Maureen Abram

I came upon kudzu in Guatemala and wondered what uses it might have. Since I'm interested in herbal medicine I did some research and found out that Kudzu root is a medicinal plant used to stop addiction to alcohol by curbing cravings. But you need to take it when anticipating an upcoming occasion to imbibe.

It seems it has lots of uses beyond that this website. I could sure use it to develop my permaculture projects. https://www.survivopedia.com/top-10-survival-uses-for-kudzu/

I bet there are a lot of uses that could be researched on the internet if one was so inclined.

I am living off grid and have been using a composting toilet sold by the Nature's Head company for 2 years. It is designed to separate the liquids and solids and works really great. I use wood shavings as the solids mix and have been getting about 5-6 weeks of use before I need to empty the poop, I get about 3 days out of the liquids tank, which I use once a week diluted to fertilize my garden (the plants love it). I dug 3 pits and I alternate burying the solids between them so that when I go back to the first pit its been almost 6 months since the last batch. By then it is almost totally composted, but I only use this for my areas for grass or rose garden, not on veggies or herbs. Maybe you could look at the design they have come up with using the 2 chambers and the door flap and lever and it might have ideas for your system? By the way, I am a female and I have been able to keep things fairly separate while using the toilet.

Good evening! I'm so glad to see this forum topic. I am in the loooong process of building an off grid home and I want to integrate aquaponics somehow into my system. It's rainy season right now so i'm working on catching all the rainwater I can for next year. This month I'm installing tanks, making a 'pool' and running irrigation lines underground.

I am recycling all my grey water to water plants right now.

I planned on having a fish tank (one if those white cubes that liquids are shipped in) under the house and running tubes from that up and into a channel along my front window, and behind my kitchen counter for growing herbs. I was going to use pumice stone as the medium because they wash up on the beach when it is windy. But I'm not sure if its ok to have the grow beds (the rain gutter in my kitchen) that far away from the fish tank. (Imagine a triangle that's 5 meters long on 2 sides - which are the tubes from the tank under the house, and one side is almost 8 m long - which is the channel/rain gutter in front of the window) So the whole system spans about 20 meters in a loop. Is it still possible to do aquaponics over this distance? Since the tank is under the house, I wonder how much sun or light do the fish need? Maybe it's overkill? How large should/can a grow bed be for a 1000 litre tank? Or how large a bed could a 1000 litre tank support?

My other option is to go big and line the big hole (4x4x4 meters) behind my house and use that as a big fish pond, and cycle the water from that down to the greenhouse and back? The greenhouse is about 10 meters away and down the hill from the pond. Is it possible to have a closed aquaponics system when the components are all spread out in my yard? I'm using rainwater that I collect from the roof but we only have rain for 4 months a year. How can I keep the pond clean? I was also hoping to use the water in the pond as my backup reserve (if needed) for dry season. Would that hurt the fish if the level of water is slowly decreasing? What's the minimum depth the fish would need? Also I have dogs and I know they'll want to swim in the pond, can the fish and aquaponics system handle that? I'm getting chickens in a month too, can they work into the system somehow too?

I know this is a super long email, but I super excited about this part of my construction. Thanks in advance for your ideas!