Garden log 13.06.09

My reputation as a gardener who never grows anything is taking a dent lately . Whether it is due to my dabbling is permaculture or the abundant water from our greywater system or the sligh amount of soap that manages to get through the filtration system or the early onset of summer or all the above , it cannot be denied that the garden is blooming . The zucchini is going great guns , huge blooms and a lot of flowers . Today we harvested the sixth zucchini . Though there is some white powdery stuff on the leaves that is a bit disturbing . The tomatoes give me no reason to complain but still a way to go , beans we manage to get a handful every second day and some basil and rocket . But the pride and joy is definitely the melons , a nice decent sized melon , a small one and a few on the way .
The greywater system is giving me a bit of worry though . The water is down to a trickle and needs to be coaxed through . I suspect the sand layer ,since it was not protected with a geotechnic cloth has managed to find its way to the gravel and is creating a sludge which is pretty difficult for the water to get through. I have a taken out a bit of this sludge and gravel but the solution might lie in a reed bed that actively breaks down the soap and aerates the water . Next stage .
For the moment though we are enjoying watching the garden grow . If I had my way , I would've taken a chair and watched it all day long .
All the phots were taken by Ben . Going over the photos I remembered the pomegranate .

Garden log 310509

End of may and the garden is coming along nicely . The tomatoes , bean and zucchini doing very well though only the zucchini has any fruit , lots of flowers on tomatoes . Fruit trees are coming along as well . We have added a grape vine and passionflower to the garden .


Zucchini living up to its reputation of being a fast mover , giant blooms , took me my surprise . I harvested the first zucchini yesterday but for some reason it was a bit soft at the tip .

Planting log 090408

Photos of the garden, everything looking very much not there but the tank for the greywater system is in place , there is tons of organic stuff in the beds , had to do a lot of digging to take out stones and concrete from the soil but from now on it is going to be a no dig garden with organic mulch .

The Pomegranate


The strawberries along with chickpea

Herbs

Lemon

Almonds

Beds with mulch and the greywater filter

The Plum tree hasn't shown any inclination to acknowledge it is spring.

Greywater system update

The greywater system is up and running. The water goes to the first tank and once the water crosses a point , the pump kicks in and pumps up the water to the filter cum tank . We had a very water intensive day today with a few loads of washing and kids in the bath but from what it appears we might have more water than what we need !! Next stage is to connect the water to the drip system .
Visually the water seems ok , no turbidity , a bit of soap coming through , a few days more till the biological filter or schmutzdecke kicks in.

The removal of contaminants in slow sand filters occurs mainly in the colmation layer or schmutzdecke - a biologically active layer consisting of algae, bacteria, diatoms and zooplankton. A ripening period of 6 - 8 weeks is required for this layer to form, during which time filter performance is sub-optimal.

From here
The amount of water makes me think that maybe we are underutilising the greywater system and should have integrated it with the flush water . But maybe I will just earn some 'brownie points' by offering to water my neighbours patch .

Planting log 01.04.09

Planting so far:
Trees planted on 15th Mar 09
Almond
Lemon
Plum
Pomegranate
The Pomegranate is reasonably big , can expect fruit next year.
Cost of trees 300 shekels
Herbs
Mint
Sage
Zatar
Zuta
Cost of herbs 20 shekels
Seeds
My first set of seeds were dug up by the cats , the nicely dug soil to hard to resist I guess .SO another planting session on 31.03.04
Cucumber
Capsicum
Chillies
Lettuce
Rokat
Melon
Watermelon
Zucchini
Parsley
Cost of seeds 40 shekels

Now I have to think of a nasty contraption to keep the cats out of my seedlings , something that gives them a vicious poke that scares the living daylight muha-ha-ha-ha..........

Food

For the last couple of months I have been reading voraciously about food , organic , backyard , the ills of industrial monocultures , Fukuoka , Geoff Lawton , the broken nutrient cycles , Monsanto , the Future of food , Permaculture , Bill Mollison, Emilia Hazelip and more . It is quite clear that my mind is made up , industrial production of food is bad for me and my family and the environment . So time to take the plunge seriously into growing my own food or part of it and at the same time utilize wastes that we create in a manner that is not only non destructive but also adds to the immediate environment . Not that this is the first time I am trying to do so , I have at least two seasons of growing but not producing anything with my blessed black thumb but I believe I have reached a point where I have enough know how to do it better . We will be using greywater from our bath , composting all our kitchen and yard wastes and using a lot of mulch .

Greywater system

Today we finalised the greywater system that we are going to install . It is a very basic setup , greywater from the bath and the washing machine goes in a subterranean tank with a submersible pump which pumps it up to the terrace . The contractor is going to do the job of pumping up the terrace and I will make the rest of the filtration system which is essentially going to be a trench with gravel . The water will be released into a subsurface drip system . Schematically it is going to be like this .
If the water pump is 0.5 kw and takes even as much as half an hour everyday to pump up the water , the monthly consumption of electricity will be 15 Kwh which at 0.50 shekels/Kwh works out to 7.50 shekels a month or less than 2$ a month . The water saved will definitely offset the cost of running the pump .

Water saving

Watering with a sprinkler, drip etc has a serious disadvantage , a lot of water gets lost by evaporation . So I always thought of using Olla for irrigation . The idea is that the earthen pot is dug into the earth next to the roots of the plant and water seeps out slowly right next to the roots . And then I had this inspiration what if I replace it with a plastic bottle with tiny little holes . Sadly even the tiniest holes makes the water gush out and in less than 10 minutes all the water is gone . Then it was suggested by the good people at Gardenstew that I should put some cotton yarn in these holes that will act as a wick and regulate the water . So I did exactly that and the system seems to work .Here is a little graphic to explain the idea . Needless to say I used Inkscape for the graphic.



Apparently this idea always existed and wasn't as original as I thought .
Silicon can also be used in conjunction with the cotton yarn to reduce the water oozing out of the holes .

Chart for companion planting

So how does my compost smell

Lately I have started inviting friends to smell my compost pile and the product . People have been quite sporting for the time being but clearly they do not share my enthusiasm for compost . There is a small danger of being left without friends if I keep up with it !!

Waste 2

Composting organic waste has a number of advantages

• The amount of garbage is thrown out reduces considerably . On an average my garbage sack is half to one-thirds of wht it used to be .
• Lesser garbage means that the garbage trucks carry lesser garbage halfway across the country to a garbage dump . It could eventually reduce the number of pickups which can be a considerable saving in energy transporting and managing .
• Most organic garbage does not fully decompose in a garbage dump as there is too much of it competing for too little fresh air . Garbage in plastic bags is known to remain in its original state packed in nylon bags in a high methane surrounding for years on end. Even after the organic stuff breaks down there is no way of putting it to useful use as it is full of inorganic stuff of unknown antecedants . So organic matter in the garbage is effectively lost .
• Even if garbage is separated and taken to a composting facility it involves a lot of energy expended in separating and moving it .
• Organic matter goes back to where it belongs , into the soil to rise again like a phoenix as organic matter again .

Waste 1

Many years ago in my Urban Design days in SPA Delhi , I heard one of the most fascinating lectures on waste management . I don't remember the name of the person but he sure did kindle something deep down about urban waste . It has been on a low backburner all of this time till some time back , nothing drastic bjt a more concerted effort to deal with the waste we create .
The easiest part of it all is the organic waste from the kitchen and garden . All little scraps and pieces and waste go to my compost pile in the no man's land between the houses . Initially I was worried about the neighbors getting worried but one year down the line it doesn't seem to bother anyone and I have a constant supply of organic compost . Even gave some to our neighbor who showed some interest but then it was too much of a bother for him to separate the organic waste and walk 10 m up to the pile. So I continue with my solo crusade . To dispel some misconceptions

1. Compost does not smell if you take proper care to turn it once in a while and strike a good balance between greens and browns.
2. It does not attract rodents and the likes if one takes care to separate non-veg and dairy waste.

Besides

1. we have cut down our waste to a third .
2. we get nice black compost to grow our vegetables in .
3. the garbage collectors say a silent thank you every time they cross our house ( they should if they don't )