Quinta das Abelhas

The walls are up, and the reinforced concrete ring-beam was done yesterday.
The builders didnt come today, so I guess the concrete is being left to set properly before the roof goes on.

Shouldn’t be long before its finished and we can start sorting out all the stuff in the old ruin, and box what we want for storage. And then we can start knocking down the old walls and roof, ready for our living house.

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We received an email from a Peace Corp volunteer asking about the realities of building a compost toilet. It would be fantastic if the Peace Corp started promoting sustainable development such as compost toilets and rainwater harvesting, rather than boreholes and septic tanks.

I realised we didnt have many photos on the blog of the toilet showing the structure, and just how simple it really is. So I took a few more:

Thats the building. It is between two tracks, on two levels. On the right there are sliding hatches, to access the composted material, while on the left, on the higher level is a door into the actual toilet and shower room. The doors down below are very simple:

They slide up and out, ro reveal two seperate spaces full of compost comprised of humanure, straw, leaves, sawdust and ash.

Up above, the room has two brick toilets, with wooden tops and toilet seat over the large hole.

Its very simple. Under the wood is simple a large space, dropping down to the cahmaber below. Some compost loos have a urine seperator at the front, so people can wee while sitting, but we decided this was too complicated, and instead ask people not to wee into the hole if they can help. The bucket at the back is normally full of wood ash or sawdust, for everyone to drop a cup or hand full down the loo when they have finished, and every now and then we add a larger quantity of straw or some other veg matter. Its not science, just whenever it starts to smell we add extra cover on the mound below, and maybe shove a stick down to level it out a little. The smell is the sign of whether you have enough straw etc in there. There shouldn’t be much of a smell. Some people seem unable to stop themselves weeing in it, which does add to the smell.

When the chamber is nearly full, add lots of straw or sawdust, and leave for 6 to 12 months. This would normally then be safe to use in the gardens, but because we have a large number of visitors, we plan to compost it all again on a compost heap with kitchen waste and garden weeds, just to make sure all pathogens are dead, before using to grow food. It would be find though to use to plant trees no matter how many people with their differing illnesses, antibiotics etc had used it. We are really just being overly cautious.

This one is the first one we used, and we have made a few small modifications since. Under the seat and under the wooden lid we have stuck insulation tape, so that the toilet is sealed. This seems to stop flies getting in very effectively.

The only other points to consider are location and ventilation. We have a pipe just below the seat, to vent gases to the outside. The vent has a wire mesh over it to keep insects out.
It is very important to make sure there are no underground water sources under or near your compost toilet. Our well is far away from the compost toilet, in a different valley with an underground stream. It cannot be stressed enough that you don’t want your ‘waste’ contaminating your water supply, so site your toilet carefully well away from water sources.

Hopefully this will help anyone considering building a compost toilet with their plans and the knowledge that it is very simple technology.

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The plans for our main house are about to go into the council for approval, and then work will begin on our ruin, to turn it into a 100 square metre home. The first step will be demolishing the brick and block walls that are there now, and as it is full of stuff that has been stored since we bought the land, we realised that we need a storage shed to keep all the ’stuff’ while the house is knocked down and rebuilt.

The space, after the builders cleared it. There used to be a caravan here, which our sons slept in.

And another angle.

The first day, after clearing the space, the builders put in a ring of foundation, on which to build the walls. And then, after another day, the walls were half way up!

This is how I left it, yesterday, when I went to the beach for the day with my parents. Its pretty amazing how fast this is going up. We will soon have a space to store our hay for the horses, and the other side for stuff that needs to be stored while the main house gets built.

Its a very basic, single skin building, but it will do what we need it to, keeping stuff dry. The space in the front is for two metre wide doors.

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We have been very busy, especially Oli and Kirsten our wwoofing volunteers, putting in new fence posts and electric fence for the horse terraces. These treated posts arent cheap, but are very easy to put in with a ‘post whacker’ (which don’t seem available in Portugal), and should be good for at least 10 years. So far we have put in about 200, including some thin ones in the gardens as support for beans and tomatoes, and along the edge of terraces to make new vine trellises with wire. The terraces that the horses originally had is now completely fenced. I guess we’ll need another 200 posts before we’ve finished the vines and the terraces that we bought last year.

Daan (age 24) grazing in the newly fenced zone:

Kristen happily collecting horse manure in the midday sun:

We have also done a lot of work on the kitchen caravan area. Vine posts are in, just waiting for the wire to be attached. Henrique and Oli built a new table for visitors and guests, using some of our eucalyptus trees and a few bought planks of wood. Several recent wwoofers rebuilt the steps up to the mongolian yurt, and a rope handrail has been added. Toivo, a neighbour has done some work for us, replacing the floor in the kitchen caravan with tongue and groove. Its all coming along very well, with facilities over on that side of our land much improved.

And finally, here a picture to convey just how many seedlings we are still growing to put in the garden. There are still maybe a dozen trays up on the balcony too, which I am moving down to this area, now that the weather is drier and slugs & snails are less active. In these trays we have all sorts, from monkey puzzle trees, alder, jatropha, silver birch and paulownia trees to okra, courgettes, pumpkins, tomatoes, peppers, oca, butternut squash and moonflower plants. Plus much much more. As well as growing the normal and unusual annuals, we are germinating a lot of perennials that will require less work, although our diets may need to change somewhat when we start harvesting these.

I have bought Plants for a Future database of medicinal and edibal plants. Its searchable, and i intend to try to acquire as many of the plants that are rated 5 for edibility or medicine uses over the next year - and perhaps then collect seeds to make them available to others.

Plants for a Future website. A truly fantastic information resource for those seeking self sufficiency, edible diversity or to build a permaculture garden.

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With the help of wwoofers the new table, canvas roof and washing-up area are now completed for the campers’ kitchen caravan.

I also planted a little garden next to the caravan with lemon verbena, 2 types of mint, marjoram, sage, rosemary and thyme for making herbal teas and flavouring foods.

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