This blog post is part of an ongoing series on how to restore degraded land. Good land is hard to come by and often not affordable unless you’re rich. The facts presented here are from the video Building Soil with Clive. His farm in Hawaii was scraped bare with a bulldozer down to bedrock not once, not twice, but three times before he started leasing it. The thought of farming land like this seems hopeless, right? But over the last 18 years Clive has built up 3”- 4” of topsoil on bedrock using the techniques he describes in his video, which are summarized here. He feels his main job is creating good habitat and taking care of the organisms in the soil using primarily mulch and cover crops. It’s interesting to note that he never seems to find time to make IMOs (indigenous microorganisms). Instead, his focus is on creating massive quantities of organic matter to build soil. The results speak for themselves.
DIY
Solar Coffin Air Heater
“I visited a friend’s house with a unique take on solar air heating. He coins his invention the Solar Coffin. This device heats air up to well over 100 degrees C within the “coffin” unit. The air is then moved under the slab of his house which stores the solar energy for release during the winter. This system is based on a system called annualized geo-solar developed in the US as a strategy to get off the heating grid.”
The Avis’ Permaculture Homestead
“What does permaculture look like in real life? Nestled in southeast Calgary is one of the city’s original thriving permaculture projects – our home!
Rebuild Namkheli, Nepal – 6 Earthbag Houses Completed
“25th April 2015 is my 2nd birthday”, said Ang Furba Sherpa, our partner from Be Human Nepal. And it is so true for many Nepalese who had experienced the devastating earthquake which tore Nepal apart exactly year ago. The homes of our students at Manjushree Singa Primary School in Namkheli village were also not spared.
Support Malawi Earthbag Projects
“Thank you Owen for this great development. Together with the Roscher Youth Development Centre in Rumphi, Malawi, I built a wonderful prototype of sandbag house last year, which now is impressing and convincing everyone about construction with earthbags (http://supportmalawi.org/en/projects/58-sandbaghouse). Aaand we now almost finished a first house for a teacher’s family.
Earthbag Dome Home in Hungary
“Hello Owen, As you can see finally my first alone project has finished, hoorraayy!!. I want to say thank you for your guidance at the beginning and also I wanted to tell you that your book sometimes gave me that little help too because to reflect my knowledge and to see the things again in your book gave me a real help in times when I was not sure anymore what to do, not because I don’t know the things, because when my fear is coming up that I maybe can’t make it because it’s my first project with nobody around me who knows something about earthbag. So this was a quite heavy pressure for me because the people expected much and my building group knew nothing. In those moments your book was a real help because it was like talking with somebody who knows…