angela neilson

Thanks for replies, i have had a close  look and find no bora holes in the trunk of the dead trees, as suggested i can look into taking a soil sample. Thak you again

Thanks Judith, I forget about the time and day of the week, am living quite remote and working and living for/by myself for some months now (not that that should be an excuse for my social skills or lack of). I will use this to practice more patience. Permies.com is a wonderful resource.

Im not sure why there are no comments to this post should I change the subject line? im quite new to gardening and i thought here would be a great place to pose my question as there are alot of knowledgable people here…

My question is in regards to allelopathy. I have just cut out a huge fennel about 2meter high by about 1 meter wide, in fact it was three plants. So i was wondering if this fennel had affected the growth of two trees. One a young avocado, and the other a very well established banana passion fruit vine both dead. The banana passion gave fruit last year. If this is indeed the case that it was the fennel that affected them, does that mean that anything i now plant in that soil will be affected ?  What am i able to plant there, otherwise how can i fix my soil? As i was removing the roots i noticed that there were very few worms 3 or 5. Thanks in advance

Hi and thanks for your input.
I was hoping for a bit more information and some more answers to my question /s.

I really enjoy permies.com its a wonderful resource

Hello I am wanting to build a raised platform for a tent (about 4 square meter). I will use small diameter round poles for the flooring as where I live getting milled timber here is a huge task. I also realize I have to take into consideration the posts to hold up the floor (which I will probably put on stone plinths rather than in the ground as the wood here doesn't do too well in the ground)  for the flex  (how many and how far apart should I place the posts). reason for considering this is the point of my topic, as the floor of the tent platform will be small diameter round poles I wanted to put a layer of limecrete to fashion a flat surface, will this last as a surface or will it wash away when the platform is not in use? even if I incorporated a slight slope for water runoff? and what thickness should it be so as not to crack with hot and cold temps? There is no frost here but we do get a bit of rain and have a mild winter. I have used a cob and concrete mix to encase my fire bath which is in the rain and wet, it holds up well in the weather I may even have to consider this as an option but I wanted more info for the limecrete. (Probably I had better cover it when not in use)

thanks in advance for your help on this wee task.

hello
as and when i have had a spare moment i have jumped online. to my wonder i have found this site http://www.theroundhouse.org/images/2intro/gallery2.htm these are very heavy structures and this site even shows how it is built, tony wrench is teaching how to build round wood henge framed houses with reciprocal roof now on pad stones
here is another site in the uk http://www.wholewoods.co.uk/page.cfm?pageid=ww-traditional-buildings this site shows that reference is available for teaching building techniques on building round structures on pad stones
so i now see the way in which i would like to build my next project, i have started a very simple pencil drawing, but as yet not ready to work with

still dreaming....

terry WoW thanks, it all seems a bit over whelming right now this new language and mathematics, so i'm not in a rush in that aspect and not in a rush in another aspect as i'm currently away from home working. I posted my question hoping that the answer would be easier to understand but i'm glad i posted well in advance of my application to the question.

thankyou jay and terry
i appreciate your answers.
the land where i live is very remote and a fortune is spent on bringing professional people out here and then they charge a fortune on top of that. of course they have their studies experience and livelihood to pay for.
i rather like the idea of not having to use treated timber and or cement but using stone plinths. and i get you with your suggestion for doing the math my self to understand how it all works, to be honest i didn't have a good relationship with math while at school so never applied, so i really don't know how to go about learning the math.
and terry i appreciate your offer (a cad model or volume of structure calculated by hand starting with walls (exterior and interior, floor, roof_pitch separately, and a hand sketch so I can see how the weight is distributed on the floor plan) i will have to get back to you with those
included is a photo of a wall section for the greenhouse i built with a manuka scissor frame roof, since then i learnt to dip the brush in a clay slip before enclosing in the netting. probably the mice have a very nice place to live in the green house walls.
the shed, i buried concrete in the earth on four corners sunk in an anchor to each then bolted the manuka poles to that and tying down the tin roof to the concrete anchor blocks, i built this shed after the green house so applied what i had learnt from the green house the walls are on earth bags there are two tin walls and two earth walls with large enough overhangs.
i just want to build slightly different with the raised floor try different techniques for the next project.
im not a builder but i love to build i started by building my compost toilet by hand till i got a tennis elbow (now i use an electric chainsaw a silky saw and battery drill) but by making the mistakes, i have learnt.
so i guess i will just keep learning and try my hand at maths
jay i read some of your replies to people after i had posted my question and i really appreciate you your advice and your patience for possibly replying to the same questions over again..thank you again

hi im querying if someone has answers to how many and how deep foundation poles to support the weight of a pole frame of a locally grown timber (manuka nz) and an earth roof. i thought to use treated foundation poles as i live remote with boat only access, its easier for me to transport out there rather than bags of cement. the rocks out here dont seem to be very strong and nz is a seismic area. i want to use the manuka poles for framing the structure. the manuka is easier to work with when it is fresh felled rather than waiting for it to dry when it is very hard to work with. it is heavy when wet.
the earth roof will be made with an EPDM lining with turfs placed on top (i have done this already on another structure and simply it works very well, the grass dies and creates compost and feed the next growth) the walls could only be compared to wattle and daub though i will use the brush from the tops of the manuka dipped into a clay slip and packed lightly between two layers of recycled milk bottle netting.
the structure would be within the ten square meter thresh hold.
i dont know how to calculate the weight.
thanks in advance for your thoughts