Helen Butt

Where I live (Leeds, UK), it seems shoppers adapted quickly to the plastic bag ban.

Some shops have adapted themselves in a less helpful way by providing compostable bags, which conveniently have the shop logo. I always have a re-usable bag, which even comes with a neat little pouch, in my handbag, so I've not needed to accept one of these bags yet.

Nancy Reading wrote:
4) if 3) is successful, consider going off grid. It seems crazy, but most of our electricity charge at the moment is standing charge for our connection, we pay slightly more than most in the UK due to our highlands location. If we have sufficient internal redundancy, then this final stage is the only one that would actually give us a quick payback financially.

Gosh yes, Nancy!

I've now got solar panels, so in summer the standing charge is double the amount I pay in electricity from the grid.

At 53.8 degrees North, with 6 1.5 kW solar panels, between May and September I used 1kW hour each day from the grid and exported 6 to the grid.

The last three months, as you know, have been spectacularly free of sunshine, so with the short days as well I've been importing 3kW/day and exporting one.

NB I've got gas central heating, hence these figures. I'd like to get a device fitted to the panels to transfer excess power to the hot water tank to reduce the gas consumption (further).

I haven't made a resolution to do more art, as I use my spinning wheel most days anyway. I do need to warp my loom, though, and finish a rather large project I started two years ago!

Jenny Wright wrote:

Ashley Cottonwood wrote:I'm currently trying to crochet one bunting square per day in hopes of making it around my whole yard to decorate our fence line!

That will be pretty!

Have you seen where people actually knit the fence itself with string... 🤯

Wow!!!

I was going to vote for the never take option as I spin my own. However, I did recently pick up a couple of cones of manmade fibre to use as warp thread. As the thread would potentially have gone to landfill if not used, it seemed a good idea to take what I needed for a specific project with a ramie weft.

Jennifer Pearson wrote:I originally voted "everything", but then I watched your video and remembered how much I dislike working with thick & thin yarns. (This is a little bit inconvenient for me, since as a beginning handspinner I haven't yet achieved the consistency I want.) I noticed that you have a vintage sewing machine and cabinet. Are you planning to make any videos about the care and feeding of your machine in the future?

Good luck with your consistency. Not sure I'm there yet but 1) it depends on the fibre and 2) 3 ply is more consistent.

With your damp conditions, chop and drop might work. My concern with this system is that during decomposition, the soil beneath might be depleted of nitrogen.

That said, I leave autumn leaves in situ, for example, and the spring flowers still come up every year. However, yes, kitchen waste is best processed and a wormery sounds an excellent idea. You'll also get liquid feed, so can use that on crops whilst waiting for the worms to make the compost.

Yes, I believe finished compost works very well because it has nitrogen and carbon - and as it's stopped decomposing, it doesn't take nitrogen from the soil.

Re plants and microbes, I guess permaculture favours perennials for this reason (in part). Obviously, if you want annual crops, though, you need some kind  of inputs, and if compost works for you, that's great.

I imagine over time you will have more homemade compost over time as well?

Nancy Reading wrote:

S Rogers wrote:I'm curious how your soil is doing now.  

I'm hoping that this year the area I have prepared will be much more conducive to growing. I'm hoping to do some quantitative soil tests to show how much the soil has improved - pH, organic matter, soil life. But the proof to me will be in achieving a harvest. For that there is also more involved than soil - timing of sowing seeds, predators and pests, what the weather does, and timing of harvest. I'm hopeful that this year I will be able to save some seeds and grow some new crops to maturity. Still an awful lot to learn
I'm not happy I've been able to incorporate enough organic material within the soil. However, having improved the drainage and relieved the compaction, hopefully the plant roots will continue the good work - along with more seaweed and whatever other organic materials I can source locally.

I was going to ask about your soil a year on, too.

Soil building takes time, in my experience. My soil is neutral and sandy loam but like yours: shallow. It was pretty devoid of organic matter, so water and nutrient retention was poor.

I'm not so bothered about growing food anymore, so am resting the soil through rewilding but I continue to mulch (compost, sheep's fleece and cardboard/newspaper currently).

During one of the lockdowns I looked into the soil carbon cycle and I believe that if you encourage carbon into your soil, nature will do the rest. (Ie the microbes which do so much good, feed off the C, so more C means more microbes.)

Thekla McDaniels wrote:I wonder what exactly is being burned, and resulting air quality.

That is a good question. At the Recycling and Energy Recovery Facility near me, the gases are cleaned, neutalised and filtered for fine particles.