Western Capitalism - what next?

The capitalism we have today is at root an immoral system as it depends on exploiting (over the recent century’s and in preset day) the powerless, using their resources (natural resources from other countries) and labour (from our own underpaid workers and those in the third world) to add to our capital to give us a better lifestyle.   Add to this the use of cheap energy which in effect exploits the future generations by creating climate change and wasting that fossil fuel capital.

Any system based on immoral ground will become corrupt as ours has.

Somehow we must come up with a new vision of what green sustainable capitalism would look like. If we are to win the argument it must be based on sound moral and ethical ground.   

Some ideas:

• A great principle - From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.
• A ratio between earnings in a firm of the highest wage not more than 10 times that of the lowest wage.
• Local banks, credit unions, crowd funding to reform the credit system.
• A return to 'sound' money where the money supply is connected to real GDP not created out of thin air. 
• A figure of GDP and therefore growth that measures the positive healthy, activity that adds to well-being of the country and doesn't count other destructive activities as being 'growth'!
• Community based self reliance - supporting local producers and businesses.
• Re-skilling formal and informal being supported in every way through apprenticeships, adult education, evening classes, cheap venues in local halls etc

More ideas please.

Chainsaw Mill

Yes we have bitten the bullet (after looking at all the Wood-Mizer etc options) and bought an Alaskan Mill.  With my MS 280 Stihl saw we can cut about 15 inches of width.   The saw is working hard and its slow progress.   I have decided to buy a bigger saw (from Ebay) and won a Stihl 046 which is older but much more powerful.  I will be able to leave this in the mill which will save me time.   Hope we will soon have some nice oak and chestnut gateposts and planks to sell!

Try these out

Great video on the story of fossil fuels
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ-J91SwP8w&feature=colike
And
Look at this crowd funding site, one answer to the credit/ capital / banks crisis
http://www.peoplefund.it/

Buddleia garden sticks

Now is a good time to prune buddleia bushes and as a bonus the prunings make great garden canes for next year.

On another topic;  We have had a very nice feature about EcoDIY in the Essex Gazette see http://www.ecodiy.org/gazette%20article.pdf  (its a Pdf download)

Holey apples batman

Here is our wwoofer Charlotte making apple rings for drying.  The rings are dried on canes and racks by the wood stove or in the solar drier
The rings make great snacks and additions to cakes etc.

A new solar PV system for the workshop

The roofers fitting the PV rails to our oak stringers

The completed 16 PV panels

Yesterday was an epic day here as the new 4kw solar PV panels arrived.  We had already spent a week digging a half meter deep trench to take 45meters of heavy armoured mains cable and a network cable from the workshop to the house - the dry clay we had to dig out was like concrete!

Steve and Fraser digging the trench

Then we fitted the stringers to the galvanised workshop roof which we had cut from one of the oak trees cut in our woodland.
   .

Chris and Steve fitting the oak stringers
We are hoping to log the performance of the system by PC using the network cable.  Watch this space for reports.

Insulating our floor - a tough job completed

Yippee!!  we have just finished insulating our floor with recycled insulation (with Steve's help)
This was probably the hardest job I have ever had to do! it involved crawling under our house fitting the insulation offcuts which we had cut to fit between the rafters under the floor.   Dark, dirty and cramped, in the course of the work we had to slide over , under and round the sewer pipes, plumbing and gas pipes (without damaging them).  The pay-off is that as well as a warmer house I now have a garage and workshop which can be used for more productive things than storing the insulation - celebration time!!

Cutting the insulation to the spacing of the rafters. 

Disappearing under the floor

We cut a hole in our office floor!

Urgent information about FIT (feed in tariff)

Information from an accidently published document from the Energy Saving Trust;

If you are thinking of installing Solar PV in the near future be aware that the government is proposing to drop the FIT on systems installed after 12^th December 2011 to 21p per unit!!

Second crop of figs

Our largest fig tree is ripening a second crop of fruit this year, I have picked five ripe figs so far.  This is the first year I have ever seen this happen!   has anyone else experienced the same thing?

Late courgettes and beans

The courgettes we planted in pots in august and then put into the poly tunnel when some tomatoes plants came out are now cropping well, producing a courgette each per day.  I planted the late crop of purple climbing french beans in ever corner I could find in and out doors including some places in the poly tunnel where the cucumbers had finished. The indoor beans are now cropping and the outdoor beans just starting, as long as the frost holds off we will have tender autumn beans this year.

Cutting the super willows

Yesterday we harvested the superwillows planted three years ago.  They would have shaded out the solar PV we are putting on the roof of the workshop and it was time to harvest anyway.  We cut a good load of wood for burning, some cuttings for planting and the rest was chipped by our WWOOFer Ales and put round the raspberries as a mulch.

This blog sums up a lot of what I have been thinking about our economic future

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-10-09/destroying-dreams-peak-oil-way

Start of the timber harvest.

It was an important day in the life of our wood yesterday.   We took a half ton (green) oak log to a friend with a large saw and he cut it into 75mm planks.   Sounds easy when you say it like that doesn't it!  The reality was two hours of experimenting using an engine hoist to get the log into our (newly bought) trailer, pulling the trailer onto the road using our old tractor and a nervous trip in the van to the boatyard where the saw was.

Anyway, now we have all this lovely wood!!! Steve helped by cutting the planks into rails to go onto the workshop roof to take the solar PV panels we are planning to install there and the rest of the wood should re-appear out of Steve's workshop as beautiful furniture sometime in the future.
This should be the start of many more trips to the saw as we convert our oak and chestnut buts into saleable posts and planks.  Yippee!!!

Permaculture Association LAND learning centre success

Rosie and I are celebrating this week passing our assessment to be a Permaculture Association LAND learning centre.This means that groups can obtain funding from the Permaculture Association to come and visit us here and see what we are up to.  We are looking forward to having (and learning from) lots of interesting visitors.

Dealing with powdery mildew.

We get problems with powdery mildew on peas, courgettes, cucumbers etc this seems to happen (particularly with peas later in the season.  I have discovered a simple cure - a dilute solution of baking soda (about a teaspoon to a pint of water) sprayed on the leaves kills it off and seems to act as a deterrent.  We have courgette plants starting to flower in the poly tunnel (a late sowing experiment!) and they were coming down with mildew.  This treatment has stopped it in its tracks.
We had great fun harvesting our walnuts this weekend (no squirrel this year?) and had a bumper crop of 9 kilos.

Harvesting our beans, seeds amd fruit

Harvest time is here again;  This time its dry beans (4 different kinds as part of this years experiment) sun flower seeds (for the birds in the winter and us) and bottling and jamming fruit.   The beans shown are Canadian, purple climbing french and Canaletto.  We are bottling our fruit this year to save space in the freezers as well as drying fruit and making fruit leather.

New friends at the EcoDIY open weekend

I am happy to report that the weather was kind to us for our open weekend.  We had over 80 visitors and spent many hours talking to lots of interesting people.   As a result there were 14 people at the Tendring Eco Group meeting here last night and we are starting a wormery (to add to our list of livestock!)
Exhausted but happy - Chris

Support the Dale Farm travelers

Support the Dale Farm travelers donate to their fund at
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=9G9BTVTPK7GXA&lc=GB&item_name=Dale%20Farm%20Housing%20Association&currency_code=GBP&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donateCC_LG%2egif%3aNonHosted

Puffball fungus

I spotted this puffball across a field while walking the dog yesterday, we had it sliced and fried in (wicked!) butter - delicious!

Eco house open weekend

Yes its that time again!   We are opening our house and small holding from 10AM to 5PM on Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th September.   No booking is necessary and directions can be found at  http://www.ecodiy.org/ecodiy%20directions.htm 
We are focusing this year on food growing and how to extend the season and the range of crops.   We can also talk about keeping chickens and keeping bees in a more bee-friendly way.  Have a look at the website www.ecodiy.org for more information on the house and small holding

Usefull report on energy and growth

Check this useful DFID sponsored report on the link between energy and growth and the possibilities for growth in developing countries.
http://www.iier.ch/pub/files/Thu%2C%2008/25/2011%20-%2007%3A00/Green%20Growth%20DFID%20summary.pdf

Wasp attack

Hi,
We are under unprecedented attack from wasps this year, especially on our grapes!  The bees are also under attack but defending their hives successfully now I have made the entrances smaller.
We were looking forward to a great harvest from the vine on our veranda until about 10 days ago.  The grapes are nearly ripe - quite sweet and edible.
We have tried, imitation wasp nests and traps without any great success (they keep on coming!) and in desperation I have started protecting the bunches in plastic bags, will see if that works.

If you have any other suggestions do let me know.

Processing tomatoes

Yes its that time again!  Many kilos of tomatoes are ready to process and we are trying different ways of preserving them for the winter. Our favorite is to cut out the hard core and roast in the oven with onion or garlic until reduced by about half.  We then 'whiz' them and freeze or bottle the 'pasata'
We also have tried drying them and bottling them whole in brine - both work but don't seem to be so useful.   Home grown tomatoes are a different animal to those bought in the shops, much sweeter and with a thinner skin so this process works even though we don't skin them first.
We are also drying our surplus figs before freezing them to make an ingredient for cakes etc.  We cut off the stalk end of really ripe figs and slice them into quarters before drying them on a mesh near our stove, works well.  We store these in the freezer,

Dome moan

We are about to set off for camp!  I have stored our (homemade! ) Geodesic dome in the trailer over winter.  What an error that was!!  Half of the 75 poles were destroyed by woodworm.  So it was off to the wood for hazle replacements and 2 days hard work to make them into poles.  The shave horse came in useful as Rosie is demonstrating.

panoramic pictures

I have been playing with my photo software and made a panoramic view of our garden. You will need to click on the picture to get the full benefit!

Feeding our crops

We are now harvesting (and eating!) 22 different vegetables and 8 different fruits (as they come into readiness).

  This makes me think of how we feed the plants and keep the cycle going with local organic plant feeding.

1.  Good compost; We make compost from chicken bedding, vegetable waste (including peelings from neighbours and friends who don’t have a compost heap), grass cuttings (from 2 professional gardeners to save them other disposal costs), cardboard (egg trays and boxes are ideal), our own pee, non-seeding weeds, spent pots and grow bags (out of skips) and wood ash sprinkled on as an occasional layer..
2. Well rotted horse manure, treat this with great caution and do a test sowing in it of beans or peas to check it is not contaminated with herbicide, (we collect and stack this for a year before use.)
3. Liquid feed made from any deep rooted weeds, nettles and comfrey leaves left to rot in water in a dustbin.  Makes a good breeding place for hover flies which eat aphid in our garden.
4. Our pee diluted 5 to 1 as a liquid feed
5. Grass cuttings as a surface mulch to feed and keep the moisture in.
6. Top dressing with wood ash to provide potash (round fruit trees for example)
7. If I can scrounge fish heads and guts from the local fish monger these are buried where the runner beans or sweet corn are to be planted. Any feathers and remains from the chickens we eat are used the same way planted under fruit trees, bushes or vines.
8. Occasional use of fish, blood and bone where the soil needs a boost i.e., planting greens straight after another crop. I also sometimes (but rarely) use rock dust, calcined sea weed, and SM3 seaweed liquid feed to provide specific elements I feel might be lacking.

Liquid feed, hoverflies and carrot protection

Liquid feed and home for hover fly larve

Liquid feed tub where we put all the nettles, comfrey, and serious weed roots to rot also makes a good home for hover fly larvae (rat tailed larvae). It’s very smelly so we cover it and leave a small gap for the hoverflies.
The peacock eggs (I know - peahen eggs!) came from our wood where an escaped peahen has set up home and is laying eggs out in the open (inexperienced i guess?)
I have used some secondary double glazing we were given to make carrot fly barriers - hope it will work, I will keep you posted.

Hat full of peacock (hen!) eggs

Anti carrot fly barrier

Belated Happy Solstice!

What I forget to post yesterday!  Happy Solstice everyone.  The garden is a powerhouse of green and producing more that we can eat!  a bumper year for raspberries so freezing, bottling and jamming.  A great contact for kilner jars at better than supermarket prices for bottling fruit http://www.jamjarshop.com/buy/kilnerpreservingjars/?catid=46  . Yesterday we went to the estuary by Brightlingsea for a (very windy ) solstice celebration - very elemental. 

New cleaving brake in wood

I have now (nearly) finished a tripod cleaving brake in our wood. Now I just have to practice using it!