The PermaDesign Weblog, with Nate Downey and Melissa McDonald!
Archives from December 2012
Mulchy Christmas to All
In this season of giving, we're happy to announce another free tool at http://www.permadesign.com In ad.dtion to being able to estimate the annual runoff from surfaces on your site, now, you can calculate the mulch you'll need for a given project. Here's a screen shot .png)
of the more remote parts of the Marin Center and some neighboring easements in San Rafael, CA. Every year, it's the site of the wild and thoughtful Bioneers conference.
12/17/2012 | (0) Comments
Frozen Eggs? No Problem (at least in NM)!
The other morning Nate came in from a jaunt to the chicken coop. In his hands, he was cradling a couple of severely cracked eggs, but fortunately no goop was dripping on the floor. The eggs were from the day before, so they had withstood 7-degree F weather overnight.
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They'd frozen and cracked, but they remained intact. We'd never heard of anybody thawing out eggs and eating them, but that's just what we did the next day. In fact, we decided to try a little science experiment. We first cracked a normal egg (from the same chickens) and it came out normally. Then we cracked a thawed egg, and the thing fell out of the shell in two distinct globs which you can see in the lower fried egg above.
12/11/2012 | (0) Comments
It’s Lovely Weather for a Hoop House
Here's a shot of our hoop houses under this afternoon's fresh blanket of snow. Inside, we've got lots of lettuces, kale, chard, cabbage, beats, peas, and any number of herbs. I hope to have a greenhouse someday but for now these cold frames are working well.
The hoops are made of 1/2" diameter PVC (a terrible product if you live downstream from an irresponsible manufacturer) pipe which is a light, strong, flexible, rigid, inexpensive and basically perfect material for making low arches in between rebar stakes. Three hoops and pairs of stakes are set within a 4' x 8' rectangle of 2-by lumber. The hoops are covered in a
12/10/2012 | Climate | Companion Plantings | Ecology | Edibles | Energy Savings | Outdoor Living | (0) Comments
