Our seedlings are going on five weeks old now, so it’s about time for an update. They all looked the same at first, but now they’re each developing their own characteristics.
The biggest bummer so far is our tray of hot peppers. We planted jalapeno, habanero, cayenne and several other varieties, but so far there is little action from the seeds. I’ve been told that peppers take awhile to sprout.
I wouldn’t normally blog about a house meeting, but our meeting today was really enjoyable and I wanted to explain how we organize ourselves and stay informed. We set aside an hour each week to discuss things of importance related to the house. An agenda is made up on the spot as we begin by proposing what things need to be addressed. We depend on whiteboard and dry erase technology to keep track of the meeting, and notes are taken with someone’s computer. All notes get posted to our internal house wiki that contains a variety of things no one will ever see but us.
Today’s meeting was beautiful. Food was prepared and we ate outside on the pic-nic table. Fresh eggs served from cast-iron, mmm, mmm, mmm. We were short one housemate, Jacob, who was at a cybernetics conference in Washington. We had a lot to talk about but the meeting went quickly and we were soon done and working in the garden. With the warm weather and time-change I can sense that we no longer need to worry about seasonal depression. I have a bit of a sunburn to prove it, too.
I found this in my inbox today from the Organic Consumer Association.
the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) released a new study that exposes levels of the petrochemical carcinogen 1,4-Dioxane in leading conventional as well as “natural” brands of personal care and household cleaning products. This cancer-causing contaminant is all too frequently found in products directly applied to the skin, but it is not listed on ingredient labels, making it difficult for consumers to avoid potentially dangerous products.
To help protect us all they created this handy pdf of popular products, both good and bad.
The pdf doesn’t cover laundry detergent, but we use all kinds of cleaning products and this may be a good way to start understanding why we use specific brands.
There are two general approaches to compost: cold and hot. The cold compost method is slow, doesn’t need turning, and will happen naturally if you pile food scraps in your yard. This method is known as anaerobic digestion and its being explored by industry because it retains more energy within the system and produces usable methane. The drawbacks of cold compost are 1) smells like death when it is outside 2) doesn’t sanitize the materials and 3) takes months to occur. Hot compost on the other hand doesn’t smell, generates a lot of heat which kills harmful microbes, and breaks down fast. In a Hot Compost pile, much of the energy is released as heat by the thermophilic bacteria. To get Hot Compost, you need to balance the ingredients and turn the pile regularly. For the first time since I moved in our compost pile was steaming yesterday indicating aerobic breakdown was taking place.
Hot Compost requires 4 inputs. Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen and Water. The Nitrogen comes mostly from the food scraps and is the main input. We add Carbon in the form of straw and yard trimmings. Balancing the C:N ratio is the biggest trick to getting a good pile going. I’ve recently begun adding chicken poop from the coop which should add a lot of Nitrogen to the mix. Getting Oxygen into the center of the pile requires turning the pile. Turning the pile is bane of the composter’s existence, but it’s needed to get air to the aerobic micro-organisms doing all the real work.
Hot compost will let off lots of steam.
Keeping our chickens in mind, we separate out coffee grounds and eggshells from the main compost pile.
links:
Comparison of anaerobic and aerobic digestion wikipedia
Composting wikipedia
Composting for the Homeowner Illinois Extension
Tips on Composting http://www.composters.com
Along with fuel efficiency, water conservation, and reduction in meat consumption, home composting is one of the most environmentally beneficial activities of modern society. Yard and food wastes make up approximately 30% of the waste stream in the US. – http://www.composters.com
My goal was to have a post up for everyone to see when they wake up in the morning. So I made a video slide-show of photos I’ve taken around the yard since I moved in. How about letting me know what you think with some comments!
Hi,
Welcome to our new blog. We are a group of people living in a big house (casa grande) together (colectiva) in Urbana, IL. This blog will be a place for us to document our habits, decisions, accomplishments, and thoughts. We will use this as a tool for understanding ourselves and our relationships with the world. Expect this site to change as we find better ways to organize and share our media.
-JP
