Sep 15, 2020

Eco Restoration 01

I have this simple idea:

We can reverse climate change

Overview

To this end, I’ve started several simple projects around my house:

My 3 Step Plan

  1. Build Soil
  2. Encourage Nature
  3. Goto 1

Clearly I don’t know what I’m doing, but hey, we all have to start somewhere. In fact, #2 is really part of #1. So this simplifies to:

  1. Encourage Nature
  2. Goto 1

I guess #1 is:

a. build soil b. encourage bees c. encourage fungi d. … what else?

So, with that nav chart, here we go:

Summer of 2020

Build Soil

A call to an arborist and I have a big pile of logs:

  • woodpile

Time with a come-along and my logs are up in my front yard:

  • hugel-log-base.jpeg-web.jpeg

While you can try to get wood chips from chipdrop.com, I’ve had better luck just calling arborists directly.

  • free-woodchips

Put chips on logs, plant things, and see what happens:

  • hugel-with-woodchips
  • covering-hugel
  • covering-hugel
  • dirt-on-hugel
  • frontyard-hugelkulture-with-apple-cuttings
  • front-yard-panorama
  • hugel00
  • hugel01
  • hugel02
  • hugel-with-apple-tree-cuttings

Ok, hugel is going. I’l check back on this from time 2 time…

Encourage Bees

I’m following the advice of Dr. Leo Sharaskin:

A couple of thoughts…

  • I just watched enough of the videos and read enough of the books to know I wanted to do this. Then I just started doing it.
  • The swarm catcher and beehives are really well thought out
  • I modified the frames to be way way less work to build. I’ll post my modified plans soon, but the key difference is that I just router a 3/4" slot in the underside of the top bar instead of wasting all the material suggested. And instead of slabbing 2"x10" or whatever…I just use 1"x8" and rip 1" strips for both the side and bottom bars. This reduces the work to create the frames by orders of magnitude. TODO: post side-by-side photos.

I started this project by building and deploying 8 swarm catchers:

  • painted-swarm-catcher-hives
  • swarm-catcher-in-tree
  • swarm-catcher-on-chair

On to building the full size beehives…

I set primitive stops for all the lumber cutting:

  • cutting-lumber-for-full-size-hive

After some time, I have frame parts:

  • frame-parts-in-bins
  • hive-frames

Top bars go in here, and then I run this over a router table with a 3/4" bit:

  • jig-for-top-bars

Hives get heavy:

Cutting stock:

  • hive-stock-jig

Assembly:

  • hive-assembly-00.
  • hive-assembly-01
  • hive-assembly
  • full-size-hives
  • router-hive-openings

Glueup:

  • hive-glue-up-01
  • hive-glue-up
  • hive-openings
  • hives-after-glue-up
  • hives-glue-drying
  • hives-in-driveway

Painting:

  • unpainted-hives
  • painted-hives

Adding Frames:

  • hives-filling-with-frames
  • hives-wired

West side of my house. Dry. Covered in cardboard. I’ll plant clover here in the spring.

  • west-side-yard

Here’s my denuded backyard. Perfect to start a restoration project:

  • backyard-beehives

The Summary

Ok, I have bees checking out the lavender in my yard. But so far, no bees have moved into my hives. I’ll add blog posts as things progress.

Links

Books