Nina Surya

I'm also suggesting making your compost more moist, but have to admit I have no experience with fire ants (that I'm aware of)

Hello Pascal,
I'll start by saying I'm not super experienced with RMH, I've made one and it has its issues that I'll be fixing this summer.
Looking at your photos (and knowing what's wrong with mine) I'd say you're loosing too much heat from the exhaust flues, which then affects the draft negatively (smoking back). Your bench is long, and it's probably still quite cool since I'm seeing moist cob. The oildrum as a bell radiates heat faster than a mass bell would. And your tubes are slightly textured, which also can slow down the flow a little bit.

My suggestions are:
1) Wait! Wait for the cob of the mass benches to dry... Can you heat the space in another way, just for now? As the mass dries, it will stop cooling the exhaust tubes.

Then test. Is the draft OK? Then you don't have to do anything else, it's working!

2) You might consider building mass around the barrel (bell), slowing down the heat radiation. My RMH has too much mass on the bell and a bit too short exhaust tubes, the draft is super great but we're loosing a lot of heat to the birds outside... I'm going to rebuild 2/3 of my bell, making the wall a bit thinner, and if I can find a way to lengthen the exhaust tubes, I'll be doing that.

You can see my build here if you like.

And last but not least...where are you located? I'm also in central France, in an old house with single glazing windows... Southern tip of Cher (18).

Good luck!

Blossom! Birdsong! Bees! Lambs!
Here trying to catch a swarm (later) in a small-ish beehive, strapped in the cherry tree.

Rural. The traffic here is the farmer (who is also our neighbour) with his helpers driving back and forth with tractor(s) with or without special gadgets on them/haybales/whatnot. The next town is about 10 minutes ride from where we are, but I enjoy the relative* peace and quiet here thoroughly!

*relative = our cockerels are having a singing competition with those of our other neighbour

I think plywood would not be ideal because of all the glue that holds the layers together.
Maybe you can find a wooden cutting board for not too many moneys?
Or do you have a wood shop in your neighbourhood? Or a carpenter. I'd imagine off-cuts wouldn't be too expensive, and you could select a format/proportions that pleases you on the spot.
Good luck with your hunt!

What a great (and timely...) thread!

We need to cut our food bill as well and have begun with two staple foods in our household: bread and cheese.

Thanks to the great advice in this thread I learned how to successfully make my sourdough starter and bake really tasty bread.

I've dabbled in cheese making for a while couple of years before, and now we found an organic farm selling raw milk...so I'm making cheese and butter, we have buttermilk and whey for the dogs, chicken and the garden.

Things are moving in a good direction!

We have chicken, so quite often our "meat" in the meal is eggs. We haven't had the heart to harvest our poultry yet, this year we're planning to get some fertilized eggs of  Bresse chicken as soon as a good chicken becomes broody, then keep a couple of Bresse chicken for new genes but harvest the rest.

I've had a vegetable garden for years, but getting a good harvest was a bit of a hit&miss; sometimes I'd get tons of tomatoes, sometimes blight got all of it. Sometimes I'd have polebeans in total abundance, sometimes none. Now I've found Landrace gardening/Adaptation gardening (how to do it properly) and am, for the very first time, feeling quite confident about betterment in the years to come. It's like the missing link or a connecting piece of the puzzle was finally found and everything starts to click together.

Here in central France we're having a fantastic spring!
Last year was one long wet misery. Feels like it's going to be payed back, with interest (I hope. Optimist).

Congratulations on the article in Viherpiha! Great, the word on permaculture is spreading!
Onneksi olkoon artikkelin johdosta!

I've very recently taken the deep dive into Landrace gardening/Adaptation gardening.
Thanks to Joseph Lofthouse's excellent work in Landrace gardening (and writing this book about it AND sharing his knowledge about it), AND Hugo's European Telegram group on Adaptation gardening I'm in HappyLand - at last all kinds of questionmarks about why my crops were not thriving are answered and I'm super hopeful about the future! At least I'm having fun .

To answer the initial questions of this thread:
1) What species are you landracing?
EVERYTHING I can get my hands on from now on. I'm going to apply Landrace gardening principles to all of my growies and see how things develop.

I've semi-consciously been landracing my brassicas and radishes for three years or so, but because I've moved from 670m altitude and 70km more south to 360m altitude and the same 70km more north, the garden situation has changed. Soil is different, climate is different, I suppose I'm different as well

2) What varieties/cultivars of heirlooms/hybrids are you starting with and why?
I'm going to start with the seed bank I've got plus (hopefully) the seed swapping treasures from the Adaptation gardening Telegram group.

3) What will you be selecting for?
* thriving in this climate and on the heavy clay soil
* taste and nutrition values (which I'll just have to estimate energetically/by how it feels in my body)
* ultimately I'd love for the plants to go to seed and self-replicate on spot in their companion planting situation. So in a way, making annual and bi-annual plant guilds perennial by ... neglect?

4) What is your location/growing conditions?
Central France, mellow-ish climate due to many natural pools, ponds and some lakes in the surroundings (we've established two ponds as well), heavy clay soil, old orchard, a part of which used to be horse pasture a veeery long time ago (45-55 years ago?). Indication plants: nettles, sheep sorrel, creeping buttercup.

Rico Loma wrote:Nina, I love reading all your posts, from stove building to herbs to your choice of guard dog.  Yes, I realize the prophets of old declared "do not covet thy neighbors' homestead" yet I am a bit envious

Biking through France impressed me, it's a beautiful land with many small farms and vineyards.  Be proud that you are bolstering that rural ethic!

Awww Rico, thank you for your kind words!
But let me put my paradise in some more perspective: I was dreaming of this kind of lifestyle since 2012-ish. It's been a long time coming, but the change finally came , in steps, or stages. It hasn't been easy...I'm guessing that behind every shiny 'look at my beautiful place/story/whatever' is a story of becoming.
This is actually exactly the reason I've gladly abandoned (well, almost) the well-known social media platforms and am wallowing in permaculture vibes over here.
There are still some real challenges to overwin, but I'm super grateful for all the blessings in the present moment, and just happily following my curiosity, doing what I love .