Low Pressure Drip Irrigation Part 3

This is the final in the series, as I have finished my drip irrigation project this afternoon. It took me another 4 hours of constant work to finish it off, but well worth the effort.  For those who haven't read the other two parts, here are the links to Part One, and Part Two.  Best to catch up so you can understand what I am talking about in this post.

As mentioned in part 2, I laid the main 19mm line all along the back of the veggie patch beds, and inserted a 19mm to 13mm T piece so that I rig up the piping for each bed.  This is what it looked like before I started work today.  When using harvested rainwater, make sure you put in an in-line filter to stop your drippers from getting blocked.  Some silt may get into your tank so this is a simple precaution to avoid having to purge your system everytime you inadvertently put dirty water into the pipes.  Here is the filter setup;

Here is the mainline with the T pieces inserted;

So, today I began by making a set of isolating taps for each bed which were all 13mm fittings.  It was a little bit fiddly, but once I made one, I managed to bang out the other 4 very quickly.  This is the mainline isolation tap and the secondary tap assembly for one of the beds;

Then I put in a secondary line of 13mm pipe, down at the level of the soil, and then ran a few tertiary 13mm line down the length of each bed and used Moss Inline 13mm drippers where there was a plant.  This is quite easy to do, but much simpler if you lay the pipe and drips before planting.  You can get to all the bits without damaging existing plants.  This is the first garden bed completed (tomatoes, leeks, and red onions);

 The second bed with three tertiary lines (zucchini, cucumber, and eggplants);

The third where I used 4mm Drip Eze by Pope irrigation systems (click the link for an installation video).  20metres cost me about $25 and I still have about half of it left over.  Each drip point in the hose releases 2 litres per hour (click photo to enlarge);

The fourth bed (tomatoes) where I used the inline 13mm drips;

And finally the fifth perennial bed;

After all the beds were completed, I got stuck into putting in 4mm lines with little taps for each of the fruit trees in pots.  I used the lasso method, where you use Drip Eze to make a circle around the tree all joined by a 4mm T.  This method give you about 4 drips per plant and cover the entire root zone.  This will make it easier to water the potted trees and I will still be able to isolate them if the need arises;

I gave Kim the grand tour, and tested each bed to make sure everything worked without any issues.  As I had reused old 13mm poly pipe that I had kept from old installations, I had missed one hole that I missed during installation, but quickly fixed it up with a bit of black silicone and a goof plug.  All sorted and each bed worked fine.  Then I turned it all off, because the beds were already damp from all the rain we have had recently.

With all that finished, Ben helped me to planted up the empty bed with some mixed lettuce, spring onions, and celery seedlings which should all grow like crazy, now that I can irrigate straight to the root zone.  I then showed Ben how it all worked by turning on one of the 100L water butts and turning off all beds except for the newly planted one.  He was absolutely fascinated and wanted me to check every single dripper to make sure that our plants were getting watered.  It was all working as designed, with both of us being quite thrilled to see it all working.  I then poured about 2 litres of worm wee into the water butt we were using so that the plants would not suffer from transplant shock.  The beauty of using these small water butts is that you can add organic liquid fertiliser or soil conditioner and you will not contaminate all of the other water tanks/butts.  Also, by using the 100L water butt, you can water 2 beds at once and just let it all drain overnight until empty.  That way, you will not forget to turn off the tap if using your main tank. 

Over the course of an hour and a half, the Drip Eze bed only used 50L, which I thought was good, as each of the seedlings were well watered in.  I then turned that bed off, and let the remaining 50L water all the fruit trees and the rhubarb and loganberry bush.  In the morning as I leave for work, I will turn off all the taps and re-fill the empty butt from the main tank in case it rains during the day.  I don't want any water going down the storm water drain now that I have created this marvellous drip irrigation system.

I have quite a few bits left over, and once the red onions have been pulled, I will run two more tertiary lines down bed one, and plant some more tomatoes.  That should be just before Christmas, so I better keep the seedlings I have growing well cared for until then.  Also, once the rainbow chard sets seed, I will be pulling them and planting some more types of berries, and have designed the irrigation system in bed 5 to cater for this. 

All in all, the entire system of Drip Eze line, Moss Inline drips, T's, elbows, ratchet clamps, taps, filter and end stops cost me about $160 in parts (I still have about $40 worth of bits that I didn't use), the 2 x 100L water butts were $59 each, with the 200L water butt and stand costing $110.  All 19mm and 13mm pipe was free because as I mentioned before, I used poly pipe from an old system.  I still have about 5 metres spare just in case I need to connect up the new tank that we are saving up for.  It was great fun, and I have an overwhelming sense of accomplishment by doing it all myself.  Once I put my mind to it, there is nothing I can't achieve!

Next weekends project is to fence off some of the chicken run so that we can use the path again without having to sweep it every day, and to be able to use the garden bed in that area with out the chooks eating everything in sight.  I am going to put drip irrigation in that bed is well by extending the line on that side of the house!

Peak Oil in the Media

I have just finished a photo shoot with the local paper, with the story being about the looming oil crisis and how our town has been listed in a report as the #1 affected community by rising oil prices in Victoria.

This is the rub.  We have no industry to speak of, we are totally dependent on transportation for food, with no major food production close by except for Bacchus Marsh which is about 15km away, our bus routes around town are minimal, and the entire town is just one big suburb that you have to drive everywhere to do anything.  We have a railway station and a rail link to the city, but no rail freight facilities.  This community will be heavily hit when the supply of cheap oil is over taken by demand again due to the low socio-economic demographic.  This is one of the two reasons I founded the Melton Sustainable Living Group, the other being climate change.

Anyway, enough about the town.  I had the Honda Civic Hybrid out on the street, being photgraphed doing my best Blue Steel.  Ben even had a few shots with me.  I had to keep moving the car off of the street everytime someone wanted to go past as the photographer wanted a shot of the car and I at an angle across the entire street.  I am glad it was a quiet morning.  I was interviewed on Thursday over the phone, so when it hits the press, I post up the link.  The interview was basically about the benefits of travelling to the city by rail compared to driving in an average family car.  Here is a comparison of various modes of transport which includes emissions from public transport in Victoria so you can what I mean (I believe the three car modes indicate taxis);

Transport mode	Energy use (MJ per passenger-km)	Emissions (g CO2-e per passenger-km)
Petrol Car	3.7	286
LPG/CNG Car	3.7	256
Ethanol (E10) Car	3.7	253
Electric Tram	0.15	52
Diesel Bus	0.28	22
Ethanol (E10) Bus	0.28	19
Natural Gas Bus	0.28	18
Electric Train	0.04	14
Diesel Train (V/Line	0.1	8
250cc Motorcycle	1.6	124
1000cc Motorcycle	2.3	178

So, basically the V/Line train that I catch is not only the most environmentally friendly way to get to the city, it is also much cheaper than the fuel and the total running costs of a car (even a hybrid).  Once you add in the yearly cost for vehicle insurance, registration, maintenance and licence renewal, public transport wins hands down cost wise.  Seeing a daily train ticket is only $10.60 (full fair, zone 1 & 2) for all buses, trams and trains you want to use, I figure it would cost me about $4 in fuel and at least $13 in parking fees if I drove.  That is a $7 dollar direct saving per day, even when you don't take the indirect cost of running a car into account. 

As I do live in a town where I needed a car, I chose the most fuel efficient one I could lease at the time.  After 3 years I now own it, and my cost are even lower because I have ceased to drive it to work, catching the train instead.  Yes, I still have to use petrol, but I have found that I only use 40L in two months.  Now that has to be good.  I walk where I can, and will be riding more when my back heals fully from this latest relapse that occured in August.  I am nearly ready to get back on the bike!

To end the post I thought I would include some Hybrid fun by the way of a video by Casual Mafia. I love this clip. 

Here is to travelling green and using less fossil fuels, mainly because soon we just will not be able to afford to!

Gavin

It Used to Rain Like This Once....

Twice in a week now.  Heavy rain. 

This is unusual for our area, well it is unusual due to the fact that it is out of character for climate patterns of the last 14 years.  Back in the good old days, it used to rain often during spring and winter in southern Victoria for days and weeks on end, and it was a lush, green place.  I can even remember when the slogans on the Victorian vehicle number plates use to say "Victoria - The Garden State".  Who would have though that all those vehicles helped put us in the mess we are in now.  It is no longer the garden state in most parts, that is for certain.

It is sad to think that my son Ben who is now 10 years old, has never really seen rain by the bucket load, day after day for weeks on end.  Very sad indeed and set to continue, unless of course we reduce carbon emissions to below 350ppm and stabilise the climactic patterns back to what they were. They may not return to exactly what it used to be like, but at least it will be predictable and we will be able to adapt, as will all other species on the planet.

When I first visited Melbourne in the late '70's, the running joke was that the city 'had four seasons in one day' and you used to carry an umbrella and light jacket around everywhere just in case.  I can visualise all of my Melbourne readers nodding their collective heads in agreement!  That is what it was like, and the city's water supply was never considered to be under threat.  Instead, because of our own short sighted actions, we have changed this once productive and beautiful state into a desert where it rains sporadically in heavy, infrequent down pours.

I wonder, when I look back, for the reasons that we didn't act sooner?  Is it that we truly are living in "The Age of Stupid", and that our moral and ethical collective compass have been completely skewed?  We are obsessed with growth at all costs, and it won't be until the last old growth forest is felled (which is probably why it doesn't rain as much), or the Murray-Darling Basin becomes a dustbowl, or the last fish is caught in the ocean, will we stop what we are doing.  It won't be because we have all had a green epiphany, it will be because we are physically forced to, and many will go hungry due to famine.

A sustainable lifestyle will be dictated to us, not by governments (if they even exist in the future), but by the planet Earth, which is the ultimate visible force in our lives and provides us with this wonderful place to live on.  This bleak future will only change if we decide quickly to change ourselves and we choose to begin to stop trashing the air, soil, and water.  We need to make amends to the environmental damage we have and are still causing.  I live the lifestyle that I do because I can see many possible futures, which do not all smell like roses, but will be hard times if we don't have the right skill sets to carry us through.  So, I help teach others directly via presentations to local groups, by acting in a planet positive way, leading by example and hope that others will take the initiative to act before it all becomes too late to start.

How ironic that my rain post turned into a rant about climate change, but it is quite obvious to me that the two subjects are connected, as we are all connected to it.  Even more ironic is that the rain has stopped my irrigation project in its tracks, but it means that I don't have to water the garden this week! 

All food for thought, as is this quote;

"Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.”
Erica Jong (American writer and feminist, 1942)

I would rewrite the quote like this for better context about the subject of climate change;

"Truth is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't, and are fearful of acting upon the change that is necessary."
Gavin, (Environmental Activist, 2009)

ETS is Watered Down Pond-Scum

Well what can I say? The vested interest have nearly won the battle, but not the war against a fair Emissions Trading Scheme here in Australia.  Our government wants to pass a series of bills so that they look like they are actually doing something before Copenhagen, whilst meanwhile actually doing nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emission and simply handing out taxpayer dollars to the big polluters in the form of free permits to pollute.

It is just pure craziness, and it seems that no-one has the guts and foresight to call this bill out for what it is.  A piece of rubbish, that will probably be blocked in the Senate for the second time (Here is hoping, anyway).  With the new amendments inserted to appease the opposition party, it is nothing but a pond-scum of a bill.  Sorry, let me correct that.  It is the bacteria that feed on the pond-scum of a bill.

If they, our elected officials had have stuck to the recommendations of the Garnaut review, we would have a half decent ETS to assist in reducing greenhouse gasses in this country, and become world leaders of a green economy.  Instead, they have pissed this, the one and only opportunity, away into the wind and it will return to haunt us further into the future as we discover that it will take over a generation for this scheme to actually achieve any reductions.  We don't have a generation to act.  The ice shelves at both poles are melting faster than ever, our weather patterns are well out of whack, and I am pissed off that all we have to show for it is a crappy piece of legislation that actually pays massive compensation to all industries that have been the culprits to date.  Blind Freddy can see that this is not right (sorry if you are blind and are called Freddy), and I believe that this is a ploy to maintain the status quo whilst looking like action is being taken.

Fiddling whilst Rome burns is what it is.  Dinosaur industries that put profit before people.  Something has to change and I vote that it is not the climate!

That is my two cents for the day.  Comments please, I would love to hear your opinion.

Gav

Low Pressure Drip Irrigation Part 2

When I got home tonight, I went and inspected the work I completed yesterday, only to find a small puddle at the bottom of the 100L water butt that I had sat on the ground.  In my haste yesterday, I had bent the tap and the rubber grommet was not forming a seal.  I lost about 25L during the day.

I decided to fix it up straight away, but as I was unable to lift the 100kg of water, I had to drain ¾ of the butt into the veggie patch before I could disconnect it.  I found a very large terracotta pot with a crack in it, so I turned it upside down and used it as the base for the water butt which gave me a little more pressure from this butt and it is now above the level of the garden beds.  I fixed up the tap, stopped the leak, and made sure that everything still worked.  All good for now, and no more leaks.

I then tested the solenoid.  I removed the 19mm plug that I had put in the end of the main line and started to manually start each of the stations on the automatic control panel.  It took a while, but I figured that it is station #2 and the solenoid works fine.  So far so good.

I then cut the main line level with the top of the garden bed, put in a 19mm elbow joint, and then inserted a 19mm in-line filter to ensure that no dirt from the rainwater tanks would block the drippers when I start the system.  I then put a 19mm in-line tap so that I can fill each butt from the main rainwater tank, and so I can isolate all the garden beds with just one tap.  It was just on sunset, and by this time I had an audience with Kim and Amy watching me lay more 19mm pipe across the back of each bed.  Amy decided to help me out, so she became my girl friday and handed me clips and nails to hold the pipe in place so that I could fasten the pipe to the wooden garden beds.  At the end of each bed I put a 19mm to 13mm T piece so that I can start the next stage on Wednesday night.  I finished the main line for four of the five beds before I ran out of 19mm hose clamps so I stopped for the evening.  I will have to pick some up tomorrow.

Sorry that there are no photos today, but by the time I finished, it was very dark.  I will take pictures of the handy work tomorrow, I promise.

Low Pressure Drip Irrigation Part 1

As promised, here is the first of my drip irrigation posts, inspired by a visit to my friend Michael's house yesterday.

We woke up this morning to find the swimming pool extremely close to the top, just from the rainfall overnight.  It must have rained all night, which is very rare in my part of the world.  With nowhere else for the water to do, and not wanting to loose any more down the storm-water drain, I sprung into action.

Due to the limited space I had available, I figured that small was the way to go, so I rushed down to Bunnings and bought two 100 litre water butts to start the irrigation system that would be fed from the overflow of my existing 2300L tank.  As soon as I got home it poured down, and I quick gave the butts a quick rinse to get rid of the plastic bits from when the manufacturer drilled the hole for the tap.  I put one on at ground level and I put one on an old pot that I once filled with cement for an umbrella stand for better pressure.  I then filled them with the garden hose connected to the tank and filled them up.  So far so good, I though, but then it started to pour down with rain and I got drenched.  This is what they look like later on in the afternoon, fully hooked up to my new system.

The tank quickly filled up again, and I was back to square one, with no way to get the water to the garden because I hadn't gotten around to connecting anything up.  So, after a quick lunch (still raining), and about an hour of planning how it was all going to go together, I made a comprehensive list of parts required and I headed off to Bunnings again, then purchased about $150 worth of plastic fittings and a 200L rainwater butt to add to the system.  I also bought 4 hebal eco-blocks to make a stand for the larger butt so that it was above the hight of my garden beds.

When I got home the rain was just easing off and now a steady drizzle set in.  Wonderful stuff to work in and I had to wear a ball cap to stop my glasses from misting up!  Now, straight back into work.  I fully dismantled the irrigation system that had gone unused for so long.  It consisted of a 24v solenoid, about 8 metres of 19mm poly pipe and lots of clips and elbow joints.  It took about an hour to dismantle and remove the wire run which fortunately was only cable tied to one of the electrical conduits running along the top of the car port.  I had kept heaps of other long 19mm lengths and lots of 13mm pipes saved when I ripped out the system in the front lawn.  So, I found a suitable length on 19mm pipe and pushed it behind the water tank.

Then along the front of the deck, past the worm farm, behind the conifir and it just reached the front of the garden bed.  Excellent I thought, and began to start work on the tank end.  I am so glad I had the forthought to install an isolating valve before the brass tap, which made things very easy to install, with no water loss.  This is how I connected it;

I removed the brass tap, connected a male to male 20mm plastic riser pipe, then added a standard tap fork with two little taps on it and screwed a standard quick clip nozzle to one side so I can still connect the garden hose to the tank if needs be.  To the other side I connected a female to female 20mm pipe to a 20mm male to 19mm barbed connection and with a series of 19mm elbow joints connect it to the main 19mm poly-pipe.  All nice and neat and I made sure I used Teflon plumbing tape around each of the threads to stop leaks (a valuable lesson learnt from the system on the other side of the house).  A quick test to see if water came out the other end of the main line 19mm, and then a pressure test to check for leaks by putting my thumb on the end.  No leaks thank goodness.  Then I started work on the solenoid so that I could use mains water twice a week via my automatic sprinkler system.  This is how I put the next part together;

I cut the main 19mm line at the bottom, inserted a 19mm T piece and then hooked up the solenoid to the wires and to the mains tap.  The wires were already there from the old system so there was plenty of length to connect to the electric valve.  The solenoid prevents rainwater from flowing into the mains town water which is not allowed by law, and I added another lever tap just to make sure I can isolate it further if I ever need to.  I did a quick test to check for leaks between the lever tap and the solenoid valve and all was good.  It was a bit fiddly putting the pipe together between the main lever tap which was 20mm to the steel elbow joint of 25mm but luckily I had all the bits from the old system.  Then I moved on to connecting the two 100L water butts into the system.  No use having them there full of water if you can't integrate them in, I thought.  So this is what I did;

The taps that came with the water butt had 15mm barbs and no matter how hard I pushed, I could not get 13mm poly pipe to fit.  So, I trimmed a bit of normal 15mm garden hose, forced that on, and then I could get a 13mm elbow onto each butt and connected them both together.  I used a 19mm to 13mm T in the main line just behind the lower butt.  Once again a quick test and no leaks and water flowed out the end of the main line.  I now proceeded to set up a pipe to connect to the 200L water butt on the other side of the conifer tree;

You can see that I put another 19mm to 13mm T into the main line and put a length of 13mm poly pipe on in readiness to connect the 200L water butt.  Firstly I had to finish off the main line pipe to the back of the garden beds.  You can see I have begun to dig away the Tuscan pebble to expose the weed matting.  I put in a 19mm elbow and ran it so that it was level with the edge of the first garden bed.  Then I dug a trench all the way along the edge of the bed and laid the main line.

This is the finished product with a length of 19mm pipe sticking up with a bung in the end, ready for tomorrow's task of laying another 19mm main line across the back of all the garden beds.

I filled in the small trench and got to work setting up the hebal eco-brick base for the 200L butt.  I levelled off the bricks then laid two on top, check the level again and made sure there was enough room so that the base of the butt fit evenly on the stand.  I had to trim a little bit of the conifer back so that it was not sticking into the plastic butt.  Then came the funny part.  The 200L butt did not have a female thread pre-cut into the water butt for the tap to screw into like the 100L type, and required you to put the tap fitting into the hole on the outside and then screw another part on the inside.  The only way I could figure out how to do this (because I couldn't reach the bottom), was to turn the butt upside down, put it on my head with one arm inside and ask Ben to put the tap in the whole and I screwed the inside part tight.  It reminded me of the Mr Bean episode of the Christmas turkey on his head!  Ben and I laughed when we finished it.  The tap barb was 15mm again, so another piece of garden hose and I connected it to the 13mm pipe I had installed into the main line earlier.  This is how the connection looked.

Easy access to the tap, and now all connected and looking very smart.  Here is the 200L butt in all its glory on the nice eco-block stand.

Nice stand, and all level too.  Now, because I had put a bung in the end of the main line, and because this smaller tank was lower than the water level in the main 2300L tank, all I had to do was turn on the little tap at the main tank, and then turn on the tap for the 200L butt and watch it fill up from the bottom.  Water will always find it own level, so as long as the main tank level is higher, then I never have to drag a hose around to fill it up.  Same goes for the smaller 100L butts.  Bloody genius I thought.  I just have to make sure that I put an inline 19mm tap at the start of the garden bed system so that I can isolate all the beds to continue to use this method of moving the water around.

Tomorrow, I will start on the garden bed dripper side of the project.  I am totally knackered after a big day of problem solving and working in the drizzly rain.  I am glad I went to the gym this morning, because I needed all the energy I could muster for this 5 hour session of irrigation madness!

See you all tomorrow!  Keeping it green,

Gav

My Coffee Guilt is Nearly Over

Confession time.  I have been very un-green each morning before catching the train to work.  Our station at Melton has a little kiosk that serves a very nice flat white coffee, however, Ebony, the kiosk lady, uses polystyrene cups with plastic lids.  Now, as most of you know the both of these plastics are recyclable, however that is not the point.  What peeves me the most is that they are designed for single use only and most people just throw them in the landfill bin.  Same situation when I get to the city.  Every man, woman and dog is carrying around paper or polystyrene single use cups only before going to work.  It made me want to scream!  Did you know that in Australia alone, disposable paper cups account for over 5,500 tonnes of landfill each year.  That is a lot of coffee and waste that is just not necessary.

So, I took matters into my own hands.  Firstly, I asked Ebony (who is very nice and knows all of her customers names and their coffee preference), if I could bring a reusable cup that she could fill every morning for me.  She had no issues at all, so when I got home one day last week, I asked Kim to have a look for a reusable type coffee cup that was made from recycled plastic and that could be used over and over again.

Enter the Keep Cup!  A pretty cool cup made from 100% recycled #5 polypropylene which is also recyclable, the box it come in had no plastic bag inside and was made from 90% recycled carbord, and the instructions were printed on 100% recycled paper.  The cup is stated to last for four years and guaranteed for one year subject to fair wear and tear.  I have a medium sized cup, which I think is equal to a large coffee served at the station, and the same colour that is in the picture.

Best of all, it was designed and is made right here in Melbourne!  If the colour I chose doesn't take your fancy, then have a look below;

I am looking forward to my first coffee tomorrow morning in my very own Keep Cup.  I am hoping that other will see my flash looking reusable cup and ask where I got it from.  Leading by example seems to be the only way people get the message around here.  Now if I can only get Ebony to serve up organic, free trade coffee, my influence will be complete.

Fun in the Cool Weather

What a great day!

Reprieve from the heat of the last 4 weeks, with a little rain last night and a humid yet cool day of 24°C compared to a hot 35°C yesterday.

I ran a few errands, donated 7 bags of clothes to the MS shop, and then back before 1100 to start work in my garden.  I planted some capsicum and chilli seedlings, and the sole surviving Tomatillo seedling.  I emptied one of the compost bins onto three of the garden beds to give them a little more oomph, and then hand watered each bed from the tank with 4 cap-fulls of Powerfeed in each watering can.  It took 12 cans to water the lot!  Then, I spread more straw and chook manure that I had been saving from cleaning out the chook house, onto each of the unmulched beds.  Kim cut back some of the ivy that grows on our west wall as a sun screen, and then went for a quick swim to cool off from the humidity which was about 95% at that time.  Sticky or what.

At 1345, we all headed off to the monthly meeting of the Melton Sustainable Living group, which I wrote about in this post titled, "Irrigation, and preparing for the summer heat in the veggie garden". We had a great afternoon at Michael and Carolyn's place and their garden is an inspiration to dry climate gardeners everywhere.  We also had three new members join today as well.  That takes our merry band of Sustainable living members to 15!  From little things, big things grow.  Here is a snap of some of us listening attentively at the workshop.

About an hour after we got home, it started to rain again, so the garden beds are well and truly soaked now and the tank is full and the overflow is now diverted into the swimming pool.  The beds should hold their moisture well now with that thick layer of mulch and the nutrients from the compost and Powerfeed should soak deep into the bed or get drawn into the plants.  Either way, I know that the all the plants will have shot up by the morning.  Just love that rain and all the nitrogen it brings to the plants.  Much better than that chlorinated muck that comes out of our taps.  The plants don't seem to do half as well when only watered from the mains.  Even tank water makes them grow faster, which is why I try and use the tank water at least twice a week.

Tomorrow, after a busy week of other stuff, I am starting the irrigation project for the main vegetable beds that I mentioned earlier in the week.  Inspired by Michael's set up, I am going to see if I can do away with the requirement for a pump and see what I can come up with.  He showed us some dripper fittings that work very well from a low pressure water flow.  I will give that a go and it will be my project for Sunday.

Travelling with Low Emissions

Once again, my main post is over at the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op, with a post titled, "Green Transportation".  It is an in depth essay regarding the GHG emissions produced by most modes of transportation we use on a daily basis.  It also takes into consideration that fact that we are at the end of the age of cheap oil and some of the reasons it is better to use greener forms of transport.  I based the list on this transportation triangle.  Read it from bottom to top for the most friendly to the worst mode.

I think that this guy has the right idea!  His mode of getting around isn't even in the triangle!

Live green and prosper,

Gavin

Rooted!

Today, I pulled up some of my remaining root vegetables.  All season Carrots, Parsnips and Garlic.  Not much more to say except here are the pictures!

Garlic bulbs drying before I plait them for hanging.



There are about 27 bulbs.  I will wait a few more days, then wipe the remaining dirt off of them and trim off the roots.  I will keep the three largest bulbs for planting next season.



These carrots were from one row.  They were next to a row of parsnips and were substantially longer and larger than the row of carrots on the other side of the bed that grew next to beetroot.  Food for thought for next year.



These are from the row that grew next to the beetroot.  More like baby carrots, and I think I will blanch them whole and freeze them.



This strange carrot looks like a Mandrake fresh out of a Harry Potter movie!



I think this variety of Parsnip is called Hollow crown?  This is the amount that grew in a single 2 metre row.  Not too bad a crop.  I will peel and blanch these tomorrow night as well.

The only root vegetables I still have in the ground are red spanish onions which are growing nice a fat, and some elephant leeks which still have quite a way to go.  Three of them were from last year and will be ready to pick in about a months time (just going to flower now), but the other 20 will take until March/April to fatten up.

After I pulled, trimmed and washed the carrots and parsnips, I left them to soak overnight to get a bit more dirt off of them, and will keep a few fresh in the fridge and freeze the rest.  I might try and pickle a few to see what they taste like.

I then spend the rest of the daylight hours until sunset planting 19 tomato seedlings of various cultivars.  I only put 1.2m stakes next to them because I am going to stop them from growing any higher so that I can put shade cloth over the beds to protect the crop from the Summer heat. 

Tomorrow night, I start the irrigation project in earnest.  More photos tomorrow, and possibly a tutorial video from whoa to go.  I will see how it all pans out. 

Happy gardening,

Gav

Spring Update - November

Sorry for being a neglectful blog writer of late.  I apologise, but I have just been so busy, and it has just been so hot and dry in my part of the world.

We have had 3 weeks of above 33°C now, which in Spring is about 10-12º above average for this time of year.  Even though we only live 45 km west of Melbourne as the crow flys, we have temps that are 3-5º high than the city.  When I leave work in the CBD it is cool and 25ish, but I get home and it is still over 30ºC.  It is the hottest November in my memory and if this is Spring, what is Summer going to be like?  I dread to think, and hope that I have enough water in my tank to get through the season.  It has been too hot to plant anything during the day, so I have to get up early on weekends, work in the garden until 10 or 11am depending on how hot it is, then start again for an hour or two in the evening when it gets cooler after 6pm.  If I have learnt anything from the heat stroke I got last weekend, it is not to work in the heat of the day in the full sun on 35ºC days!  Yesterday I made Stilton cheese during the downtime from 11am - 4pm, so my time was not really wasted. 

So, to fix the water issue, I have built part of an irrigation system out of poly pipe, but have lots more work to do on it.  The house had an automatic sprinkler system when we bought the house, and was mainly used for the lawn, however that no longer exists anywhere.  I pulled up the piping (but kept it) when I put the garden beds in a few years ago.  The water restrictions in our area allow us to water garden beds (but not lawns) twice a week between 6-8am, via and odds and evens system.  Our house number is odd (in more ways than one), and we are allowed to water via mains on Wednesdays and Sundays during this two hour period.  I always utilise my water allocation, because I figure that we now save so much water inside the house, why not use the savings for food production. 

So I have begun to put the remnants of the automatic sprinkler system to use.  I converted my walled garden bed on the chook house side to drippers over the last two weeks, and all the plants including 6 varieties of pumpkin, Lazy Housewife beans, Scarlet runner beans, watermelon and rockmelon are doing well.  In fact, much better than I expected.  It must of been a lack of water last year that caused my massive pumpkin failure.  I didn't realise how thirsty they are with the drip feed to the root zone making them grow very fast.

I was rumaging through my bag of irrigation goodies today, that I have collected over the years, and I still have the old solenoid valves, lots of 25 mm pipe, 12mm pipe of various long lengths, about 10 metres of 4mm and lots of fittings.  Also, I should be able to pull down part of an old 25mm system that runs along the top of the carport structure that used to water the fernery that has never been used since we moved in.  Amy and I removed it and the shade cloth a few months ago.

Therefore, with all these goodies just waiting to be put to use, and with an expected scorcher of a Summer, I absolutely need to get an irrigation system installed on the main veggie beds and the citrus tree pots.  I also need to purchase a small pump to hook up to the rainwater tank and include it into the system for the days that I cannot use mains water.  And I have to get it built quick, as this heat is not letting up, besides the two cooler days of today and tomorrow (25 and 23ºC). 

So over the next week, every night after work, I will get stuck into building the irrigation system that will be adequate for my needs.  Of course it will have to be aestheticly pleasing to the eye, which is pretty hard to do with black pipe, but I will manage it by hiding the main 25mm pipe under the stone, then up the side of the last bed and then along the back of the all the beds.  I have it all worked out in my head, so I better start drawing the plans down on paper first before getting stuck in and making it up as I go along.  The one thing I learnt from last time I fitted the other side, was to measure the length you need first before cutting, because that saves a lot of time and effort of having to join peices of pipe together with joiners if you cut it too short.  Measure twice, cut once.  I think I learnt that in woodwork at High School.

Once that is completed and operational, the garden should bloom and I should cut down my water consumption by at least a third.  Watering each plant by drip irrigation or by weeping hose under mulch are far more efficient ways of watering than just by hose or by watering can.  My garden is much too large and my back too dodgy to keep it watered the old way every day of the week!

I will take photos of the construction and hopefully have an update every second night or so until I finish it.  I don't know how much the pump will cost, but I will do a bit of research in the next hour of so to have a look what is available.  The pump will need to be on demand when the solenoid switch turns on the water so it will have to have be a pressure pump that keeps the pipe primed and at pressure or otherwise the solenoids will not open.  You would think that whoever makes these things would be a little more water wise and make them to be able to open without much pressure behind them. 

Anyway, it should make for a fun and entertaining week!  Knowing me, I will finish it in two days because once I start something, I just want to keep going until it is complete.  I would rather do one thing well than five things poorly. 

Do any of you have manual or automatic drip systems installed in your veggie patches?  I would love some tips before I get started laying the main pipe tomorrow night!

Gavin

Sustainable Living talk to the Lions

No, I didn't go to Werribee Zoo to talk to the big cats, I went to Caroline Springs Library to talk to the local Lions Club members about, "How I greened my home in West Melton" as part of National Recycling week.

It was a lovely audience of about 15 people, who seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say.  I was even approached by one of the members to submit a small article on green living tips for a monthly newsletter that gets distributed to all residents of Caroline Springs.  I took Carl up on his offer and eagerly await his email. 

Many thanks to Gary and Linda for organising the evening and letting me chew everyone's ears off about all of the things I have done around our house for an hour, and thanks to the attentive audience for listening to me.

I do weddings, parties or anywhere else for that matter!  One hour is all I need, and I guarantee to be entertaining!  If any locals are after a sustainable living talk, please contact me via my email address on the sidebar.

I am feeling all inspired to start a new project now to summer proof the garden.  This unseasonable hot weather is not going to stop this little eco-warrior from growing veggies!  I just love my summer tomatoes and cucumbers, not to mention the pumpkin growing contest that our group has going this summer.  I have 5 varieties planted, so hopefully, I am in with a chance if I can keep them from dying of heat exhaustion.  I can just taste that roasted pumpkin and garlic now.  Yum.

Fun at the Fair

Our Sustainable Living group recently had an educational stall at the towns annual festival.  We had a great time and you can read more about it over at the MSLG website.  The post is, "Fun at the DJ Festival".  Here is the first shift enjoying the calm before the storm!

Not wanting to big note ourselves, but I reckon we had the most interesting stall at the festival!  We all worked hard to spread the word, and to promote the benefits of a sustainable lifestyle, both from the environmental and financial aspects.  We had 10 interested people who I will send out an introductory letter to, and hopefully they will join up and double our numbers. 

We also met many other people who were passionate about the environment from other groups in the shire.  The Environmental Hub was well represented by many diverse groups.  There was the Friends of Melton Botanical Gardens, Friends of Toolern Creek, Melton Environment Group, Melbourne Water - Water Wise, Melton Shire Waste Management, and us, Melton Sustainable Living Group. 

Unfortunately, due to a very hot day (34ºC) and spending most of it in the sun or in the marquee that was more like a sauna, I managed to get a mild sunstroke and have been poorly the last two days.  Fatigue yesterday and nausea and vomiting today.  Gross, I know, but that will teach me not to be sun smart.  I thought I drank enough water, but obviously not enough!

I also have a presentation I am giving as part of National Recycling Week on Wednesday, 11th November, at the Caroline Springs Library from 7.30 - 9.00 pm.  If you are in the area, pop along and hear me speak about 'How I greened my home in West Melton'.  I am looking forward to it, so wish me luck!

Why Do I Write Letters to Politicians?

I believe that within a democratic form of government, our elected politicians work for us and not the other way around.  So if we are the boss of them, how do we tell them what we think is important in our lives other than at election time every 4 years or so when all those citizens over 18 years old get the opportunity to vote based on the party's published policies?  Especially when it comes to an issue as important and time critical as Climate Change.

Well, I suppose they could commission a survey of a small sample of their electorate, but these survey results are not always a true indication of public opinion, especially if the sample size is small.  The results can be manipulated or misinterpreted to show an outcome that is rigged in favour of the desired outcome.  So, this is not a reliable and fair method of getting your message across.  How many of us wait by the phone waiting for a survey company to call us for our opinion?  Very few of us, I bet.

The politicians could simply wait for the election results, but how would they know before hand if their party's policies are popular with the people, thus ensuring a vote for them?  Back to the survey again!

I believe that there are only two effective ways of showing our politicians that we want them to act on big issues such as climate change sooner rather than later, and that is via civil activism (either peaceful or disobedient) or by contacting them directly and let them know what you want them to take action on.

Civil activism does capture governments attention, especially if it is large, organised and peaceful.  When it gets nasty, then not only do you turn off the channel to effective communication, but I believe that any public support you did have for your cause will vanish in an instant.  Sure, it gets media attention, but is it effective?  Climate Campaigns like Walk against Warming and Human signs are somewhat effective especially when large crowds are present.  Sometimes local politicians join in to show that they actually support the cause.  Civil activism takes a lot of time and effort to organise, and you will never be quite sure if the message gets across effectively, unless of course the government instantly evokes strong legislation the very next week!

This is where I reckon that personal action by contacting your local MP directly is the best way to get your point across.  Here are some ways of contacting your MP which I have scoured the net for advice on the most effective to least effective;

• Face to face meeting:
  Face to face meetings with your representative and/or a relevant member of their staff are the most effective. A meeting usually needs to be arranged at least a week (and often more) in advance, and may be particularly difficult to organise for a day during weeks when Parliament is sitting.  I have only done this once, and then it was by chance.  See below for a description of what happened.
  
• Letter:
  A handwritten, or typed and signed letter, is the most effective means of communication (other than a face to face meeting). It is far more effective than photocopied form letters, postcard campaigns or emails. Some politicians regard handwritten letters more highly than typewritten letters (some of these are technologically illiterate, and some find it convenient to claim the sender probably just cut and pasted what someone else said without thinking about the issue themselves). I find that this method will get an useful reply, usually with a plan on what they or their party intends on doing about it.
  
• Telephone call:
  A phone call to your representative's office (local electorate office or at Parliament House) is generally more effective than sending email, but is less effective than writing and mailing a letter.  From experience, is difficult to actually talk to your MP directly, and you usually have to book a time in advance.  Otherwise you will get a staffer, who may not give a hoot and not pass your concerns on.
  
• Fax:
  The effectiveness of fax communication is higher than email, but less than a mailed letter and roughly equivalent to a phone call.  I have not tried this method, simply because I don't have a fax machine!
  
• Email:
  Email is by far the least effective way of communicating your views to your representative/s.  Some politicians may regard email as "second class mail" and some do not even read email, but their staff do. Others receive so much email that they and their staff have difficulty managing it. However, when you are unable to find time to mail a letter or make a phone call, it is better to send an email than do nothing.  I find that when sending an email to your representative, that it is better to personalise it, rather than send off a bog standard form letter.  Put your views in the email, show them that you are passionate about climate change!  Otherwise it will be in the recycle bin before you know it.
  
  

So to get my views known about the governments efforts so far regarding climate change action, I write to my Federal MP, The Prime Minister, My State Premier, and local State MP regularly, and at least every six months.  I usually receive a reply even if I just send an email.  Here is a link with some letter writing tips from the Australian Conservation Foundation that may help you out.

As I mentioned above, I even met my local State MP a month ago to let him know my views about how the Victorian Government were not acting fast enough (in my humble opinion), and that they should support renewable energy, therefore taking action to move away from brown coal fired electricity generation.  He was attentive enough and said all the right things, but mentioned that I should contact the Minister for Energy to raise my concerns.  I told him that I had written many letters to this minister, and that he understood my position on renewable energy.  That was the end of that.  The only reason I managed to get an audience was because I had a market stall next to his and I struck up a conversation about the environment.  He even gave me his card and said that our Sustainable Living Group could photocopy stuff at his office!  I either made an impression or he was just trying to get votes.  Possibly the latter.

So, hopefully I have informed and inspired you to write a letter to you local politician, voicing your concerns about the lack of action regarding climate change and how important it is to convince them that we need to reach a binding agreement at the Climate Change Conference at Copenhagen in December.  Fingers crossed.  All of them, and my toes too!

Here is a sample Climate Change campaign letter, just to get you started that features at G Magazine.  I sent this one off to the PM yesterday, just in case he was missing me after the Kev's Patch campaign!

Watching Gardens at the Co-op

I have written a bit of a retrospective post over at the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op today about how my garden has grown.

I wrote it after quite a bit of a disaster in said veggie patch today.  My two poly greenhouses were blown over in the wind after snapping the string that held them to the deck, and down came all the vegetable seedlings that I was growing for myself and for the DJ Festival on Saturday.  I nearly cried, because I spent the best part of Sunday potting the little seedlings into bigger pots.  Then I discovered 2 large branches of my 3 year old capsicum were snapped off at the base!  I hope it survives.

So back to the drawing board, and I managed to rescue all but about three plants.  I sprayed them all with a weak Seasol solution to help with transplant shock, which was basically what I effectively did.  I even managed to save a few mangy looking seedlings that were in the pile of potting mix where the greenhouses stood.  I will look at relocating them to a more sheltered spot tomorrow, but with the weather warming up, I might not need them again until autumn.

I did however loose an entire tray of green and red spring onions that I had planted as seeds, with some cucumber and pumpkin seeds as well and will have to do it all over again tomorrow.  Anyway, as fate would have it, I stepped back to admire my handy work, looked over my shoulder and was standing in the exact spot that I take a yearly photo of my veggie patch.  It was that moment that I received the inspiration to write the post over at the SGF Co-op.  I do hope you pop over and have a look.  The post is titled, "Watching My Veggie Patch Grow".

Gav