This week on the farm has been busy on the ground and tough on the mindas we deal with the loss of a friend. The vegetables we planted in August together have been harvested and taken to the venue for all her friends to share. A final gift Lindy shares as we enjoy the bounty of food we planted. This week's video is a look through time at our little garden project and the start of our renovations project.
Every small farm needs efficient watering systems. In this video, we look at the Drip irrigation system that we are using powered by 0.5 bars of gravity. We set this up with every small farm in mind and specifically chose to use non-compensated gravity emitters as a low-tech solution that could be replicated in rural South Africa. For a long time, we have been irrigating the market garden using two 10L watering cans. This made sense when we were still borderline subsistence but since we have taken on the challenge of scaling our production we realized that time spent watering is otherwise wasted time.
In this week's episode, we took out half of our onions from last season. We will be replanting this area as soon as we have amended it with our new mix and then we will be plumbing our drip line irrigation into this space for the next round of growing. These onions were grown on raised beds in an educational system. It is not easy trying to teach your teacher how to do things and not all things work out the way they are planned. Getting the planting density up is essential if we want to optimize the small growing area we are using.
I first came across this way of thinking when I found the work of Darren Doherty. He is a world-class designer who has established the Regarians platform where they use a more in-depth understanding of the scale of permanence in setting up a farm. The basic concept is a movement from the most energy required to change to (#1) to less energy (#9). I have used the scale of permanence in setting up our farm as a tool to help inform how specific components may impact the design over time. In this video, I have tried to briefly introduce the Scale of Permanence as a logical way to approach a landscape so that it can be used as a tool to better understand the holistic potential. This way of thinking about a landscape can help guide decisions that need to be made by weighing up its relative permanence in the system and the costs of energy that it would take to alter. It will be a powerful tool in a new farmers' toolkit as it takes time and experience to gain the required abilities to read the landscape efficiently.
In this video, I will go through my DIY ram pump setup which I have been working on since 2016 and all the components in my design. I started off playing around with 25 mm bought fittings and PVC but now operate a complete DIY Ram Pump. It took me about a month to get the first version working and I had very little help in troubleshooting various issues around optimization. I have come a long way since those first attempts and now we operate a complete DIY system that has much better reliability. I have been helped along the way in the fabrication of this Ram Pump by the guys at MacQuip (https://www.macquip.co.za/).
In this week's episode, we took out half of our onions from last season. We will be replanting this area as soon as we have amended it with our new mix and then we will be plumbing our drip line irrigation into this space for the next round of growing. These onions were grown on raised beds in an educational system. It is not easy trying to teach your teacher how to do things and not all things work out the way they are planned. Getting the planting density up is essential if we want to optimize the small growing area we are using.
I drive an old Isuzu and to engage the 4x4 I have to manually lock the free-wheeling hubs and I don't have a spanner... So I made one DIY! My design criteria were that it needed to be small enough to fit neatly behind the seat and made up of scraps from old projects. intended to make a quick tool and a video about the fabrication using an hour of my time. I rushed it so much I forgot to film in landscape mode. Luckily IGTV exists, and my friends watching this.
In this video, I set out to make a quick DIY wire trying tool as a gift for a friend of mine and I wanted to have a HOW TO video that would show him how to use it. I have cleaned up and organized my workshop (and dirtied it again) which has made it easier to do some quick little projects. I recently bought a small MIG welder and have been looking for any excuse to play with it and I have found it a lot of fun to make these simple tools. I have made a few for friends already and each time I do it a little bit differently.
In this video, I am brewing on the concept of "Paying it Forward". In my context, it is a form of collaboration without any preconceived outcomes. I want to help where I can and sometimes I need help from those who can. I don't think asking for assistance is a sign of weakness. For me, it has been a powerful way of building community. Don't be afraid to ask...or you will NEVER know!
Wood is a beautiful material to be a master of. From my experience, it takes time and practice to begin to understand how it works. Making something as simple as a picture frame is always a fun way to test out your patience and get some good practice hours in. I sourced the wood for this build from an old Macadamia tree which was pruned back. There were some decent size potions that could be salvaged. I used my chainsaw to roughly cut a rectangular log. I then used my table saw to rip planks. I gave them 5 months to dry and have now turned them into a picture from. The final corner of a frame is where the error of your cuts show its face. Do everything in your power to make sure you don't get a shock and be precise with your cuts. There are lots of jigs that can be made for the specific purpose of making frames but unless you plan on making them regularly I find it pretty rewarding going through some struggles.