Nancy Reading

What an interesting thread! I'm going to repost my findings on my raised bed temperatures (from my simple farming thread taken in late July - mid summer last year) here. Unfortunately I couldn't find my soil thermometer to try to take some early spring temperatures. When it turns up I'll have to put it 'somewhere safe' so I can find it when I need it.

I finally got round to measuring some soil temperatures in different places  around my growing area and the results are not what I was expecting. Basically I measured the temperature about 2 inches under the soil surface (results in degrees Celsius), in bare soil that was exposed to the sunshine in early afternoon:

a) about half way up the roots bed (sloped) - 20.5
b) middle of grains bed (sloped) - 20.0
c) beside the bird perch gabion (flat) - 21.5

I was thinking then that the shelter of the gabion (and possibly reflected heat from the stones) was of more impact than the sun angle, so I did a couple more measurements in my mini hugel shell garden:

d) ditch of shell garden: 22
e) top of mini hugel - 20

So, at least at this time of year, it looks like the relative exposure to wind is probably more important than the angle of the soil to the sun for having a warmer soil temperature. It may be that in spring and autumn, when the sun is lower in the sky the angle becomes more important, but at mid summer having the beds sloped makes either no difference or is detremental.

Although I did get a good indication that there is a warming effect in winter!

Snow free South facing beds

Another place I'd like to check is my drive bank. That is a South facing slope with stone retaining walls, which I was hoping would be a warmer microclimate. It would be nice to quantify that.

About methanol; I think it's what we would call methylated spirit in the UK, although the concentration and purity might be different. I did find some at Walmart Canada, that looks like it might be available to order online: https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/DUSTRONICS-Ultra-Pure-Methanol-99-9-4-litre/514J4UMYJ5GK . It is quite a large amount and so quite expensive though. If normal ethyl alcohol works as well I'd go for that, since any you don't use would have lots of other uses in preserving and tinctures for example.

Thanks Hugo

I've since done a bit of research, there's a little information about these and several other flatworms on buglife. There are also native flatworms. You're not supposed to release the exotic ones, so this one ended up crushed by my husband's boot. I found and crushed a couple of eggs near where the bags were kept, so I guess I've got at least one more worm somewhere around. The eggs are about 1/4 inch and look like a shiny blackcurrant, so quite distinctive when you see them.
Apparently the flatworm are not all bad news; they also eat slugs and snails as well as earthworms. However they can reduce the earthworm population by about 20% when their population gets going. I'm not sure whether there are any controls as yet. I suspect that birds and other small critters will eat them quite happily, so as well as looking under plant pots more often, I'll keep promoting a diverse environments for my helpful wild critters.

Anyone familiar with this critter? I found it today in between two bags of compost - A bit less than 2 inch when curled up, but stretched out to about 4 when I first found it. It's quite fast moving. No obvious mouth. I'm suspecting New Zealand flatworm, which is a non native to the UK creature that eats earthworms. That's all I know about it.

Can anyone confirm my diagnosis? This is the first I've seen here, but I guess there could be lots more hidden away. I've put this one in a jar until I decide what to do with it.

Nosherwan Huma wrote:I don't think adobe bricks are feasible for retaining walls. they'll just melt away in the monsoon season! or am I missing something here?

You're probably right. I'm just trying to think of what resources you may have locally. If bricks are easily available then they would make perfectly fine walls I expect. Would you want to do it in a single wall, or make a stepped structure?
There is a little information on this thread on a retaining wall made from pallets. An alternative might be to use your rock in gabion baskets - they are a quick and easy way of making walls using smaller rocks and stones.

Oh, I see the video OK.

Holding the cmb between her knees she starts from one side of the comb of fibres and pulls a first clump of fibre through using a crochet hook from underneath. It's a bit difficult to see to be honest. Then she carries on pulling using her fingers on the wool and pushing an pulling the diz back and forwards, which gets a new bit of fluff engaged each time.

Thank you for 'bumping' this. I had not seen it before and wonder whether it might be a better way for me to use my wool than making rolags as I have been. You end up with a loose yarn with aligned fibres, rather than ones coiled in a circle. That seems to me that it would be easier to spin, but maybe much slower to make in the first place as a rolag you just wipe off the combs in a couple of movements of the combs.

Sounds like an awesome project Tyler!

I have little concept of what is possible in a day moving this much material and would love some guidance from anyone who has worked on a large project such as this.  My plan is to have a horse team, a tractor with a winch, and a digger with a thumb working simultaneously, and I’m hoping we can get most of the logs out of the forest and stacked in around 3 days.  

I think this is one of those 'it depends' things. How much experience the team has will directly affect how quick and efficiently the project progresses. An experienced digger driver can achieve an incredible amount in a few hours, but an inexperienced one can also make a hell of a mess in the same time.
There are bound to be hidden issues that come up - like bed rock, or subsoil horizons, but thinking through the access so you don't build yourself into a corner is an obvious suggestion.

Definitely a 'problem is the solution' moment. One might even say a nice problem to have!