Build a $300 underground greenhouse for year-round gardening (Video) Growers in colder climates often utilize various approaches to extend the growing season or to give their crops a boost, whether it's coldframes, hoop houses or greenhouses. Greenhouses are usually glazed structures, but are typically expensive to construct and heat throughout the winter. A much more affordable and effective alternative to glass greenhouses is the walipini (an Aymara Indian word for a "place of warmth"), also known as an underground or pit greenhouse. First developed over 20 years ago for the cold mountainous regions of South America, this method allows growers to maintain a productive garden year-round, even in the coldest of climates. Here's a video tour of a walipini that shows what a basic version of this earth-sheltered solar greenhouse looks like inside: © Benson Institute It's a pretty intriguing set-up that combines the principles of passive solar heating with earth-sheltered building. SilverThunder/via
The Museum Of Old Techniques For almost every electronic device or oil driven machine there used to be a low-tech alternative that was powered by human muscles, water or wind. The Museum of Old Techniques aims to collect and study these historical alternatives to modern day machinery. Why, you may ask? To quote the Museum: "Evolution doesn't necessarily mean progress, what we consider to be primitive solutions are often not primitive at all". We could not have said it better ourselves. The website of the MOT contains, among other things, some 2,000 simple drawings of hand tools (ordered by shape, and by profession) and a collection of illustrated trade catalogues (up until 1950, in French). A somewhat related publication is Edward H. Knight's book contains not only early electric equipment and steam driven machinery, but also human and animal powered machines.
Journey to Forever Survival Podcast Roxbury Farm | Classic manuals online The following 46 books include many classics for backyarders, homesteaders, small farms and tropical development, many of them hard to find, with direct links to the CD 3rd World online library for free downloading. They are in graphic pdf format, with files from 1 or 2 Mb to 60 Mb. , by Robert Berold et. al., Environmental and Development Agency, Johannesburg, South Africa. 41.7Mb pdf Teknologi Kampungan -- A Collection of Indigenous Indonesian Technologies, by Craig Thorburn, 1982, Volunteers in Asia, ISBN 0917704169. 6.4Mb pdf Village Technology Handbook, Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA), 3rd edition 1988, Vita Publications, ISBN 0866192751, 441 p, 14Mb pdf Backyard Composting, by Helga Olkowski, Ecology Center, Berkeley, CA, USA, 1975, 21 pages, 8.5Mb pdf
Help Exchange: free volunteer work exchange abroad Australia New Zealand Canada Europe Market gardening success step-by-step Think you can't 'bootstrap' a successful small farm business anymore? You can start up, market and manage a successful small farm enterprise, even starting with few resources of your own! Hi, I'm Scott Kelland. My wife Suzie and I own New Terra Farm near Ottawa, Ontario. Over the past three years, I have helped hundreds of people learn how to create a successful, sustainable market gardening business on their small farm. I want to tell you a little bit of our story, and show you something that could save you time, money, and work when you start vegetable gardening for profit. First, if you are a big farmer, this page probably doesn't apply to you. But . . . And, what about this 'farm income crisis' we keep hearing about? These were the questions we had to answer for ourselves when we were just beginning growing for market. Why you should read this LONG letter That's because I want you to have all the information you need to decide if what I have to offer is right for you. Want some proof?
Common-Sense Compost Making - Contents This book describes a way of making compost, i.e. humus, which is simply, labour saving (no turning) and quick, both in ripening the compost and in getting results in the soil. It is adaptible to all conditions and to every size and type of garden, allotment or farm, the process being based on nature's own methods. Miss Bruce tells how to make use of the natural heat of disintegration, which liberates the vitality of the plants; how to retain that vitality within the heap, and how to quicken both the disintegration of plants and the energizing of humus by treating the heap with a simple activator. This is a herbal solution which contains in living plant form the chief elements necessary to plant life; formulae are given. From Vegetable Waste to Fertile Soil affirms a belief in the universality of Life, this Life being manifest in varying 'rhythms' in the mineral, vegetable, animal and human kingdoms. Table of Contents Foreword by L.F. Appendices 1. Bibliography How to use Q.R. by L.F.
Soil and Health Library High Tunnel.org Oil Press By Jeff Cox -- from Organic Gardening, April 1979, Rodale Press IN 2,500 SQUARE FEET, a family of four can grow each year enough sunflower seed to produce three gallons of homemade vegetable oil suitable for salads or cooking and 20 pounds of nutritious, dehulled seed -- with enough broken seeds left over to feed a winter's worth of birds.The problem, heretofore, with sunflower seeds was the difficulty of dehulling them at home, and the lack of a device for expressing oil from the seeds. About six months ago, we decided to change all that. The job was to find out who makes a sunflower seed dehuller or to devise one if none were manufactured. And to either locate a home-scale oilseed press or devise one. No mean task.Our researches took us from North Dakota -- hub of commercial sunflower activity in the nation -- to a search of the files in the U.S. Patent Office, with stops in between. Tools Required 1.