Situation

The planet is losing soil, Fairfield is windy and airid, we need a sustainabile source of soil.

Solution

I've been experimenting for over three years and have found a way to accelerate the process of making the best soil on the planet: Worm Compost.

The old method takes a month, my process takes 3 days.

See the video of my "Advanced Worm Composting" presentation for "Ignite Sebastopol".

You'll learn how to make worm compost 10x faster.

Situation

Bees please.

Solution

Added 2 bee hives.
1 hive is doing great with 3 supers and a queen excluder.
The other hive... not so great.

Situation

Craving the healthiest eggs possible!

Solution

Built a coop, chicken run, and chicken tractor.
We've been rasing them since baby chicks since April.
They are healthy, happy, and love all the pesky bugs we find and feed them.

Bennefits

True Free-Range Organic eggs are about $5 per dozen.
At 13 eggs a day, we're now saving / making $150 per month.

Problem

Current owner is paying $1200 a year to have someone put chlorine in the swimming pool

Suggested Solutions:

1. Do the work ourselves,
2. Replace the work of adding chlorine with a salt system that generates chlorine automatically saving you the work,
3. Replace the chlorine with other non-toxic solutions.

Most of the replacement systems seem to pay for themselves within 1 year.

The owner is considering choices.

Problem
To many plastic and glass bottles.

Solution

A homemade carbonation device.

With instructions found on the internet, I made a small device to make carbonated water (or carbonated anything).

It's use encourages the knowledge of: Constructions, physics, and food craft, and alchemy.

Savings

We're saving about $600 a year while generating NO plastic bottles for the landfill!

Problem

The community was about to double and we wanted more food production.

Solution

4 raised garden Beds with screen on bottom to keep out gophers,
4 raised garden beds without screen (to experiment),
The raised beds were: 5' wide, 12' long, 1' high,
8 beds flat on ground with some found rocks as borders,
Worm compost that I've been making for a while was added in,
Organic soil was brought in for the raised beds all connected by above ground drip irrigation on an automatic timer.

Observations & Lessons

The native soil had a lot of clay, so we added more soil. But the purchased soil was dry and devoid of life (as is most purchased soil), whereas the native soil did have a lot of worms. If given more time I would have either: mixed the two soils together more or inoculated with new soil with more life from compost tea and worm casting.

Also, the neighbor has cows and a lot of manure. If we had more time before planting season was over, I would have mixed in some seasoned manure.

Bennefits

This year we canned, jarred, and feasted like Garden Elf Kings and Queens!

Problem

The best time to plant an orchard is....
ten years ago.

More fruit trees please.

Solution

Throw a garden Party!.
I organized a tree planting garden party complete with a land tour, worm composting demonstration, dinner, and evening concert.

We planted 12 trees.

To do...

Need to add deer protection.

Bennefits

In a few years this land will bear fruit!

Problem
Upon arrival the goats were free to roam 99% of the property unfettered.
This led to goat feces in the driveway, walkway, garden beds - essentially everywhere except the swimming pool, tennis court, and one fenced off garden bed. Additionally, they were eating everything in sight and on site. All original landscaping around the main house garden beds were destroyed.
Additionally, they were jumping on cars, becoming aggressive towards people, and one even climbed a stairway and took to the roof of the barn. In summary, the problem was: general destruction of property, lack of safety for goats and humans, and a fecal mess.
There was a small pen for them, but there was not enough food for all of them in this pen as a herd of 12.

Solution
Phase 1: Re-rout existing fences to keep goats out of court yard where we were about to plant 9 trees.
Phase 2: Downsize the goats to 2 younger, tamer goats and keep them in their pen. Several of them were given to a small, local petting zoo for cancer patients.

Observations & Lessons
No wonder the "devil" is oft in the likenss of a goat. Poor Devil - goats are much worse!

Problem

35 standing dead pine trees.
The county required that they be cut down and either removed or burned within two months.
Estimate = $20,000 to hire outside help.

Solution

Purchased 1 chainsaw at $850 (plus some gas and oil).
Cut down the trees myself. Reuse the logs for other projects, burn the small slash.
Would have liked to chip and shred the small slash, but there was not enough time and most of it was too dry in the end.

My time = 58 hours
Total Savings = $19,150
Tools added to inventory: 1 chain saw.

Observations & Lessons

If this job was done when it should have been done (months prior to my arrival) then a) the trees would not have been so dry and more of the wood could have been run through a chipper shredder, b) there would have been more time to sort and save more of the wood before burning (mandated by local county laws to abate fire hazard).

Bennefits

We used these logs to make garden beds saving nearly $400