Update: This living wall is thriving. I built a second design with an aluminum frame and removable potted plants and so far the plants prefer this living wall made with fishing net. This is a living wall experiment using a small prototype to test the concept. It’s easy to make and very low cost. Living … Read more
Geosynthetics Magazine is a valuable go-to source for technical earthbag articles. This is a great, free resource for serious earthbag builders, especially commercial builders. They have a new article about natural green facades on earthbag highway retaining walls. It’s surprisingly simple and effective. The retaining wall is not only strong, it also looks good because … Read more
Remember the outdoor oven that I built for Mother Earth News magazine? Well, a reader built one and just sent us the following photo and feedback. Numerous people have written me questions asking for more details (which are almost always answered in the original article, so please look closely), but no one yet has sent … Read more
It’s been somewhat of a struggle to get the living roof on our earthbag dome established. The steep sides make it quite challenging, because water runs off quickly and washes away the soil and nutrients. This causes dry areas to develop. As you can see from the early Mother Earth News photos, the grass didn’t … Read more
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR7MhJ5h_c8 You can make textured walls, benches and other objects that look just like stone. This video and the article below show you the basics. I prefer the beauty of natural stone, but this is an option worth considering for special situations. Here’s one example. You could plaster your walls to simulate the color and … Read more
We continue to find amazing uses for polypropylene tubes and bags. In this case, PEMEX oil company in Mexico used large poly tubes (referred to as Geotextile Tubes or GT in the original article) at one of their oil facilities. One part of the project involved filling 7.8m circumference poly tubes to support oil pipelines, … Read more