Spring in the Solarium

It's been about 50 degrees every day the last couple of weeks.  I think it has to do with the return of the sun! Remember that the 42x12 foot space is not heated.  It is warmed by the waste heat out of the house that we lose out of the windows as well as the sun.  The sun beams warm the gravel and the water inside the solarium and the majority of the heat is from that thermal mass.

So I thought I'd share the things that are blooming and growing despite all the snow outside. 

This is the barley I planted last September.  Just like the energizer bunny!  It keeps growing.  (It was however the only seed to germinate out of 2 doz.) 

Looks like maybe I should put it in another pot.

 MINT-- I can't remember which kind, but it's been nice to have fresh mint all winter.  It's especially good in Mojitoes.  :-)  


It serves the dual purpose of repelling aphids.  So I have several types of mint around the solarium.

 May geraniums have always been hit hard by aphids, so I took most of them upstairs to the hot tub that doesn't work.  They are growing nicely up there, but these----planted in the center of the mint plants--- are continuing to do well down here.  We'll see if they can keep clear of the aphids, now that it's getting warmer.

 This is a begonia that was chewed on last summer by aphids.  I moved it outside to see if the aphids would leave it alone.  By fall it was almost completely dead.  But I started watering it and low and behold when I brought it in the solarium for the winter, and the aphids had all been frosted off of it, it decided it was spring.  So all winter this begonia has been growing and now is producing little blooms.  I attribute a lot of the success to the pot it's in----a recessed water space at the bottom, so it can draw water when it needs it.

 These I got last summer at P&M's nursery down the road.  They are yellow irises.  They never really died down over the winter, but you can see on the right where I trimmed one of the leaves.  This week I pulled the leaves apart and saw all of these little leaves coming up, so I trimmed off most of last year's and these are emerging.   


I really hope they bloom this year.  Last year they didn't.  They just got really really tall.  I attributed it to a moderate climate in the solarium.  I MAY have to move them outside to the garden to see their yellow blooms.

 Ah, my pride and joy.  I was told that the only way to get blueberries to grow on your property was to eat lots and lots of blueberries and then collect your own waste and plant it.  Rest assured, that is not what I did.  


Last fall Curt and I went up and hiked around the Matanuska glacier and dug up some blueberry bushes.  We planted them in my berry patch, but I took some of the branches that had come loose and just stuck them in the mud around the pond in the solarium.  Last fall they bloomed and I didn't know what to do.  Now they are leafing and I have a plan.  If I see blooms, I'm going to get a tiny paint brush and try to pollinate them.  Wouldn't it be cool to have blueberries growing in the solarium???

Primrose

 These primroses have been so hardy.  They keep blooming at about 3 month intervals all year long!

In the back of that pot you can barely see the nasturtium hanging on to life.  The aphids didn't like nasturtiums either, so maybe that's what's helped this primrose?? 

 Even the marsh marigold is peaking out of the mud around the pond. 

Today is seed planting day, so I'd better get with it.  I hope to add new little germinated plant pictures soon!  :-) 

Mushroom Planting Day

So, it's spring already in the Solarium.  I've been waiting just for the right time to plant my mushrooms.  I'm fairly certain it won't get too cold in the solarium, although I'm taking a risk.  If colder times come, I'll just have to move my logs inside to the basement.

Step by step:

First I pulled out the stored alder logs my neighbor Raymond helped me cut last fall.  I stored them inside to dry where no other molds or mushroom spore could find them. (I'm assuming)

Next I got Curt's electric drill with a 5/8 inch drill bit and started drilling holes about 1 inch deep.

I made the holes in a diamond pattern, but only on the top so I could lay them down and have the mushrooms sprout up---I hope!  :-)

Next I took my mushroom spore plugs and inserted them in the holes.

I needed a rubber hammer to pound them in.  Sometimes they didn't go all the way in.  But I pounded them flush with the wood.  I hope that's okay.

Now I'm ready to store my logs for 6 months.  I have to keep them damp and dark but not wet.  So once or twice a week water on them.  Supposedly in 6 months time, I can stand them up in the wet sand and mushrooms will sprout!  :-)







WISH ME LUCK!  :-)

Products we use at the Bioshelter

AlaskanEcoEscape Products Used

Many of you have asked for a list of the products we use here to clean ourselves and our house with since our water is recycled and reused.

We have a fish pond with Koi.  If the Koi die or get sickly, we know we used something that was bad, so they are like our canary in the coal mine.

KITCHEN

• 7^th Generation Dish Soap as well as Dishwasher Soap.  We add vinegar to the dishwasher to keep the spots down.
• 7th Generation Paper Towels  for clean-ups that can’t get washed down the drain – like glue
• We clean the mirrors, windows, table tops and counters with Vinegar and water----about 50/50 blend.
• We clean sinks and stubborn spots with baking soda

Bathroom

• Dr. Bronner’s mint hand soap.  If you’ve never read a Dr. Bonner’s soap bottle, that alone is worth the purchase!

• 7^th Generation Toilet Paper:  it is not chlorinated and it is 100%  recycled paper, not fresh trees like some other brands.

• Teeth are brushed with Baking Soda.

Shower

• Nature’s Gate Shampoo and Conditioner
• L.A. Hold Hairspray occasionally
• Nature’s Gate Body Lotion—non-scented
• Tom’s Deodorant

Laundry

• Biokleen Laundry Detergent

Products that didn’t work

• ECOVER (harmed the fish)
• 7^th Generation Laundry Detergent is not used---too many suds---looked like the fish were in a bath tub!
• Burt’s Bees----turned the water cloudy.

FLOORS are cleaned with vinegar and water.

Observation: A key to Permaculture Design

Today is Saturday, January 15th.

The sun came through the first break in the mountains--just to the left of Polar Bear Mountain about 10:40am and lasted almost 15 min.  Then it  peaked through the second break on the other side of Polar Bear Mountain at about 12:15, but lasted only a short time---maybe a minute.  It took awhile to go behind Eagle Mountain, but the sun peaked out at 12:51 again. It disappeared at 1:08pm. 

That was the extent of it today.  :-)

The Sun will come out tomorrow. . .

Here it is:  Jan 9th! 

Realizing Winter

This fall has been an eye opener for us in the bioshelter.  We went to Fairbanks one weekend and that is the exact time the cistern chose to overflow.  No big deal really, but the water hose splashed the wiring to the solarium air circulator, so that quit. 

We were just back and heard a funny noise.  Curt got out of bed to investigate while I stayed in bed.  I heard water running all over the floor.  Curt had opened the HRV unit in the kitchen and those little invasive moths that didn't freeze until after the end of October had gotten in and filled up the filters and then the dead bodies filled and clogged the tubes of the de-humidifier.  Water on the floor.  We unplugged the HRV and went back to bed.

The next day as I cleaned dead moth bodies and re-set the fuse for the solarium air circulator fan, there wasn't much hot water, but I had just done a load of dirty laundry.  But that night, we cranked the shower on the hottest setting.  Nothing but luke warm water.

It started getting colder and colder in the house.  Hmmmmm.  Curt and I took the FanCoil apart to see if we had a broken belt or motor.  We poked around at the boiler, but saw nothing unusual.  (We keep the thermostat set at 60 degrees, so even if we don't start a fire, it won't get colder than that with our natural gas back-up boiler.  We thought that the house should be warm because we were burning wood.  It seemed like the only place we could be warm was next to the Finnish Stove. 

I called the repairman, explained the whole thing.  If it was an emergency, we would have to pay extra.  So I simply scheduled him to come out the next available time---which was Monday.  He told me to just turn off the boiler, we'd just be wasting gas if it wasn't heating the house.

Guess what happened on Monday?  It rained.  No one went anywhere and we had to get to the airport to fly to Texas the next day.  We decided it really didn't matter, the house wouldn't freeze while we were in Texas for Thanksgiving.  And we have an EXCELLENT neighbor who promised to come over every day while we were gone to light a fire. 

Well, that weekend it hovered about 60 degrees in the house----it was warm outside (right at 32 degrees).  When we got back from our trip, it was down to 52.  And outside it was + 10.   Our neighbor said that was the lowest it ever got in the house.  We had frozen pipes in North Pole a few times and that just wasn't fun.  Yeah for this house.

So, it's just a $20 piece in the boiler that needs to be fixed, but what we learned is that if there is no natural gas. . . .well, it might not get lower than 52 degrees in the house.   But right now in the root cellar it's 38 degrees and we are trying to keep that cold.  I guess the pipes wouldn't freeze no matter what.  But I don't know about living in a house at 38 degrees! 

So, all is back to normal.   It's about 45 in the solarium and it's 65 in the house.  The fish are swimming around again. They were very funny to watch when it was cold----it didn't get below freezing, but they would see a piece of food on the water and then in very very s l o w  motion, they would swim up and slowly open their mouths, but by that time the food would have floated past them and they missed it every time.  Poor fish. 

So we are talking about upgrading the old structure above the cistern outside.  It would be a much smaller building to heat if we ran out of natural gas!  I'm just glad we got a wool king sized NC Company blanket for our wedding.  It was the first time we REALLY enjoyed it in almost 30 years! 

Summer

Already the end of June, a rainy, cloudy month here in the mountains. I need to report that the lasagna garden is doing okay for cabbages, broccoli and bok choi, but not so well for lettuce, carrots, radishes and peas. :0( It could be a function of the weather and not necessarily the lasagna garden. But I'm loving the lasagna - no till- gardening idea.

I first put down worms (I happen to have a lot of those), then cardboard from left over history day projects at school, (You can also use 6-8 pages of newspaper.) Then I scattered our humanure over the top----we didn't have nearly enough, by the way. Then a layer of fresh grass clippings (no seeds or fertilized grass), then a layer of peat moss, then crushed leaves, then peat moss, then rotten wood chips from the woods. Finally I made small trenches to put organic dirt in and plopped in the seeds.

Hmmmm. I also started the broccoli, cabbage, and bokchoi and peas indoors. So that also might be a function of what's going on. The peas, however, are not doing well. Oh yeah, the beans are also doing terribly and I started them indoors. So. . . .no idea why some things are doing well and others aren't.

In the solarium we release 2 packages of ladybugs to combat the aphids. This time we sprayed the leaves with water first and that kept them from flying to the ceiling the next morning. So, right now, the aphids are tolerable.

I planted 2 tomato plants in the topsy turvy planters in the solarium this year----they didn't work outside last year. One I put a bean plant out of the top and the other no bean plant. The one with the bean plant is fixing nitrogen for the tomato and the I have at least double the amount of tomatoes and blossoms on the tomato plant. I'm also watering them both with pond water, not cistern water. I think that helps. I didn't do that last year.

My begonias are blooming non-stop. I'm blaming that on the worm castings. They LOVE that. But worm castings didn't help the strawberry plant. So I've been pouring coffee on it, Curt's been giving it urine. We don't know why it's not blooming. No blooms, no strawberries. Not good. :-(

My northern pitcher plant ate the wasp---maybe two of them---that I invited in to eat the aphids. I saw a slug in the mouth of the other "bloom" so I think that plant is full for the moment. I'm still trying to find the best plants to put around the pond. I moved the rosemary bush and now I moved the Lady's Mantel---they were just being drown. So now I have a mini-cattail plant there. I hope that works. The slugs are eating the bulbs of the irises, so I'll have to keep those in plants and hope the slugs don't go there. OR, get a frog! :-)

The koi have been voracious eaters this spring and summer. We can't keep enough duck weed in the pond. They've nibbled at all of the lilly pads, ate the Faerie Moss, ate the snails. I put 12 shrimp in the pond and when I cleaned it out this spring, I still had 3. So they WERE hiding well enough. The only thing that's still alive is the Hornwort and it's missing branches. The Frog's Bit is doing okay too. So. . . .I'm wondering if the fish need a different kind of food. Luckily the ammonia level is not too high in the pond and I can still watch them eat their koi sticks. One bad thing: Casper got eaten by the water pump. It prompted screen around the pump.

I have to say, I really like the trial and error, the pursuit of the balance, the problem-solving it all takes. It's fun.