Composting Toilet Systems

This is the 5th entry, since we got back on track!

COMPOSTING TOILET SYSTEMS

Tuesday, 24 November

2nd Quarter Moon

Greetings, Living Earth Gardeners! Last week we began looking more in-depth at the Secondary Elements/Support Systems of our Project, by focusing on water access. Let's refresh our minds by listing again all 4 secondary design elements:

• Well for access to clean drinking water.
• Compost Toilets, to capture nutrients and avoid waste.
• Solar Shower, to rinse off sweat and dust.
• Compost Piles, for maintaining soil fertility.

This week we will focus on 'humanure". Human manure is an uncomfortable subject for many people, especially those of us living in the overdeveloped parts of the world. In The Humanure Handbook : a guide to composting humane manure, by Joseph Jenkins, describes this condition as fecalphobia - an irrational fear of handling our own bodily wastes. Let's be honest about the current situation : an elaborate and expensive system of plumbing has been designed and built so that we can avoid the responsibility of dealing with our own crap. This system is not only elaborate and expensive, but it is also not that effective, nor is it efficient. Plumbing just moves the stuff out of our view and out of our thinking. The real insanity, as Jenkins points out astutely, is to be defecating directly into our precious drinking water. Excuse me for going off a bit on this point. It is important that we shift the paradigm strongly on this issue, so that we can overcome our own inhibitions regarding humanure-composting. I can attest from experience, that it does take some time to overcome fecalphobia.

Now, the good news is that there have been many different composting toilet systems developed. The Composting Toilet System Book, by David del Porto and Carol Steinfeld gives an exhaustive overview of all the choices available. The systems presented range widely in their levels of complexity, cost, and user involvement. This range is broad enough that I would think anyone could begin humanure composting at their current level of comfort.

The composting system we have chosen is known as the sawdust bucket system, and it is fully described in The Humanure Handbook.  Let me hold off getting into the details of this particular system until next week. While it is a simple system, it does require a certain level of skill and knowledge to do properly, so I will need more time and space to present it adequately.

Instead, let me describe how I started humanure composting back when we lived in a conventional house with flush toilets connected to a municipal sewage system. I focused on capturing and recycling my own urine while continuing to use the flush toilets for fecal matter. Most experts agree that urine from a healthy person is sterile. You may have even heard of people using their urine medicinally, even drinking it. I myself, once used my own urine to treat poison oak effectively, keeping the oils from spreading until I could get some medicinal cream. 

To recycle urine back at that house in town, I would fill a 5 gallon bucket full of loose straw and keep it in the storage area where my garden tools were. Whenever I was working in our garden (which was most of the time), and needed to urinate, I would use this straw-filled bucket. At the end of the week, when it came time to build onto our current compost pile, I would create a 'bowl' in the straw at the top of the pile, empty the urine-soaked straw into it, then add any plant debris and all food scraps generated that week, and finish with a  new layer of loose straw on top of that (which would receive the following week's urine-soaked straw). This method, which I used for many years, never produced a stinky compost pile.

There are many possible variations to this method, as well as the usual details to work out when beginning a new practice. 

Please contact us with any question you may have! Or leave comments about this information!

With best wishes for this week,

Gardener/Visionary Machei

Taos, New Mexico

Water

Tuesday 17 November

1st Quarter Moon

WATER

Greetings, Living Earth Gardeners!  This is HeadGardener Machei at LivingEarthGardenProject.  Last week we went through the Secondary Elements/Support Systems of our Project.  Let's begin this week by reviewing these 4 design elements:

     Well - for access to clean drinking water

     Compost Toilets - to capture nutrients & avoid waste

     Solar Shower - to rinse off sweat & dust

     Compost Piles - to produce soil fertility

This week we will focus on water access.  Access to water is a primary consideration for any land project.  There are many potential ways to provide for this need.  Here is how we have approached water access on our land.

The hiring of a professional well driller has been the only job we have contracted out for.  The drilling of a 100ft deep water well was also the very first job we had done.  We gave water access top priority both for our personal needs & for what would be the future irrigation needs of our plantings.  Jim Fennell, the well driller, said to me upon job completion: "First you got the Land, now you have the Water!"

When faced with the decision of what kind of well casing to install, we decided on steel, even though Jim was telling us that we could use pvc.  We had researched the effects of polyvinyl manufacturing and found that factories producing polyvinyl compounds were primarily located in poor communities and contaminated these places with toxins.  We also felt skeptical that pvc pipe was truly safe to drink from, despite EPA assurances.  We paid ~10% extra for steel, but kept to our principle of low-impact non-toxic development, which includes caring for other lands, not just our own.

Groundwater in our vega [meadow] bottom land is high and, as a result, well water, even though it is coming up from 100ft, rises to just below the surface.  This effect is similar to that of placing a straw in a glass of water.  When I saw the well water at ~2ft from the top of the casing, I said,"that water looks easy to reach".  Jim suggested trying a 'pitcher pump' to gain access.  We did.  We found a supplier in town and installed it ourselves.  Pitcher pumps are short and pull water up by suction.  As long as our well water stayed within reach of the drop pipe, and it did, we had access to our good clean drinking water.

After ~3yrs of continual use, the leathers on this short pump began to wear out.  We needed to make a decision.  After looking at different upgrade options, we chose another hand pump, a tall one with a bulb in its body to force pressure and a spout adapter to connect farm hoses.  This amish-style pump also has different pin settings to adjust the lever to more volume & resistance per stroke or less volume & resistance.  It works by pushing water up from below, from where it enters through a check valve into a brass cylinder, and is then lifted upward with each stroke.  A fine example of sophisticated low-technology that we were also able to install ourselves.  While pumping water up with the pitcher was not difficult, carrying the water to where it was needed could be tedious.  This amish-style forced-pressure hand pump makes moving water horizontally easy also, and allows us to pump while standing up!  Daily tasks become truly pleasurable when the tools needed are well made.  We look forward to adding on more farm hoses in order to move water farther about our 3 acres of land.

Even though we have focused all of this week on water access, there are still many details that I have left out due to space & time considerations.  If this approach to water seems like one you may like to try for yourselves, please do not hesitate to ask us follow-up questions.  "The devil is in the details" or "God may be found in the details", depending on one's choice of deity.

With best wishes for this week,

Gardener Machei

Taos, NewMexico

Sustainable Design Elements at Living Earth Garden Project

Greetings! This is Visionary and Head Gardener, Machei at Living Earth Garden Project. This week I will return to presenting the Design Elements of our project. Let's begin by reviewing the list from 2 weeks ago:

• Border - extensive planting of small trees and shrubs
• Tipis - as simple, but durable and effective shelters
• Orchard - fruit trees at this time, with treenuts in the plan
• Yurt - as more substantial, but still simple shelter
• Vegetable Beds - for diet and nutrition
• Outdoor Kitchen - including ramada for shade and other miscellaneous structures

These are the Primary Design Elements that we have begun work on.

There also exist Secondary Design Elements which are systems that support the Primary Elements. Many of these Secondary Elemnets were actually in place, out of necessity, before the Primary ones. Our list of Secondary Elements/Support Systems is as follows:

• Well - for access to clean drinking water
• Compost Toilets - to capture nutrients and avoid waste
• Solar Shower - to rinse off sweat and dust
• Compost Piles - to produce soil fertility

The term 'other miscellaneous structures after 'Outdoor Kitchen' on the Primary Elements list refers to the various installations we have made to make our Secondary Elements/Support Systems functionable. Here follows a short description of each:

• WELL - includes a professionally drilled hole 100 feet down with steel casing installed and an Amish style forced-pressure hand pump with farm hose adapter on top.
• COMPOST TOILETS - is the sawdust bucket system as described in The Humanure Handbook , by Joseph Jenkins. Aside from the necessary buckets, seats, lids and sawdust we have built a rough strawbale shelter with wood slat roof to contain this 'compost potty'.
• SOLAR SHOWER - has gone through a few variations. Our current attempt involves using the tipi tripod design principle. Three long poles are tied together near their tops with a clove hitch knot and a shower bag is hung down.
• COMPOST PILES - are of two kinds now. The first type of pile that we began building was our 'humanure compost' that receives material from the sawdust bucket system as well as kitchen food scraps, some plant debris, any papers or fabrics that will biodegrade, and lots of loose straw. The second type of pile we now build is our 'fruit and veggie compost'. These piles are simpler in that they require no containment and can be built directly on the ground. So far, they have received our own pasture cuttings primarily.

How many of you have any experience with these kinds of systems? By addressing water access and 'waste' disposal, they are enough to get a land-based project started. Some of these systems can be learned on-the-go, while others require special training beforehand. I will go into each of our Support Systems more deeply in the weeks that follow.

With best wishes for this week!

Gardener Machei

Taos, NM

Greetings, Living Earth Gardeners! This is Head Gardener/Founder, Machei at Living Earth Garden Project. Nyna and I were discussing some of the logistics involved in responding to your questions and comments during the week. I begin writing each week's blog entry on Tuesday, adding and revising through the week until it is ready to post on Sunday. As such, there may be a two week lag time between question and answers. Nyna tells me this is generally considered too long to keep the attention of blog readers...The way that we have decided to approach this problem is by doing our best to answer all of the more simple and direct questions during the week, as they arise, in the time that we have available to do so. Longer questions and comments, requiring a more thorough response, will be put off to the following week, where they may play a role in determining the blog entry's theme. There might not be a fine line between these 2 kinds of questions and comments. Let's just see how it goes for now. Please tell us what you think of our idea.

Before moving on, allow me to suggest that anything worth doing, takes time to do well. Similarly, anything really worth discussing, takes time to reflect upon. Knee-jerk reactions and one-size-fits-all answers are, in part, responsible for the current economic/ecologic mess that we humans find ourselves in worldwide.

As for this week. I will continue with the theme of introduction and background, focusing now on the "Garden Project" idea. After finishing the Program in Ecological Agriculture at Evergreen College in Olympia, WA, as well an internship at Evergreen's Organic Farm, I met Nyna at the Olympia Food Co-op, where she was a staff member, and together we moved to Ukiah, county seat of Mendocino, on the North Coast of California. I completed a 3 year apprenticeship on different farms and gardens around Mendocino County, where I leaned many different methods and techniques. This period may more properly be called a "journeyship" because of the diversity of experience involved. One thing that stayed common throughout this period and beyond, as I pursued more learning opportunities, is that almost all of my teachers and mentors had been themselves students and/or apprentices of a man named Alan Chadwick.

The story, as it has been passed down to me verbally, from different sources, is that Alan Chadwick was born on an estate, where he learned to garden by watching the peasants work the land. Later, as a young man, he is said to have apprenticed on a BioDynamic Farm headed by Ehrenfeld Pfeiffer, a student of Rudolf Steiner. Alan was told that for the first year of his apprenticeship, he could only watch the work on the farm, not participate in it, nor was he allowed to ask any questions. (This forgotten technique, I believe, was designed to hone the students observation skills, and actually save the farm time and labor in the long run.) Alan was also trained as an actor, and later in hi middle years, worked in that field, rather than in agriculture.

After the Second World War, Chadwick was so disturbed by the experience that he focused his energies on discussing with his colleagues and contemplating for himself, what would need to done to avert such a disaster in the future. His answer finally came as, (I am writing here by memory) : Only the Lifeforces inherent in Gardening, can overcome the Death Forces inherent in War.

Chadwick developed a system of gardening that he called the BioDynamic/French Intensive method, where he synthesized what he learned during his apprenticeship with techniques used by market gardeners around large European cities at that time, and maybe by his estate's peasant servants, as well. In the late 60's, Alan was invited to be a kind of 'artist in residence' at the University of California in Santa Cruz. He was invited by the Philosophy Department, not the Agricultural Department. The garden that Alan dug and grew there, out of an infertile hillside, was the first "Garden Project". This garden continues to be maintained today, and his teaching has grown into a full University Program, within the Agriculture Department now, based on his original work, in that first garden.

This first garden is where many of my teachers and mentors,as well as many other farmers and gardeners, first met Alan and began to learn from him. His influence on Organic Farming and Gardening cannot be overstated, especially in California, but also across North America as well. John Jeavons, for example, learned directly from Alan at this beginning time, went on to simplify the teaching, shorten its name to BioIntensive, and write what has become possibly the best book on truly sustainable food production, How To Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible On Land Less Than You Can Imagine. John's current "Grow BioIntensive" method is practiced all over North America, and in many countries around the World as well.

What impressed me most about Alan Chadwick's garden, when Nyna and I visited Santa Cruz in the late 90's, was how it grew in three dimensions. Up until then, most of the gardens I had seen were 2 dimensional, rows and rows of vegetables, mostly. His garden had vegetables in broad beds with fruit trees and other perennials growing in between these beds. It had a vertical element right within itself.

What impressed me next about this garden, was that the 'artist studio', a modest cottage of sorts, where Chadwick lived, worked, and taught, was completely within the garden. Alan's home, then, was not detached from his work, nor from his teaching, as commonly happens nowadays. All primary aspects of Alan's life were tightly woven together. He was following the First Law of Ecology (Everything is Interconnected) on a personal basis and was gaining the corresponding economic benefit of having low maintenance costs, so that he could pursue what had become his primary purpose in life, teaching by example.

So, when we use the term "Garden Project", as in Living Earth Garden Project, it is to honor Alan Chadwick, to honor his work, his first brave students, and the lineage that has passed down since his time. I hope that I have been able to convey, then, how broadly we are using the term 'Garden'. Many, if not most, people, upon hearing the word 'garden', still think, as I did once, of not much more than straight rows of vegetables. Perhaps we are even using the term 'Garden' more broadly than Alan intended in his time. I hope so, for that would only be fitting to honor his vision.

I will finish with a passage from Voltaire's Candide, that is a favorite of John Jeavons, as I have heard him say this on so many occasions, and again from memory: "All the world is a garden, and what a wonderful place this World would be if only all of us would each take care of our own part of this Garden."

So, when I refer to all of us as "Gardeners", it is in this broadest sense of the word that I do so. Gardeners of the World unite!!

I ask anyone reading this who has better recall of Alan Chadwick's life story, to please feel free to make corrections and/or additions to what I have written. As already mentioned, I have written from memory a story passed down to me orally and emphasized what I feel are the important points for us today. One final reflection to offer, as it occurred to me while writing, that Chadwick's life was much within the tradition of Leo Tolstoy: born to nobility, yet refusing to place themselves among the common people.

With best wishes for this week!
Gardener Machei
Taos, New Mexico