Diana Guillermo

Hi all! What are your favorite tools to small-scale chop-and-drop with? Not looking for a full-scale scythe, just an isolated comfrey plant or two.

Suggestions as to brand, where to buy, etc? Over the years, which of your tools do you find yourself reaching for each time you have a small chop and drop job?

Thanks guys!
Diana

Hey all,
A year or so ago I saw a video where Geoff Lawton (I think?) went down to Haiti (I think?) and helped with disaster relief after a massive hurricane left thousands of people homeless & without water or sanitation. He built round huts out of plastic bottles and cob, somehow including water cachement. It was an inspiring demonstration of reusing waste in a productive and helpful way.

But I've googled til my eyes bleed and I can't find it anywhere - anyone know where it is, or the title at least? Is it one of Lawton's own videos, but under a title I might not associate with the subject?

My architect dad is very interested and I've spent all evening sharing Lawton's other videos and informing him of other basic permaculture principles.

Thanks all!

Thank you! First post here. I'm pretty excited to share.

Any other folks out there interested in soil remineralization?

If you've ever read The Intelligent Gardener, you'll be familiar with its importance... and also with the difficulty of completing the worksheets involved. Since I test and balance my minerals every year, I got real tired of wrestling with all the calculations by hand. I transferred the formulas from Solomon's worksheets into Excel format and presto! - doing the calculations now takes minutes instead of days!

I put these excel sheets up on my Google Drive as free shareable, downloadable forms in the hope that they can save others some time too. Go help yourself, and maybe drop me a comment to say hi while you're there.

First worksheet, Interpreting the soil lab results:
http://twocatpots.com/?p=3838

Second worksheet, Making the results into a shopping list from real ingredients:
http://twocatpots.com/?p=3851

Please lemme know if you have any comments or suggestions and if the sheets work for you. Happy remineralizing!

Of course, that makes perfect sense! Hey, it's easier too. Thanks so much for your reply - sorry I didn't get back to you til now!

Hi all, first time poster!

I'm looking for some advice on solar building in the garden to help me keep an Arbequina olive tree alive in my zone 7b mini-farm. By all accounts they are the hardiest olive IF you can keep their roots from freezing.

I have a nook on a steep south-facing slope that's right next to a shed that blocks the North winds. I was going to build up the bottom of the slope to make a pocket planter for improved drainage; inspired by Earthships I decided to reuse our old brown beer bottles to build it. I thought the dark color would collect solar energy, and the air held in the bottles would insulate the trees' root mass from the cold.

Then I wondered about filling the bottles with water first. Wouldn't that effectively increase the solar absorption, like big water tanks in greenhouses?

However, since the beer bottles would be horizontally stacked I would have to cap them (we homebrew, so we have caps & equipment). Would this last, or would they eventually leak?
My husband also brought up the potential for the freezing water shattering the bottles in winter. What if I filled them only halfway full, is that enough room for the water to safely expand as it freezes?

Anyway, hoping someone more experienced in passive solar building can tell me whether filling the bottles is at all worth the extra risks and labor.
Thanks guys!!