My SIMPLE OFF GRID WATER system and fixing a pressure tank problem

Off grid water systems that meet most household needs can be set up with relatively little expense. A DC pump, a solar panel, batteries, and a pressure tank are pretty much all you need to get cold water into a house or to a field for agricultural applications.

I knew something was wrong with my system because the pump would kick on every ten to twenty seconds while I was using the water. Normally it should be kicking on every few minutes of extended water use. In this video I do some troubleshooting to figure out the problem and fix it so that I can extend the life of my pump. You might have the same problem sometime with your system.

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The BEST Lasagna Made From Homegrown Ingredients

I often see permaculture videos about people growing food, but I rarely see them actually eating the food they produce. Do they end up eating all those hazelnuts, or aronia, or veggies? My philosophy is that if I’m not going to eat it, I’m not going to spend time and space growing it. Over the years, I’ve transitioned my gardens to just the stuff I’m likely to eat, and for things like pears, I can’t help but grow lot, so I sell whatever I can’t eat.

People make lasagna all the time, but in the US they rarely make it truly from scratch from homegrown ingredients. When I make lasagna I use all the homegrown ingredients I can. The only thing I haven’t been able to grow myself is the semolina in the noodles and the olive oil. Food tastes like a whole other animal when it’s made from homegrown ingredients.

Low Tunnel on Wheels For Season Extension and Pest Control

Permaculture is all about stacking functions and creating symbiotic systems, and I try to follow these tenets in how I keep my vineyard. I intercrop my vineyard with vegetables, flowers, and green manures, not only to make use of what would otherwise be empty space, but to reduce competition with the grape vines and to cut back on the need for mowing and other maintenance.

I’ve been doing some experimenting with my low tunnel this season, not only planting crops under it, but adding wheels so that I can easily move it on and off the bed. It’s great for season extension and for protecting the crops from rabbits and deer, and it fits and moves perfectly between the rows of grapes in my vineyard.

What Happened With My Homemade Onion Sets Experiment?

In the past, I’ve planted onion starts from seed every spring with mixed results. I got kind of sick of dealing with cold early spring temps, damping off, and waiting forever to get plants big enough for planting out. I wanted the convenience and reliability of onion sets, but didn”t want conventionally grown sets from the store, which are often sweet onion varieties instead of the long storage ones I like to grow.

So last year I made a video about making my own organic onion sets, and this season I planted them out. This video takes you through the the season of growth and we get to see how they did.

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