How to Build a Worm Tower. A few years back we put this short video clip up on YouTube with Permaculture Schools Gardening expert Leonie Shanahan talking about her worm tower.
Well the idea seems to have caught on as little colourful worm towers are now springing up everywhere in the Permaculture landscape. While filming a segment with Geoff Lawton recently in his “Soils” DVD we saw an interesting variation that was built into a tank garden laden with vegetables. Some people are worried about using PVC pipes and the one we filmed was made of a heavy concrete pipe construction. It was laden with thousands of Compost Worms and the vegetables grown were bursting at the seams with goodness. So how do you do it? Here’s a basis rundown on how to build your own Worm Tower. First secure yourself a tank garden. Find a large 3 to 4 foot pvc or concrete pipe. Bury the tower about half way down in your tank garden. Empty a bag of manure into the tower, filling the tower half way up the pipe. Dynamic Accumulators. Dynamic Accummulator Weeds.
Raised garden beds: hugelkultur instead of irrigation. Raised garden bed hugelkultur after one month raised garden bed hugelkultur after one year raised garden bed hugelkultur after two years raised garden bed hugelkultur after twenty years It's a german word and some people can say it all german-ish.
I'm an american doofus, so I say "hoogle culture". I learned this high-falootin word at my permaculture training. Hugelkultur is nothing more than making raised garden beds filled with rotten wood. I do think there are some considerations to keep in mind. Another thing to keep in mind is that wood is high in carbon and will consume nitrogen to do the compost thing. Pine and fir will have some levels of tanins in them, but I'm guessing that most of that will be gone when the wood has been dead for a few years. In the drawings at right, the artist is trying to show that while the wood decomposes and shrinks, the leaves, duff and accumulating organic matter from above will take it's place. Costs of Hugulkulture-beds, swales, etc. I'm still relatively new to permaculture myself, but I agree with the above post.
Start smaller and practice. If it happens that you have the money and the opportunity to get a bigger piece of land in the very near future then go ahead, but even then start your projects small. But this stuff is hard work, and I think there is a point where, even if you can reasonable accomplish it with your time and resources, if you're using a lot of machinery to accomplish this then the process kind of looses something, you know? And you see, once you're deep into it you will be like me- after a day working and baking in the sun you will no longer be able to form a coherent thought... But I am a stay at home mom, so besides providing basic care for my children I have all day most days to devote to my permaculture and chicken endeavors, and while I have accomplished a lot in the past two years (how long we have lived on this property), it is really slow going.
So far as equipment goes... Les plantes indicatrices du sol - NB Corp. Le sol vivant. Njf4. PRIORITY ONE - Together We Can Beat Global Warming by Allan J. Yeomans.