How To Do it yourself

"When crops are produced from soil, it is imperative that the organic residues resulting from those crops, including animal excrements, are returned to the soil from which the crops originated. This recycling of all organic residues for agricultural purposes should be axiomatic to sustainable agriculture. Yet, spokespersons for sustainable agriculture movements remain silent about using humanure for agricultural purposes. Why?

Perhaps because there is currently a profound lack of knowledge and understanding about what is referred to as the "human nutrient cycle" and the need to keep the cycle intact. The human nutrient cycle goes like this: a) grow food, b) eat it, c) collect and process the organic residues (feces, urine, food scraps, and agricultural materials), and d) return the processed organic material back to the soil, thereby enriching the soil and enabling more food to be grown. The cycle is repeated, endlessly. This is a sustainable process that mimics the natural cycles of nature and enhances our ability to survive on this planet. When our food refuse is instead discarded as waste, the natural human nutrient cycle is broken, creating problems such as pollution, loss of soil fertility, and abuse of our water resources."

This web page, from chapter 8 of The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins, shows us step-by-step how to construct a clean, odor free composting toilet that can be built in a few hours for pocket change, but will return huge dividends in garden soil fertitlity.

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While not a project per se, this is an important free source of animal care information.

"The Merck Veterinary Manual is the single most comprehensive electronic reference for animal care information. It is brought to you as a service of Merck & Co., Inc., providing quality medical information on a not-for-profit basis for more than 100 years...

NEW IN THIS EDITION! -- • Thirty new chapters, including West Nile encephalitis, pain management, ophthalmic emergencies, veterinary dosage forms and delivery systems, biosecurity, and many more • Expanded coverage in most sections, including exotic and laboratory animals, toxicology, and zoonoses • An additional 300 images, illustrations, and multimedia elements • Updated advanced search, featuring search by topic, species, specialty, disease, and keyword"

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We found a lot of web sites that talked about hoop houses, but not many that gave you the necessary details for designing and building your own. The two web pages we've selected are at two ends of the size spectrum, and give you loads of information on what you can do with a small bundle of inexpensive PVC pipe and a roll of clear plastic.

A hoop house greenhouse can be as big or as small as you want it to be. There's a hoop house not far from the How-2 Review headquarters in Oregon that must cover at least an acre, but if all you need is to protect a few tomato plants, your hoop house could be as small as a walk-in closet and be plenty big enough.

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Basically, a chicken tractor is a portable chicken pen with an open bottom that allows the chickens to scratch out the weeds, eat the bugs, and deposit their rich fertilizer in an area to be used for a garden bed. Once the chickens have done their work, the "tractor" is moved to the next garden bed and they repeat the process.

Chicken tractors are so easy to build that you hardly need detailed instructions, but this web site has a nice collection of photos of over 70 different chicken tractors. There should be plenty of inspiration there to help you put together your own chicken tractor and get those hens working for you.

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The author describes how he built this self-watering container garden inspired by the commercial EarthBox(TM) garden container. Here are the step-by-step instructions along with a few later improvements that Mr. Mandel discovered after putting his design to work for a season or so.

Easy to follow instructions and plenty of photos will help you enjoy building this nifty gardening container.

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"Vermicomposting uses earthworms to turn organic wastes into very high quality compost. This is probably the best way of composting kitchen wastes. Adding small amounts of wet kitchen scraps to a large compost pile in the garden day by day can disrupt the decomposition process so that the compost is never really done. But it works just fine with vermicomposting."

There's loads of good information on this web page about selecting or designing your worm box, how to set up and use the box, and details about the benefits to your soil fertility and pH.

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One of the oldest and simplest building technique, the pole building has no foundation, but is built on four corner poles sunk into the ground. A pole barn is usually a large structure, often with only a roof, but no sides. This adaptation of the basic design is a small pole barn with doors at both ends, designed to house a garden tractor.

To quote the author, "Tired of moving the riding mower every time I wanted to get to the tiller and vice-versa, I originally designed this garden shed with doors on each end. This would allow easy access to garden tools. Or, if you wished to pull a garden tractor with implement or trailer behind it, you can drive in one door. When you wanted to use the tractor again, simply open the opposite door and drive out."

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Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division,
(LC-USZ62-93779) Pick up just about any gardening book that promises some revolutionary new method of growing vegetables and you may find all manner of glowing promises about the labor-saving wonders or potential yield of the author's pet method. But what many such books don't tell you is that there is no such thing as "one size fits all" where food gardening is concerned. A method that works fine in New Mexico may fail utterly in Idaho, and vice versa. It may work great for your neighbor down the street, but fall on its face in your denser hardpan soil two blocks away. Every method of soil preparation and soil management needs to be tried and tested in your specific soil and weather conditions.

The author of this report, who holds a Master's degree in soil science, compares what no-till methods work and don't work in Georgia and in Minnesota, the two locations where she tested these methods. So before you decide that one method or another is the magic bullet that will solve all your gardening problems, read through this report. If you learn nothing else from it, take away the lesson that whatever methods you choose, you must be prepared to experiment, adapt, and experiment some more to find what actually works in your particular climate and soil conditions.

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