Patrick Storm

Thanks for all your replies.
I have FINALLY found a place that can supply both wood chips and hay bales (which took me years to find) and I have a mental sketch of how to set up this tiny piece of land. However, now my wife thinks the whole thing is a bad idea and that it would be bad to invest in materials for this plot as we're trying to move out of the city to get a properly sized chunk of land. It's still not easy to sell apartments though, so I thought we should make the most of the land we have while we're still in the city, and then we can just bring our trees, animals and compost bins etc. But this was obviously not convincing.

I guess we'll see how things go. If we can't sell our flat we should probably get one allotment each, since we can't agree on anything when it comes to gardening

Thanks! Some great info right there. So if I have two pens, one on top of the other, what should the flooring for the rabbits be? It'd have to be some sort of netting to let the droppings drop, right? Is that ok for their paws? Maybe they could have part netting and part wood board or something to plant food for them on. I did something similar once when I kept locust, the bottom of the cage was made from netting under which I grew grass so that they could eat whatever grew through the netting, but could not get to the roots and/ or destroy the plants entirely.

Tractoring sounds great but is a little hard on this particular space as there would be trees and bushes in the way. I'm aiming for a tiny but extremely intense food forest.

Is there a way of incorporating fish into this system? Maybe the water could drip irrigate the plants that feed the rabbits and then the rabbits drop their poo down to the chicken. Maybe there could be yet another compartment under the chicken pen with worms that can be fed back to the fish? My mind is racing now too =)

What is the minimum height for the rabbits and birds if I choose relatively small breeds? What are some good species of fish or other aquatics that can be kept in a tank like this (I'm thinking something simple like waterproofed board)? Would half a meter ~ 2 feet be enough height and depth? Length would be around 10m (~32'9") for an area of about 5m2 or 53,8 sq ft. Maybe that's too big? How many of each could sustainably be kept in there? BTW I'm in southern Sweden with a relatively mild climate.

What about wintertime...? Maybe a small but deep pond would be better for fish so it doesn't freeze...

Shoot your ideas my way =)
Thanks.

I have an allotment and was thinking that I might be able to fit some protein sources in there if I build vertically. To be able to fit the animals, I was thinking I might be able to keep chicken and rabbits together. Is this a big no-no or what? If I had more space than 100m2 I would not put them together, for safety's sake. So I'm asking this question thinking I might be wrong in that they might hurt each other. BTW, they would have a maximum of 10m2 of the total of 100m2.

In the future, when I get more space, I'd like to have both ducks and fish as well.

Do any of you have any drawings or schematics on keeping these small critters in a small space? Any ideas on how to keep them successfully in a vertical manner, with all their needs supplied + then some. I don't like the idea of the bare minimals.

Thank you so much!

Well that's true but in time untreated wood would let water through.

The thought ocurred to me that there might be a green way of waterproofing a (wooden) roof using some sort of tree resin, or a mixture of different resins or another compound. I'm posting this to encourage brainstorming on this as I was surprised to not being able to find anything concrete on this through google.

I suppose tar could be called natural, but hardly green because of all the carcinogens in it. But resins seem to me to be a viable candidate to start with. As I understand pine resin, if used, would have to be mixed with something to stop it from setting completely in cold weather and cracking? What could accomplish this?

What have you guys used? How did you fare?

(WHOA! Why does my name have "Hatfield" in it allofasudden?? What is Hatfield anyway?)

I found this site while looking for a how-to guide for timber frame houses, and just had to share it. There are plans for virtually anything! They were probably done in the 70s or something because I see asbestos and asphalt recommended. 



http://bioengr.ag.utk.edu/extension/ExtPubs/PlanList97.htm

Just found http://www.biotecture.uk.com/
I've gotta read up on these cool things

Jami:
I think you're very right. I have been pondering something which seems paradoxical to me; I have black stone tile on my englassed balcony but the freakin thing never gets hot, just warm in the height of summer. But on a sunny day in winter it is very very cold. Now I realize, as Castlerock says, the heat is absorbed but lost to the concrete under the tiles and "sucked out" by the cold outside. Ergo important to have a non temperature transmissive layer below the thermal absorbant.

Castlerock:
Lavarock isn't very dense but has bubbles in it, so per theory the argument is the heat is kept in these spaces... I don't know, maybe any sand would work, but if it's below a wooden flooring the color won't matter. I don't know if you should lay wooden flooring directly on sand, but how else would you do it if you want both?
A lot to think about

Yeah I'm not sure how it works when it comes to humidity, but I'd bet you're right that humidity will gather there as well, and that one would do well in factoring this in when building. I'd say the choice of your wall material is important. Maybe you could leave a slit of about 10 inches of free airspace above the trellis (and not let it grow all the way to the roof) to leave room for the humid air to vent out when it warms with heat from the building.

When it comes to repairs- yes repairs would be more difficult, but then again damages might not be as common since you essentially have a regenerating, living "hull" around the building. So if there's ever a storm, the plants take the beating, and not the house. And then it regrows.

The version that seems to be most popular is a stainless wire trellis arranged as a netting on the walls on which the plants grow, that keeps the roots away from the actual wall which would otherwise cause damage. I know that some people go the extra mile and cover their walls with hard plastic or aluminium sheets- this is mostly when using other plants than ivy, that may have more aggressive root development.

Sorry this is borderline OT, but I think you could do the same thing with willow. And there's the added benefit that willow grows extremely fast.

Check out their site. Sorry, it's in swedish, but I'd gladly translate if it's not too off topic.

http://www.vegtech.se/sv/veg-tech-bygg/products/grona-vajern---vajersystem/uid-54/categoryinformation.aspx

Yeah so I'm still planning the future home... Thinking of the flooring right now, and want to incorporate passive solar as much as possible due to living on around the 55th degree N latitude. I have a faint memory of reading that lava rock has good thermal mass properties, but does anyone know which type of rock or sand that actually has the best thermal properties?

My thought right now is to lay a heat absorbant sand and then bamboo flooring on top of that. It really is crazy how much carbon is sequestered in bamboo... An alternative is hemp boards as these are grown locally. Hoping that heat from the sun will pass through a thin layer of wooden flooring and get absorbed in the sand to then be released slowly during the night.

Also, the standard here when using wooden flooring is to put a layer of foam plastic underneath to give the floor a soft "flex". Is there a good (biodegradable) alternative to that? I'm worrying that this layer, being full of air bubbles, would hinder the warmth from reaching the sand underneath...