What do i want this structure to do/be?
Good question!
I was just musing on the nature of earthen structures, and trying to think of easier-cheaper ways to do them.
Walls have so many uses, with many functions within each of those uses.
Security, privacy, thermal moderation, wind protection, water exclusion...
I'm planning a 200 square foot shed.
Pallets fit the budget, as do tarps, and I already know that that can work out quite well.
But tarps disintegrate in the sun and pallets die from water and micro organisms.
So, how about a triple thick pallet wall, filled with rocks, soil, woodchips, and planted with willow, grapevines, elderberry and alfalfa?
Plant both horizontally and vertically, and plan on watering in the beginning.
Hammer some willow all the way down into the ground underneath the wall, to give it a head start on rooting there.
Plastic on the inside of the structure , to deal with damp.
Eventually,the pallets embedded in the earth walls would fail, but stakes could be driven into the wall as new anchor points for the plastic, or roots might be available by then.
Three layers of pallets makes for a wall foot thick.
Thicker might be better, but you could add layers as you go.
I really like that idea, and it makes me think of stepping down each additional layer by half a skid, creating something of a slope.
As the pallet wood and steel disintegrates, the plants are there to hold the soil together.
The roof could start with heavy duty rafters, add a roof deck of pallet stringers and layers of carboard and plastic.
The slightly peaked roof, edged with stringers, would be covered with soil and plants.
It might be worth it to mix in perlite, vermiculite, or biochar to lighten the load, but ultimately the idea is to have soil protect the plastic and the plants to hold the soil in place.
Unlike most earthen structures, we would want water to hit the walls, to encourage the growth of the trees.
In fact, peeing on your wall might be a good idea.
I am inspired by the post mentioned above:
https://permies.com/t/27725/Photos-growing-eco-buildings
Konstantin Kirsch, have some great wood working skills .
Me, not so much.
This I would like to mimic him using pallets
Posts like these by Alder Burns also inspire possibilities:
Alder Burns wrote:You might think along the lines of the carpet-sandwich idea for pond liners. I've roofed a couple of cabins with a similar technique. Basically you protect a couple of thicknesses of heavy plastic with carpet (or something else durable and puncture resistant....I've uses silt-fence fabric in a pinch) on both sides. In a pond, algae and mud build up on the upper carpet.....and soil and rocks can be put on top of it where it is above water, mostly to protect it from slowly degrading in sunlight. For the cabin roof, I laid the plastic in overlapping courses on a deck of cardboard placed on the frame, and then covered this with overlapping courses of carpets, which were then stuccoed with a soupy mixture of cement, which hardened in among the carpet fibers and formed a rigid surface. Moss eventually grew on it, and I imagine some soil could have been added and a living roof done that way. The roof, of course, had some slope to it......
The lack of used carpet availability near me, points me towards using roots to keep soil in place.
The idea seems sound enough to at least try it, so I'm going to do just that.
I've been focusing on plants that grow well from live stakes, this, elderberry for instance.
Some dogwoods are listed as well, but not the varieties known as being great eating, What do i want this structure to do/be?
Good question!
I was just musing on the nature of earthen structures, and trying to think of easier-cheaper ways to do them.
Walls have so many uses, with many functions within each of those uses.
Security, privacy, thermal moderation, wind protection, water exclusion...
I'm planning a 200 square foot shed.
Pallets fit the budget, as do tarps, and I already know that that can work out quite well.
But tarps disintegrate in the sun and pallets die from water and micro organisms.
So, how about a triple thick pallet wall, filled with rocks, soil, woodchips, and planted with willow, grapevines, elderberry and alfalfa?
Plant both horizontally and vertically, and plan on watering in the beginning.
Hammer some willow all the way down into the ground underneath the wall, to give it a head start on rooting there.
Plastic on the inside of the structure , to deal with damp.
Eventually,the pallets embedded in the earth walls would fail, but stakes could be driven into the wall as new anchor points, or roots might be available by then.
Three layers of pallets makes for a wall foot thick.
Thicker might be better, but you could add layers as you go.
I really like that idea, and it makes me think of stepping down each additional layer by half a skid, creating something of a slope.
As the pallet wood and steel disintegrates, the plants are there to hold the soil together.
The roof could start with heavy duty rafters, add a roof deck of pallet stringers and layers of carboard and plastic.
The slightly peaked roof, edged with stringers, would be covered with soil and plants.
It might be worth it to mix in perlite, vermiculite, or biochar to lighten the load, but ultimately the idea is to have soil protect the plastic and the plants to hold the soil in place.
Unlike most earthen structures, we would want water to hit the walls, to encourage the growth of the trees.
In fact, peeing on your wall might be a good idea.
I am inspired by the post mentioned above:
https://permies.com/t/27725/Photos-growing-eco-buildings
Konstantin Kirsch, have some great wood working skills .
Me, not so much.
This I would like to mimic him using pallets
Posts like these by Alder Burns also inspire possibilities:
Alder Burns wrote:You might think along the lines of the carpet-sandwich idea for pond liners. I've roofed a couple of cabins with a similar technique. Basically you protect a couple of thicknesses of heavy plastic with carpet (or something else durable and puncture resistant....I've uses silt-fence fabric in a pinch) on both sides. In a pond, algae and mud build up on the upper carpet.....and soil and rocks can be put on top of it where it is above water, mostly to protect it from slowly degrading in sunlight. For the cabin roof, I laid the plastic in overlapping courses on a deck of cardboard placed on the frame, and then covered this with overlapping courses of carpets, which were then stuccoed with a soupy mixture of cement, which hardened in among the carpet fibers and formed a rigid surface. Moss eventually grew on it, and I imagine some soil could have been added and a living roof done that way. The roof, of course, had some slope to it......
The lack of used carpet availability near me, points me towards using roots to keep soil in place.
The idea seems sound enough to at least try it, so I'm going to do just that.
I've been focusing on plants that grow well from live stakes, this, elderberry for instance.
Some dogwoods are also possibilities, but not the ones that are known as food plants.
Willow has a well deserved reputation for being malleable, but it's actually too damned vigorous for me to want to plant near my house.
I will use it in my other property, but not yet.
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