Gardening & Farming

The Comprehensive Guide to Composting Toilets: Understanding, Benefits, and Installation

The Comprehensive Guide to Composting Toilets: Understanding, Benefits, and Installation

by | Oct 12, 2023 | ,

Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay Embracing composting toilets is a pivotal step towards sustainable living in modern households. As the world becomes increasingly aware of our environmental impact, more households are seeking eco-friendly home improvements. Central to this movement is the humble toilet, often overlooked but incredibly important. Composting toilets offer a sustainable, environmentally friendly alternative, reducing water usage and waste production. This article will delve into what these toilets are, how they operate, and why they might be the next step in your journey towards a greener home. What is a Composting Toilet? A composting toilet is a system that processes human waste through organic decomposition and evaporation. Instead of flushing waste away with water, it transforms it into valuable compost. This is achieved without chemical agents and instead harnesses natural decomposition processes. Unlike the...

read more

The Permaculture Book of DIY

Curated Content From Around the Web

Want to grow food in the forest? Here’s how.

Share Post Pinterest reddit Email Let’s say you have a wooded property and want to grow food in the woods. However, you want to do it in a way that preserves as much of the forest as possible. I.e you want to minimize clearing and cutting down the trees but still be able to grow food. Is growing food in this way even possible? Well, it is, and today I’m going to give you three options of what you could do. Let’s tackle them one by one. 1. Growing food in the understory of the forest Forest Farming Ginseng Credit: Pasa Sustainable Agriculture In closed canopy areas of the forest, you can still grow food, but you’ll need to be more strategic about it. The light is a limiting factor here, but it’s not like there isn’t any. The conditions might vary from classic shade to partial shade depending on…
Read More

Quick permaculture design tip: Suntrap garden

Share Post Pinterest reddit Email I have a quick permaculture design tip for your today. If you are growing a garden you’ll want to check it out. As you are probably aware, one of the considerations for your garden is that it receives ample amount of sunshine. Most vegetables need about 8 hours of sun per day to produce a good crop. Root vegetables and leafy greens can grow with less but in general you aim to provide as much fuel (photosynthesis potential) as possible. So from a solar access perspective you’ll want for your garden to be open to the sun as much as possible, with nothing physically impossible-to-move blocking it. Note that even if you are in a really hot climate, this principle would still apply. It’s easier to add shade than it is to add sun. Adding more sun is impossible if you are in the spot…
Read More

Design Challenge: Where to put the house?

Share Post Pinterest reddit Email One of my clients recently bought 20 acres of land in the humid subtropics. As you can see, the land is beautiful, lush, and green, with diverse topography (i.e., not flat) and a lot of potential: He bought it primarily to establish his self-reliant homestead, where he could live off-grid, enjoy nature and the abundance he produces while spending his days in a workshop. The challenge? It’s bare land, and now he needs to design it from scratch, i.e.: -> determine where to place the infrastructure – house, driveway, workshop -> create a water system to provide enough water for his needs – ponds, tanks, water harvesting channels -> determine where to place his food growing systems – gardens, food forests, greenhouse… In this post, I wanted to workshop “live” one of his main challenges – where to locate the house and, in turn, the…
Read More

Here’s How to Make Free Liquid Fertilizer for Life

Share Post Pinterest reddit Email As someone who is constantly juggling various personal, professional, and homestead tasks, there’s one permaculture principle that’s proven to be incredibly important in my day-to-day life. It’s the principle of ‘the least effort for the most effect.’ Essentially it’s this idea that you want to work in a way where you get great results for a minimum investment of your resources (time, labor, money). I mean, who wouldn’t love that? Now, the problem with this is figuring out how exactly to do things in this ‘least effort for the most effect’ way. So today, I want to showcase the principle in action on my farm and give you at least one idea of what you could do, and as a byproduct, you’ll get an endless supply of free liquid fertilizer. In one of my earlier videos, I showed you my small permaculture nursery setup where…
Read More

4-Ingredient All-Natural Deer Repellent for Your Garden

When you live in an area with a high deer population, sometimes you find yourself wondering just who you’re growing all these vegetables and flowers for – you or Bambi? But you can keep deer from nibbling your azaleas and asparagus with this easy-to-make deer repellent recipe.   Who Is This Garden For Anyway? My dislike of Bambi and his friends extends beyond the garden. Having hit a deer with my car twice in my lifetime, finding my garden nibbled on only adds insult to injury. So, I don’t mess around when it comes to protecting my veggies. Excuse me, Bambi, those asparagus aren’t for you! While there are plenty of deer repellents on the market, if you start comparing ingredients, you’ll find most of them are all the same. What’s more, they’re all generally made with things you can find in your kitchen and your garden shed. This recipe…
Read More

Keep Fresh-Cut Daffodils Looking Beautiful For A Week Or More

Whether you’re picking them from your backyard or buying them, nothing banishes the winter blues like the sunshine yellow of fresh daffodils. When their yellow heads nod in the March rain, I know that winter is truly over, and warm weather is right around the corner. For many, daffodils are the first cut flower to grace their vases for the season, so here are a few simple tips to keep them fresher longer. The Daffodils Are Here & So Is Spring Here in Pennsylvania, I always know that spring is coming the first morning I open my front door and get a powerful whiff of skunk. As these little black and white critters come out of hibernation, my daffodils usually start to poke up out of the ground, too, oftentimes through a layer of snow. But I know spring has truly arrived when the view from my kitchen window is…
Read More

Starting More Seeds, Hanging Basket Refresh & New DIY Potting Bench

400 Trees in 3 hours – Plus Local Plant Excitement!

10 Crops You NEED To Start In April

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 … Page 307