Winter experiment in off-grid living

October has arrived! Transition time in the ‘off-gridders’ calendar.

For sail boat off-grinders, October usually signifies the end of the season. Time to get tucked in somewhere safe and ride out winter.

Last winter I moved into a marina for six months. I thought I would enjoy plugging in to the system. Hibernating and hunkering down. Doing boat jobs. Researching new and exciting sailing grounds in prep for next years sailing season.

I didn’t. I plugged in and used a massive £5 of power. Yes, £5 for electric, for the whole six months. It wasn’t the marina, or the location. Both were fabulous. It was that I’d spent the summer afloat, enjoying total freedom. Learning to fish and gather oysters. Cooking on beach fires. I’d explored the boundaries of my solar panel and wind generator. I’d ridden out wild storms at anchor and deepened my trust in my ground tackle.

In truth, I got brave. I tested myself constantly. I absolutely loved discovering that I COULD be semi self sufficient!

Then six months over winter in a marina just sucked the buzz out of all that.

So here I sit. It is October 10th. I am in the cockpit, in the sunshine, in my shorts. It is 19 degrees. There is a warm south easterly blowing, occasionally gusting 26mph and kicking free power into my wind generator. I have plugged my new cordless drill into the inverter to see how long it will take for a full charge.

As the season end approaches this year, I am giddy! My winter will not be about hibernating in a marina waiting for next years sailing season. It will be about planting trees and exploring new territory on that slither of land in the sunshine I purchased back in February!

This summer has been a wonderful mix of sailing, freedom, making new friends and living afloat. It’s also been about collecting seeds, researching planting, and off-grid systems on land. I have plans to build a jetty, a composting loo and a geodesic dome home/greenhouse!

So come the end of October, when I put the boat to bed for the winter, I will be driving down to my little piece of land in the sun. I’ll be laying down roots and satisfying the other side of me. I’ll be learning to live on land.

Lucky for me, October also happens to be planting season in Portugal!

Here’s to new adventures this winter.

Choosing native tree species for new food forest in Portugal

Although I'm living on my beautiful boat, located in one of the most desirable cruising grounds in the UK, I still hanker after the smell and feel of dirt under my fingernails! The thrill of planting and harvesting, of tinkering with permaculture. True, I love the wild abandon of living on a boat, but I also miss tending a garden!

So, I've bought a little Quinta on the bank of the Rio Guadiana, just north of Alcoutim, Southern Portugal. It's an off-grid haven and a hive of boaty activity. A great place to spend winter when the south of England becomes a little too chilly for living on a boat.

I've been looking for this place for a long time now. Although I didnt know this was THE place. It's a wild little spot...sunshine drenched, and populated by old salties who have crawled ashore from their own boats, to set up farm and put down some roots.

A little piece of boat loving, land loving heaven!

Over the next couple of years I plan to spend the sailing season exploring the South coast of UK and the Channel coastlines, and the winter down in Portugal planting and building, working, loosely, towards establishing a land-based haven in the sun. The bonus of this place...at some point in my future, I can anchor the boat at the end of the garden! How fricking cool is that!

Anyhoo, winter is approaching - which is the primary growing season in The Algarve - so I'm gathering and researching tree species for my first mega planting session. I want natives, drought tolerent, edibles. I want to plant LOTS of trees!

I've discovered the Myawaka method of planting which is closely packed planting, to recreate a natural forest, self sustainable system. Reforestation of native forest - Miyawaka Method.

I'll update the lisy below as I discover new varieties.Please suggest in the comments if you have any ideas or recommendations for species to include.

Ongoing list...

Shrubs/Aromatics
Rosmarinus officinalis (Rosemary) perennial, evergreen, herb, drought tolerent, 5ft tall,
Lavandula stoechas
Lavandula viridis (Green Lavender )
Erica arborea (Tree Heath)

Shrub/Fruit
Corema album - Edible (white and very acidic fruit)
Santolina chamaecyparissus 
Arbutus unedo - Edible (Strawberry Tree) [Medronheiro]
Sambucus nigra (Elderberry) 
Morus nigra (Mulberry) Edible, deciduous, 8-12m tall
Brambles (blackcurrant, redcurrant, Vaccinium myrtillus (billberry), raspberries, brambles)
Goji berry/Wolfberry (Lycium barbarum) deciduous woody perennial plant, 1–3 m tall

Shade-tolerant mineral-accumulators, nitrogen-fixers or medicinal 
Liquorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra) Pea/Bean family Leguminosae/Fabaceae perennial, herb, 1m tall
Oregon tea (Ceanothus sanguineus)
Comfrey (Symphytum officinale)
Witch-hazel (Hamamelis virginiana)

Ground Cover
Erica lusitanica
Festuca - Grass, Drought Tolerant, Sandy Soils

Trees
Pinus pinea (Stone Pine) - Pine Nuts/Pinhões [Pinheiro Manson] pine wilt nematode resistant
Pinus pinaster (Maritime Pine) [Pinheiro Bravo]
Cebrus artanica (Cedar) [Cedro]
Quercus suber - Cork [Sobreiro]
Quercus canariensis
Quercus rotundifolia [Azinheira]
Carya illinoinensis  (Wild Pecan)  Northern Pecan


Quercus pyrenaica (Perenean Oak) [Carvalho-negral]
Alnus glutinosa (Common Alder) [Ameiro] -
Fraxinus Angustifolia (Ash) [Freixo nacional]
Corylus avellana (Hazel) - Hazelnuts/Avela [Aveleiro]
Olea europaea / Olea europaes sylvestris (Olive/Wild Olive) [Oliveira/Zambujeiro Oliveira Brava]
Salix alba (White Willow) [Salguiro Branco]
Tamarind tree (Tamarindus indica)  
Dunstan Chestnut (Hybrid of Chineses X American Chestnut)
Butternut ( Juglan cinerea)
Burr Oak
Macadamia? 
Sweet Chinquapin 
Sweet burr oak
Ginkgo biloba - Ginkgo

Castanea sativa (Sweet Chestnut)
Silver birch (Betula pendula)
Holm oak (Quercus ilex)
Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia)
Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) shade-tolerance
Poplar (Populus alba) - fast growing
Lime (Tilia cordata) edible sap, leaves and seeds 
Italian alder (Alnus cordata) fast-growing, nitrogen-fixer drought tolerant, edible sap

Fungi
Boletus edulis (Ceps) - Autumn Harvest
Cantharellus cibarius (Chanterelles) - Autumn Harvest
Craterellus cornucopioides (Horn of Plenty) - Autumn Harvest

Wildflowers
Limodorum abortivum (Violet Limodor) 

Nitrogen Fixer
Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) 
White Clover 
Robinia pseudoacacia (Black Locust) grows rapidly, drought/frost tolerant, infertile/acidic soils 

Recycling galore!

Here are ten alternatives to using Freecycle, just in case you have the recycling bug!
MySkip: a celeb-backed swapping site with photos
Freegle: a new breakaway set of groups from ex-Freecycle UK moderators
vSkips: a healthy reuse site with a simple design and over 25,000 "virtual skips"
Whatsmineisyours.com: the original clothes-swapping, or "swishing", site
Big Wardrobe: another clothes-swapping site that recently launched a national swapping "road show"
RecycleNow: an official government site that has a postcode service to locate your nearest recycling centre
Gumtree: popular for giveaways and classified sales. Fairly London-centric but very busy
Don't Dump That: forum-based reuse site along the lines of Freecycle
Seedy People: seed-swapping site for gardeners and allotment owners
LetsAllShare: Freecycle-style site with feedback ratings for users

Urban Permaculture

Excellent compact urban living permaculture design. Including vertical stacking, extended micro edges all beautifully designed and productive.

Water Kefir and Ginger

I've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of my quarter cup of Organic Water Kefir Grains (Tibicos) from this lovely lady on Ebay, and they finally dropped through the letterbox this morning! Yay!

So, with hardly a glance at what to do, I poured all my grains into two containers - half in one large rose coloured glass jug (left), and half in another smaller jam jar (right). Added tap water - although the instructions are to add filtered water (oops!) - a couple of slices of fresh peeled ginger to each container, and three tablespoons of unrefined demerara sugar to the jug, and one tablespoon of unrefined demerara sugar to the jar.

I mixed vigorously with a wooden spoon to dissolve the sugar, and left to stand on my kitchen counter top. The jam jar has a screw top lid and contains about a cup of water, and the jug I covered with cling film contains about half a litre of water.

This is day 1 - For more informed 'how to' check out this recipe on Whole Traditions.

Water Catchment Pest Management

I'm about to buy a small property with a stream fed/rainwater catchment system and know some of the problems with these kinds of systems are the potential for mosquitoes and other waterborne critters to get into the water and breed.

One brilliant idea I came across on the Ludlow Survivors Group was so simple, yet, so perfect, I had to share it here:

If you have problems with mosquitoes or other airborne nasties using the water stored for a solar shower and the toilets they can breed to highly irritating levels with accompanying medical problems.
due to the nature of a lot of these systems you may not be able to seal the containers adequately to prevent these nasties from getting in and laying their eggs, but the problem can quite easily be overcome with the addition of polystyrene balls (such as those used in bean bags) in a thick layer over the surface of the water.
This will prevent the mosquitoes and other nasties from accessing the water whist allowing the system to continue to operate as the balls float on the surface. They also conform to the contours of the storage vessel and can be prevented from accidentally accessing the system when drained by a simple mesh at the inlet. Water added to the system will simply push the balls out of the way and then they instantly return to cover it again.

The suggestion was made by Stuart at BCUK. 

Cute reused milk container packaging

© http://permacultureideas.blogspot.co.uk/

Just discovered this cool little container made using recycled milk cartons, over at Permaculture Ideas.

I have been looking for a good REUSE for all those milk cartons for ages now - there's only so many seedling 'greenhouses' one can fit in one's garden patch - and now here's this cute little box container thingie to try out!!

For cool REUSE this novel idea has to take the biscuit - can't wait to give it a try.

Thinking about it a little more, these might also become the new cool packaging for my  Cyanotype Kits instead of the brown bags I'm currently using. If I can figure out how to make them work, a well as how to create them easily. They are just soooo funky!!

Now all I need is to find the little popper button fastening!
Oh and drink up my milk!


[EDIT]

Several cups of tea and milk later....

OKAY, I had to have a go... never have I wanted to drink my milk so quickly!!

Here's the first prototype in pictures, it's not pretty, but I learned a lot from the exercise and look forward to consuming my next carton of milk!

STEP 1
Drink milk, wash carton :o)

STEP 2

Mark out the cutting line - I have used pure guesswork here, but I think it's almost right - a few tweaks next time will make it much prettier. One thing to watch out for is making sure that each corner is the same height - I noticed (due to my tardy cutting and complete lack of measuring) that each corner was slightly different and the final container was a wee bit lopsided. I used a four pint carton here.

STEP 3
Make an incision/starting point with a sharp knife (I used a scalpel), then once you can fit your scissors inside, begin cutting around your drawn lines.

Once you have cut the basic shape out, you can now go around the edge and even up the corners and curves. If you want to get fancy, you could even go around the whole edge with crimping scissors!!! Whoah!

STEP 4

Fold in 'flaps' and measure the place where you will make the fastener.

I went for the 'use what you have' approach for the fastening and made a little straight incision on the main body, and a D shaped... erm... 'tongue', on the largest flap. The D-shaped 'tongue' hooks into the slice and holds itself in place, rather than sourcing/buying the little fasteners in the original post. Well that was the idea anyhow!

And... this works really well! You could adapt the fastening in all kinds of ways - different shaped tongues and flaps etc, or even using a hole punch and thread/twine to loop through and create a tie fastening!

Well, there you have it! Thanks again to the original post on Permaculture Ideas, this ugly little duckling has huge potential and I'll be trying this again once I get through my next couple of pints of milk!

If you have a go, please post a link to a picture of your creation. Lets keep more cartons out of the landfill!