Food Forests, Part 3: Closing the Loop
Animal Forage, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Trees — by Chris McLeod May 4, 2012
Local legend around here has it that at some point in the past a guy by the colourful name of the “bush bandit” removed most of the topsoil from the land hereabouts and sold it off to householders in Melbourne for their gardens and lawns. Whether this story is true or not, I can only state for the record that when I purchased the block it had virtually no topsoil. The land had a hard baked clay pan with the strength of structural concrete where water would run off during heavy storms and any organic matter that did collect on top of that clay wouldn’t break down for years.
Comments (29)Food Forests, Part 2: Looking for Clues
Deforestation, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Regional Water Cycle, Seeds, Soil Composition, Structure, Trees — by Chris McLeod January 24, 2012
Click for larger view
As people become urbanised, they start looking at the world in urban ways. What does that car or house say about that person? How does that person’s occupation affect their social standing? People may not admit it, but they understand the answers to these questions intuitively. As permaculturalists, we need to apply these same observational skills to our permacultural adventures.
These observational skills are important for permaculture because they allow you to read a landscape. No two pieces of land are ever the same! Whether that land is in an urban area or a rural area you can gather a huge amount of information as to its suitability for your next permaculture project simply by observation over a period of time. These skills will also allow you to identify ways to adapt your land to your particular purpose.
Reading a landscape is an observational skill so I have decided to take you on a virtual tour of the mountain range that I live in and tell you what I see in the different spots that we stop off at. I will highlight things at each location that I have learned on my food forest permaculture journey, and that I hope to impart to you the reader. I hope you enjoy the tour!
Comments (16)Food Forests, Part 1: Ronald Reagan’s Day Off
Consumerism, Economics, Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Health & Disease, Society, Trees — by Chris McLeod November 24, 2011
Save Ferris! Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was a 1986 movie about a teenager, his girlfriend and best mate — all of whom were just about to finish high school and enter the adult world. It represented for them a moment in time; a very hedonistic look into their lives for just one day, where responsibility and long term planning were dismissed. I’ve always felt that it captured the spirit of the times of 1986, which also, by a strange coincidence, was the time of Morning in America, Ronald Reagan and the return of cheap energy for industrial countries. The question that I would like to know, whilst hedonism is fun, is it responsible and sustainable?
As a bit of background, I was born in the early 1970s and during the first two decades of my life, fruit tasted, well, like fruit, regardless of where it was purchased. However, slowly things started to change. Supermarket fruit stopped tasting like fruit should and started tasting like water. At about this time, I stopped buying fruit at the supermarket and moved onto the city markets. Melbourne is lucky to have the Queen Victoria Market just on the edge of its CBD (as well as a few other inner city markets) which sell fresh fruit and vegetables. Nice. It was all sorted, fruit tasted like fruit should again. However, it was not to be that way for long!
Over time the market fruit also started to taste bland and I started to get desperate for tasty fruit. I began visiting and purchasing direct from commercial orchards on the eastern edge of the city. The joke was on me because these were the same people who were selling to the wholesale markets who then on-sold that same fruit to the retail markets! It was the same fruit! I was simply cutting out the middle men. This is when I started to understand that the change was because of economics, as fruit was paid for by weight and not by quality.
So, what the heck, I gave up and started growing my own fruit.
Comments (8)A Solar Powered Life, Part IX: The Conclusion
Energy Systems — by Chris McLeod October 12, 2011
This is the concluding article in the series A Solar Powered Life which looks at the various issues, compromises and components of an off-grid (standalone) solar power system. In previous articles I have written about the individual components in this system, but in this article I’ll explain how all of these components are connected. It’s also worth reflecting on the question of why a standalone solar power system would be of interest to permaculturalists, so we’ll take a look at that also.
Comments (10)A Solar Powered Life, Part XIII – Wire and Myth Busters
Energy Systems — by Chris McLeod June 17, 2011
So far in the series, A Solar Powered Life, we’ve covered most of the components of a solar power system. To have a complete system though, you have to connect all of the separate components using wire and fuses. You wouldn’t think it, but the wire used is one of the most important (and potentially dangerous) components of the entire system. Some people may think that wire and fuses are pretty boring, so I’ve decided to spice it up a bit, myth busters style, by blowing some stuff up for your reading pleasure!
Comments (7)A Solar Powered Life, Part VII: To Invert or Not to Invert
Energy Systems — by Chris McLeod May 25, 2011
When I selected the various components for my home solar power system, I always had to keep in the back of my mind the words of my wife. “It must be able to run the hair dryer and the coffee machine”. Wanting to ensure that my wife was happy and given these two appliances are usually designed to be plugged into a 240v AC mains electricity socket, I had to make a decision on how to get the 24v DC solar power that was stored in the batteries into the house and useable for these appliances.
Fortunately some very clever people have developed a device called an inverter. An inverter takes the extra low voltage power (in my case 24v DC) stored in a battery (or other extra low voltage power source) and converts it to the usual mains voltage. (In Australia that’s 240v AC.) Because the output of the inverter is the normal mains voltage, you can plug in readily available appliances and run them using the energy stored by the solar power system in the batteries. Cool, the coffee machine and hair dryer were now taken care of and there were smiles all around.
Comments (8)A Solar Powered Life, Part VI – The Ideological Debate
Consumerism, Economics, Energy Systems, Global Dimming, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by Chris McLeod April 21, 2011
The series, A Solar Powered Life, is intended for those that have an interest in the generation and storage of electricity using solar panels. I’ve tried to write the series in such a way that it is accessible for everybody and not just for those that are technically minded. By the end of the series, if people have followed all of the parts, then they should walk away with a fair understanding of how a small scale independent solar power system works (in the real world), what components are required, and, even more importantly, why those components are required. This is pretty handy information.
I’m certainly not pushing products on anyone and solar power is certainly not for everybody. I also have no affiliations with any company or group etc. I am also discussing the limitations of solar electricity generation.
However, in discussing solar power, it is impossible to not touch upon current issues relating to energy in general. These issues impact all of us to a greater or lesser extent. There are many people that for a variety of reasons are highly sensitive to these issues and are highly critical of solar power. In fact it would be fair to say that some of the comments that I have received on the above-mentioned series are ideologically driven.
Comments (58)A Solar Powered Life, Part V – Living Within Your Means
Consumerism, Energy Systems, peak oil — by Chris McLeod April 16, 2011
Editor’s Note: This is Part V of a series. To see all parts, click here.
Mick Jagger sang “I can’t get no satisfaction”, and that’s exactly what will happen if you use more than you produce in any renewable self sufficient system. It’s exactly the same for both energy or food as anyone who has worked towards self-sufficiency quickly realises. I know that even with my extensive and diverse orchard, a dozen vegetable beds and nine chickens, I wouldn’t want to have to eat only things produced on my farm as I’d eventually starve.
With a self-sufficient renewable energy system though you have no option but to live within your production means or somehow increase your production of energy. Living within your means may be something as simple as only running lights and a refrigerator rather than, say, having a computer running 24/7 for entertainment. You do get free power from the sun, wind or water but perhaps it’s not as much, or not delivered in the way that you are used to and it requires you to ultimately adapt your expectations.
Comments (26)A Solar Powered Life, Part IV – The Dirty Little Secret
Consumerism, Energy Systems — by Chris McLeod March 28, 2011
Editor’s Note: This is Part IV of a series. To see all parts, click here.
Have you ever wondered why you don’t see many electrically powered motor vehicles on the roads, despite all the recent hype? Well, it’s because electricity has a dirty little secret: We have the technology to generate massive amounts of electricity, however storing those massive amounts of electricity for later use has been something of a problem that hasn’t yet been solved.
Comments (14)A Solar Powered Life – Part III
Consumerism, Energy Systems, peak oil — by Chris McLeod March 10, 2011
When the band Bananarama penned the ditty, “A cruel summer” back in 1983, I’m sure they must have been singing about solar power. Well, upon reflection, they probably weren’t. Anyway, it is an appropriate metaphor for solar power generation in the Macedon Ranges in Victoria and indeed elsewhere across the country for this summer given the La Nina influence on our weather. In the article A Solar Powered Life – part II, I wrote about how many solar panels you would need in order to generate your average electricity requirements. These were all based on a best case scenario which is rarely achieved in the real world. Not to fear though, as solar power has plenty to offer people even in less than perfect conditions.
Solar panels are affected by all sorts of factors in the real world. Usually, anything that affects the performance of a solar panel will tend to reduce its electrical output, so it’s worth understanding these factors so that you can set-up your solar panels so that they provide the best possible output.
Comments (21)A Solar Powered Life – Part II
Consumerism, Energy Systems — by Chris McLeod March 2, 2011
In case you hadn’t realised it, I’m a big fan of renewable energy systems. In the article A Solar Powered Life – Part I I gave an introduction to both grid connected solar power systems and off-grid (or standalone) solar power systems and described some of the differences between the two.
In this article I will cover some of the common questions that I am asked by people and look at how the off-grid solar power system at PRI’s Zaytuna Farm conforms with the three ethics of permaculture.
One of the questions I am often asked by people is:
How many solar panels do I need to buy and install in order to cover my daily electricity usage?
This depends on how much electricity the household uses on average every day. In Australia, as I covered in my last article, various sources state that the average electricity used per household varies from around 15kWh (kilowatt hours) per day to about 20kWh per day (Wikipedia gives a figure of 24kWh per day for US average daily household consumption (1)).
This is the equivalent of a household having 10 x 100W (Watt) incandescent light bulbs switched on for between 15 and 20 hours per day every day of the year.
Being an optimist, I’ll use the best case average electricity usage of 15kWh per day, to determine the number of solar panels that you would require.
Comments (17)A Solar Powered Life – Part I
Building, Consumerism, Energy Systems, Urban Projects, peak oil — by Chris McLeod February 21, 2011
Photo of the house showing some of the solar panels and solar hot water system
I was happy to read that Zaytuna Farm had installed an off grid solar power system for their electrical requirements — “Advanced Solar, and independence, at PRI’s Zaytuna Farm”. However, upon reading the comments relating to this, I could see that there was quite a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation relating to solar power. This inspired me to write a series of articles covering pretty much all things solar power, what it’s all about and how it works.
My solar power knowledge is comprehensive and growing all the time. This is because I live in the Macedon Ranges in Victoria in a house I built myself which has an off grid solar power system. Having a mild dose of technical geekiness (although this is not necessarily a prerequisite!), I obtained and installed all of the components myself . This system now provides all of the electrical needs of the house. I received no government subsidies or RECs (Renewable Energy Certificates) in the process (because it was cheaper not too) and maintained electrical compliance and Australian standards relating to the power system.
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