In my unending quest for self-sufficiency and living with a light footprint, I have tracked down soil blockers from Ladbrooke Soil Blocking via Johnny’s Selected Seeds in the US.
I learned about soil blockers while volunteering for my friends Paul & Heather on Manitoulin Island last summer. They run a CSA (Community Sponsored Agriculture) organic garden and rely on these tools to create soil blocks to start all of their plants. I have been using compressed peat pellets for the last few years which work great and are neat and tidy but somewhat expensive ($0.13CDN/each). Peat also has to be mined, transported, made into pellets, transported again to the garden centre and once again to the garden. The soil blockers involve a little more manual labour but of the good kind that gets dirt under one’s finger nails.
Wow. This low power (10W) indoor composter looks great. It would be an awesome addition for the ecoubanist looking to minimize the amount of waste in their kitchen. 
I love my worm composter 
but it can’t keep up with the amount of organic waste that Lisa and I produce. The Nature Mill is pricy ($359 – $399) but there is volume discounts at quantities of 3 and 12. If anyone wants to go in on a volume order, leave a comment and when we reach 12, I’ll organize the order.
Alternatively, they are coming to Canada soon and available over the web at Home Depot. Nature Mill wasn’t sure how much the retail cost would be.
The $400 – $500 price tag will be a deterrent for all but the most dedicated. I’m all for local production (it’s made in the US) but I think the price barrier will keep the Nature Mill from being widely adopted. Perhaps we’ll see a made in China knock-off for 1/4 the price down the road or some government incentives to push the price down. Then it will be an option for the average household.
My preference is with heat with fire as it cozy and runs on renewable resources. The tradeoff is the amout of effort and time it takes to keep the fire going. This is not as big a deal for someone walking but quickly becomes prohibitively taxing with only a functioning upper body to fetch, chop, stack and carry wood.
The folks at American Energy Systems seem to have come up with a great multi-fuel stove than can burn all kinds of organic scraps. This will vastly simplify the chore of keeping the home warm.
[tags]wood stoves, multi-fuel stoves[/tags]
In my unending quest for self-sufficiency and living with a light footprint, I have tracked down soil blockers from Ladbrooke Soil Blocking via Johnny’s Selected Seeds in the US.
