob would work well in Arizona but I don't think cob will work to cover my rammed earth tire wall or the earthbags. I'm cognizant that you don't want to mix/match too many mediums without a layer for condensation between them so there won't be a weak point, but what is the best thing to use in the plaster for 16 inches up from the ground for these kinds of structures? Earth mixed with cement? Proportion of clay? Papercrete? I'm needing a bit of forward movement on this. Can I use the same plaster for both projects?

Well I'm excited about this then. Two years ago I ordered seed from Burnt Ridge Nursery (they still have some--I just checked last week) and they are about 2 feet tall in pots in my hoop house right now and budding out. They will be going into the ground with their other nutty friends in a month or so. Burnt Ridge also carries English Walnut, Pecan, Hickory, Mixed Chestnut and Butternut seed. At one time they also had Hican. After purchasing bare root trees of them from various sources over the years and having them die off (they were kind of spendy) I decided to give it a go and bought a pound of each. Also bought a bag of almonds in the shell around Christmas, put them in the fridge to vernalize and planted them along with the other nuts (which were already vernalized) in April. I put each seed in a 4 inch pot. My deck was filled with trays. Each day I'd water them, pull the seeds forward that had sprouted and when they were up about 4 inches I potted them up into gallon pots. If they made it through that first season, I potted them up into 3-gallon pots. The Butternut is actually the second tallest plant -the almonds are extremely healthy--I planted about 20 of them last fall and they are about 3 feet tall now. But I didn't know that the heartnut would produce so early. Nice! Thanks for all of the input everyone. I also have Pistachio that I ordered from Sheffeld's. I'm not doing as well with them but I do have 7 seedlings so far. That one's a reach.

I purchased an ounce of seed from Sheffelds.com last year hoping to grow a few that survive my experimentation with Paw Paw. I'm hoping to graft onto them from some other varieties once I get them going. I have about 18 that have sprouted so far.

Re: What about road base gravel?  This packs down really flat and usually costs less than pea gravel.  It's pretty easy to level off and tamp down and, in theory, won't shift much with the weight of the water.  Well, that's the theory.

We put in two 2500 cement gallon water storage tanks last year. The manufacturer said to set them on pea gravel but that was not available. After asking several contractors (and the company doing the install of the electrical panel for the pump) we got the same answer. Use 3/4 inch minus rock. Level and tamp before setting the tank in. Fill in the sides that are underground with soil/rock not containing big sharp things that could push up to it and cause an air space or fill with water and freeze during the winter. But I think a little sand would be fine too. I know yours are plastic but that's what they all recommended for both cement and plastic.

I gave this DVD 8 out of 10 acorns:
The filming was way better than the first set of RMH dvd's but still needs work on the sound system. Yep, the Willie Smits identification marks were annoying and unnecessary. It was hard for me to watch the video and read the subtitles inserted just so you know. Very helpful of Erica to show us more of what kinds of substances make up cob--I think I'm starting to 'get it' after reading so many books on it but still lack the confidence to do a cob project--but I'm going to leap into it this year! I'll start small. Purchased the set of DVDs before I saw the option to Spread the Word. I would have donated a copy to our local library to get the ball moving in our town a bit faster. You all did a great job though! Excited to build one and yes, my husband bought me the book for Christmas because, "All you do is talk talk talk about these Rocket Mass Heater things" it was the only book I got for Christmas. Looking forward to reading it.

One of my clients wants to sell and move. If you're interested then contact me and I'll give you the info. She had it on the market last year for $169,000 but is ready to sell. Nice home--was purchased new about 15 years back on a foundation with two add ons--about 2800 sq. feet.

Here at Elk Meadow Farm & Nursery we love Winterbor and Redbor kale. The plants last through most of the winter and we harvest the leaves (5/week from each plant then water the bed once a week). We eat the good ones or freeze them after steaming and the chickens eat the bug-ridden or damaged leaves. The aphids prefer the Winterbor so we like the Redbor the best. The yellow flowers are some of the first to bloom in the spring and the bees love them. Ducks though, LOVE the Toscano kale and will trash the patch if you let them out too early into it. We let the ducks wander around the winter in the backyard and eat what they want of the Toscano kale and plant a new batch the next year. Ducks also love Buttercrunch lettuce. We let many of the lettuce plants go to seed, eat the nicely formed heads and give the ugly heads to both the chickens and our ducks (and turkeys which we've had in the past). Often we'll grow the Buttercrunch lettuce on top of the filled pallet compost bins we can protect it from the ducks--this doesn't work for chickens but the chickens are not allowed in our back yard. We put the ducks into the 22 x 65 foot hoop house for a couple of weeks when there is snow on the ground outside. They do such a great job of cleaning up the slugs that we barely had an issue with them this year even with the Buttercrunch lettuce! Love this. Will do it again every year.

We are growing our own Barley fodder this year as well. About every other day we start a new batch of 4 cups barley soaked one day then just rinsed in bowel for two days before we spread it into a nursery tray to put under grow lights (we then rinse the trays twice a day until it's ready). We don't juice the upper green parts though. I let it grow to about 5-6 inches then cut off the greens in 1 inch chunks for the younger chickens. The adult chickens will eat the entire sprout. They love both the seeds and greens. We also feed grass clippings and I try to split up mowing the lawns so that I give a bag of clippings 2-3x/week. We've also planted plum and apricot trees inside their pasture. The fruit we don't harvest will feed the girls. I decided against apples in the chicken pen just because I've had two dogs in my practice eat so many of them they ended up with seizures from the cyanide in the seed. Love the idea of planting corn and sunflowers though. I'm going to try that next year along with comfrey. Thanks for that idea. We'd like to do some pasture rotation but right now we're in the beginning stages of infrastructure still so the chickens are confined to their lot-sized pens.

We also grow Tay berries and Gogi berries on one fence line and raspberries/currents on another (outside the fence but close enough that the ripe berries on that side fall into the pen). The girls love these. We let the birds go into the deep-mulched berry patch in the winter where they search for worms and keep the ground fluffed up. They get to pick all the meat carcasses we eat as well. The goal is to give the poultry any unspoiled foods that we don't eat. Yard waste and spoiled foods go into the hugelkultures or pallet compost bins (whichever is most convenient).

I asked Joel Salatin this question when he gave a conference in Moscow, ID and he said it was different from area to area. He mentioned dandelions and plantain which I suspect we all have. The thing is, we're starting with bare existing ground and we can plant anything we want on it to get it established before introducing grazers. You can purchase seed from lots of places and I have a perennial patch of comfrey I can insert. Can you give us some ideas of what is in the salad pasture of yours? Much appreciated.

OK. I finally get it. Thanks to all of you who helped me understand. I've missed out on three promos because I didn't know how to do it correctly. Onwards and upwards.

When I clicked on the link you posted it took me to another page with Stephen's link on it (at the top) which I clicked on to post a comment which took me back to this page. What was I supposed to do as obviously this was the incorrect thing to do. Thanks Adrien.