2015 in Review & 2016 New Research Topics

Terra Thunder Research Topics In Review for 2015:

1. Food Production - we learned a lot this year about working larger fields, overall I believe we had a successful year of Food Production, in all we harvested over 180kg of food (400+ lbs) in 5 plots, although it was mainly 2 that we were harvesting from. We were slow to develop the soil at the Terra Thunder Test Farm, but over the fall we've doubled the planting area that is sheet mulched so we look forward to producing much more there this year.

2. Urban Food System - we've been successfully using our custom Google Apps Script web apps to track production, if anyone is interested in the link here; still more to develop, the next thing is to develop something to track seed assets 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Pl16jtDbF71-GkSQ8TfCutk3L17_XIa9Ia1Y0qfrSDY/edit?usp=sharing

3. Black Solider Fly Larvae (BSFL) - after having tried raising BSFL, I find that the amount of effort required is too much for the benefit, our vermicomposting process is easy, streamlined and goes at a decent rate. Although it was clear the BSFL could process material faster, I wasn't able to get them to mate and therefore couldn't sustain the population. Most likely the temperature was the main factor, as they like really hot I wasn't going to spend money to heat them up to 30 degrees. I think for others BSFL may make sense for their operation but I believe just worms are the right decomposters for us.

4. Thunder Core - haven't had much of a chance to update the Arduino code for the unit, but we're installing a new set of grow lights in a different area so will likely be working on this in 2016.

5. Beekeeping - our Flow Hive has arrived! Assembled now and waiting for some varnishing with linseed oil. Bees are ordered and should be in by end of June.

6. Aquaponics - didn't have a chance to build any Aquaponic setup last year, we'll see if this year we get the opportunity

7. Biomass/Biochar Production - the biochar that was produced in the past has disappeared into the garden, it doesn't feel as though it's produced much benefit, especially compared to some of the permaculture techniques that have produced significant benefit (Hugelkulture & Swales)

New for 2016

1. Humanure! This has been on the list to start for a long time, in 2016 we're looking to start biogas production at the Tennis Court Garden site based on the SOLAR CITIES system design; http://www.solarcities.eu/about

2. Rammed Earth - the concept of using our very clay soils to build structures is very intriguing, this year we're hoping to try out some rammed earth casting and stabilizing techniques to make bricks and see what kind of structures we can build with them.

3. Solar Dehydrator - with all the produce that we grew last year, it was clear that a dehydrator would come in very handy, we are looking to build one of these babies; http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/tools/solar-food-dehydrator-plans-zm0z14jjzmar.aspx

4. Fruit & Nut Trees - this year we are looking to start our Food Forest Nursery! Will be purchasing some young bare root fruit and nut trees and will look to plant them and start growing them to produce more trees. Some of the exciting varieties we'll be starting with; Hardy Kiwi, North American Hazel & Butternut

So you want to install solar? Our experience

About a year ago we started investigating rooftop solar photovoltaics.

Why?
- we believe everyone should be energy independent (in fact we are aiming to generate a lot more than we consume; this fits into our goal to become better than self-sufficient - net positive!)
- the roof is typically a underutilized space
- we also investigated a green roof - it would've been the more ecologically friendly option but decided against it because a) requires more attention to maintain b) permits may have been more difficult and c) we were looking to produce electrical output

There's some debate as to whether solar panels are actually net positive. Based on my estimates I believe that overall its life cycle after accounting for total cost of production and ownership, there is definitely a net benefit but the scope of that discussion is outside what is covered in this document.

After doing a bunch of research and finding a lot of good information, we decided to install the panels ourselves. I would encourage people to seriously look at DIY, as the whole process was actually not as bad as it first seemed. Especially with the wealth of videos and information out there. We believe in Open Source and spreading knowledge so we will update this page to share as much information as we can about the process.

A Roof Anchor and Harness was Critical

Our installation is a grid-tie ~5kW system with a single inverter. A lot of the following information may be valuable for those signing up for the Ontario MicroFIT program.

Here is a general list of steps that we followed; (Enersource has a good list also: MicroFit Process)

1. Conduct preliminary feasibility, design and engineering of the system

• rough estimates of roof space will give you an estimate on how many panels you can install
• seek local vendors for solar and electrical parts
• first pass at a bill of materials and costing

2. Apply to OPA(IESO) for the MicroFIT application

• pretty straight forward application, most tedious part is that you need to print off a document from the Land Registry Office
• application can take some time so need to allot about a month, other applications can be started in parallel

3. Apply to local utility for approval to generate

• need to provide a single line diagram such as ours below;

Single Line Diagram of Our Solar Installation

4. Check gate: Upon approvals from IESO and local utility - CONTINUE! If we didn't get approval we would've changed and done a smaller off-grid system instead. One important thing to note here is that the IESO will provide you an offer to connect, and it expires in 180 days, so you must complete your project in that time (ie you must complete up to step 8 below) otherwise your offer expires

5. Apply to local municipality for building permit

• This part was the most difficult as you need to have all your drawings ready to go. Each municipality will have different drawing requirements so these may not be relevant for others but I'll include our drawings here to help anyone looking for examples (there are other examples online) 
• SitePlan 
• PlanView 
• SideView 
• Roof Framing Plan
• You will likely need an engineer to review and approve your design, this part was more difficult but with enough reading you can figure it out. There are engineers online who can approve your design, we just followed the document here to design our roof framing plan and calculate point loads, wind and snow loads, etc

6. Buy it & Build it!

Showing Rails and Flashing from Kinetic Solar

• I made a basic sheet to keep track of costs and ROI even though we would've gone ahead regardless of the economics. If you want to see a breakout of all our costs see the sheet here; Terra Thunder Solar Bill of Materials & Cost Sheet
• Some costs which were higher than expected, one was the cost of the solar panel brackets, as well as the cost for wiring as typically the PV wiring and ground wiring required is more expensive than standard wiring 
• Some installation items to note: to comply with ESA; the outdoor DC wiring needs to be UL PV Cable or TECK cable at least #10AWG, and need to match colour standards so RED for positive and BLACK for negative
• All the rails need to be bonded (connected electrically) together and the ground needs to be connected back to the street (the basement water pipe). The ground wire used must have some green cladding and be at least #6AWG - personally I think this ground requirement is overkill and adds additional cost
• Wire connectors also need to be the solar standard MC4 type, I bought them from my solar distributor for $5 a pair. I only needed about 6 pairs so that isn't a big cost, you could probably order online for cheaper but I was in a rush
• For our installation we used about 60' of RED PV Wire and 60' of BLACK PV Wire, 150' of Ground Wire and a 30' length of 4/10 TECK cable

Photo of Grid Tie Inverter Installed (Old Single Meter is still there)

7. Connect it to the grid and inspect it (ESA)

• At this point I had installed the PV panels and the Solar Inverter. To complete the grid tie in, a certified electrician needs to work with your local utility to 1) Disconnect your house power 2) Install your new meter base and disconnect switch 3) Re-install your house meter 4) Power everything back on. 
• I learned that is it very important to properly schedule a disconnect date for this to happen with your local utility, in my case I called in just before Xmas (around Dec 22nd) and didn't get a disconnect date until Jan 23rd! If I was doing it again I would definitely have scheduled it ahead, and if you end up missing the date you can be waiting another month!
• Before you can schedule a disconnect, the local utility wants to know you've taken out the required ESA permits so you will need to provide them an ESA notification number, I did some parts of the electrical myself (the parts that don't require certified electrician)
• So a note on the whole ESA inspection process; because I did the DC portion myself, (wiring from panels to inverter) I had to take out my own inspection permit for this, and the electrician took 2 separate inspection permits: 1) Re-connection of the existing house electrical and 2) the AC portion of the solar microFIT project *THIS WAS A CRITICAL DISTINCTION* as I found that my original electrician had not taken out the right permits and so I would've been screwed come disconnect day, thankfully I found a new electrician in time to do it right. From my experience an electrician who is an ESA ACP is the right way to go hands down. The ESA inspection process is quite tedious, it took about a week to schedule the inspection and I had to call daily to reschedule. If you have more time you can set a hard date but since I was under the gun I had to call every day to be put on the daily inspection (not guaranteed)
• The actual electrical installation process took only a day, it was complicated by a couple things such as having to move a downspout and the fact that even though I ordered the correct dual meter base as per the local utility, there are 2 different models (left hand/right hand) the model I had being left hand which didn't fit my installation well (electrician had to spend more time moving things) and local utility seemed to complain about it (even though it is their fault for listing that as an acceptable model)
• If you note on the new meter base, there are black labels on there (lamacoids) which I printed from a local engraver shop, each utility will have different requirements so that will need to be checked

Left: New disconnect switch with fuses (connected after the Inverter before the new meter)

Right: new dual meter base, existing meter installed back and as you can see on the right side, the base is empty waiting for a new bi directional meter that is supplied by the local utility

• Something interesting to note about the electrical portion; even though you've purchased these parts, the local utility will take over ownership basically after they've been on site. So if a fuse blows in the disconnect switch, I'm on the hook to buy a replacement but I can't get in there unless I call the utility to remove their lock for me to replace them
• After the disconnect date, it still took about 2 weeks for the local utility to install the 2nd meter and lock up the disconnect switch

8. Final Connection and Information Back-and-Forth

• The final part of the connection was actually the MOST painful:
• Upon successful ESA inspection of both DC and AC parts of your installation, a "CONNECTION AUTHORIZATION" is generated by ESA. ESA will send this directly to your local utility but for some STUPID reason you don't get a copy. Even though IESO requires you to get this document to submit to complete your contract. SO....you need to fill out a "FREEDOM OF INFORMATION" request to ESA and pay $60. I think this is ultra retarded, essentially they need to know you've passed the inspection but they don't accept the Certificate of Inspection that you get and want this instead. And the information on there is so basic! (Attached below) You would think after filing out an FOI you would get something classified about aliens or political sex scandals or some such....

Connection Authorization Pretty Much is This. WTF I could've told you this information, this provides no value???

• After the connection authorization, IESO will still request additional (they didn't tell me what) information, I had to followup several times to ensure the local utility provided this
• Once the Connection Authorization is complete, IESO updates your status from Pending Connection to Connection Complete and will send you the finalized contract. Here's a copy of my contract

9. Inspect it (local municipality)

• Although we scheduled an final inspection with the city, the inspector came and pretty much just asked for a certificate of installation as they are not qualified to inspect it, so we generated a letter with an engineer stamped signoff saying everything was installed as per design and meets code

10. Sit back and enjoy the sunshine.

• Flipping the switch finally was a great feeling. After configuring the inverter for about an hour you're ready to rock! It's web connected now so it sends data to a cloud service every minute or so
• There's a mobile and web app too, if you want to see my system's real-time output please see my page here; https://www.solarweb.com/Home/System/598e2c84-2336-4336-902d-a5a6016b1715

Other links that were useful;

Amped Solar MicroFIT Documents

Black Walnut Harvesting

Haven't seen a lot on the interwebs on the art and science of Black Walnut Harvesting so thought that we'd add some content here.

Robbed Many Squirrels Here

Here's some things we've found thus far;

Quick Glossary
Husk - green/yellow software material on the outside
Shell - hard casing around the seed
Seed/Nut Meat - the delicious insides

When to Pick
- always had more success waiting for them to drop than to manually pick them, unless you have a very small tree there should be MORE than sufficient nuts dropping to compensate for animals eating them
- internet says skin needs to be pliable to the touch, it is true that typically the ones with harder shells are more unripe and will generally have smaller nut meat, but if you wait for them to fall, they will all be as ripe as they ever will be

Keep or Discard the Husk
- outer green husk is an excellent storage device (obviously), the nuts that stay inside the husk are nice and moist for months and months
- squirrels are smart, the ones they don't eat right away, they bury in the ground with the husk so they can dig up later, and nuts will be good to go (seeds don't seem to sprout readily with husk on) this method should work for humans too
- most internet sources will tell you to remove the husk first thing, this is due to the fact that if you have a hole in the nut's inner shell, the juglone in the husk will bleed into the nut
- why is this bad? I've found only one source about juglone negatively affecting humans, so not so sure about that. It also apparently causes a bitter taste, this is true but only slightly. It also turns the nut meat dark black which isn't nice
- the problem is that if your seed has a hole, you will probably have juglone in there before you remove the husk anyways
- approach that we've found that works is to just keep the husk on, and open the whole thing together, removing just the husk seems to be an extra laborious step
- one trade-off: if you are eating "fresh" nuts (ie < a few months old) by not removing the husk, the nut meat typically stays moist and so will be somewhat harder to remove because the nut will be larger and still be pressing against the shell. This is not a big issue though

Husk On

Husk Off

Harvest Procedure

- fixture the nut vertically with something like clamps or pliers (top of the nut is where the branch connection was) 

- HULK SMASH with hammer or stone

- shell will shatter and nut meat can be extracted

- compost any nuts that look gnarly (ie totally black from juglone, infested with bugs, etc) 

- to note: composting this juglone stuff seems to cause problems with other plants so isolate these and add them to walkways or where plants are not growing

Held Vertically

Opened Shell Showing Nut Meat

Enjoy

Much Stronger Flavour Than Normal Walnuts, Buttery Taste

Review: Stainless Steel Hori Hori Knife (Lee Valley)

We've been looking for an awesome gardening multitool for a while. We even drove down to the US to look for something. In the end, trusty Lee Valley provided us an amazing product, the Hori Hori Knife.

Based on the reviews it's easy to see why this is a great tool. Rugged, made of thick stainless, well weight balanced, the makers spent a lot of time designing a good product. Here's my thoughts after having put it through some heavy use for the last few months.

SUMMARY
Pros
- Very rugged
- Cuts and digs accurately
- Can be leveraged full weight
- low profile

Cons
- pricey
- low holding capacity

First, let me say that we already own or share a lot of stainless hardwood handled garden hand tools. So we already know that most can do the job, but in the end I could replace 3-4 different tools with just one Hori.

Also, the way we use tools is likely a bit more harsh than the average gardener, we are building a lot of new capacity now, so we will be digging through rough, hard, superclay fill. Anyone who has tried gardening in urban environments will know what I'm talking about. This stuff is a pain in the ass to work so requires higher quality tools.

Cutting/Digging/Transplanting 10/10
This is where the Hori shines, I can easily cut through grass infested soil, deweed, cut accurately and dig out large 1/2"-1" roots with this. The main thing that impressed me was that I can fully leverage my weight on this knife without feeling that the tool is going to snap and cut through my face. The serrated side of the knife cuts easily through most brush and I've used it exclusively for cutting grass out of soil. The flat sharp side cuts jute and other stuff real nice.

Mixing/Carrying 7/10
The blade is thin for accuracy so the tradeoff is not having a ton of volume to hold material, if I was transferring lots of material I would use a larger trowel. When mixing components this knife works well.

Ergonomics 9/10
The handle is well crafted and feels solid. There have never been burrs or edges that make it uncomfortable to hold. A tapered contour may help the knife in some situations but I've not encountered a situation that made the knife awkward to use.

Price 6/10
You get what you pay for. It's definitely not priced to compete as a standard gardening tool, at Lee Valley it set us back $40CDN versus a whatever hand trial that would go for $10.

Conclusion
If you are in the market for an all-round garden knife I strongly recommend the Hori. I don't need to carry around as many tools to our various urban garden sites, I won't be caught hiking without a tool to retrieve 'samples' and most likely this knife will last me for many years to come.

2015 Research Topics @ Terra Thunder

With spring fast approaching, there's a whole bunch of cool projects that we are planning to start tackling this year. Here's a list of the current priority items.

1. Food production, of course!
The goal this year is to maximize our yield with the urban land(s) we are growing on. We will also be growing seeds for use next year on our loaned farm property in Stoney Creek ON. Also known as the Terra Thunder Centre of Excellence!

It's difficult finding reliable yield information from diversified organic farms but from what I gather something in the range of 2000-2500 lbs/acre is a good target. (ref: http://goo.gl/MweQGU).

There's a whole bunch of new varieties that we haven't grown before so it will be a great learning (and eating) experience. Take a look at our seed listing if you haven't yet: http://goo.gl/sJnZaF

2. Urban Food System
We're building a simple gardening ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) leveraging all the tools and power of GOOGLE!

The system aims to feature; a way to plan diversified cropping, input timesheets, track farm resources, post production, allow the general public to view production, and hopefully the close the loop a way for people to "purchase" the produce.

Why GOOGLE?
- costs free-ninety nice
- tools are there and it's supported well
- accessible enough for non-technical people to get into it
Besides, I've been meaning to play around with google apps script anyways. When/if the time comes to transition to something more developed and custom, all the data will be easy to collect and export anyways.

3. Black Solider Fly Larvae (BSFL)
These nasty maggots have gotten me hot and steamy like never before. I believe this species will become as prevalent in the composting community as red wiggler worms have in the past few years. I don't think BSFL will replace our worms; we will continue vermicomposting for the rich compost material, but for fats, meats and other non-worm items I'm hopeful this is the solution.

Check out these awesome time-lapses!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww1CAsTvAJs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaoVBlS8iVA

4. Thunder Core
A project we've been working on in the last year; an automated and remotely controlled horticultural controller, internet-connected with sensors including PH, dissolved oxygen, moisture, built on Arduino hardware. We're hoping to finalize and test the first prototype at one of the urban farm properties this year.

5. Beekeeping
We got swept up in the fervor of the recent Flow Hive buzz. (haha I'm so punny)

If you haven't seen; https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flow-hive-honey-on-tap-directly-from-your-beehive

On it's way to becoming the most funded project in history, which is awesome! Too bad it won't be shipping in time for this season so you can look forward to tasting our honey earliest in 2016. As responsible beekeepers though, we will be taking workshops, getting protective equipment, etc this year.

6. Aquaponics
Been planning to work on this for the longest time, looking to jump in this 2015 season. Tilapia anyone?

7. Biomass/Biochar Production
This year we'll be looking to improve on our TLUD design and produce more biochar for the urban gardens.
Something like this; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OitA6hQBic

Look forward to more updates!

EDIT: Almost forgot one of the big ones
8. Mycology
Mushrooms! So good, and so low maintenance? We will be starting to produce our own spores of popular edible mushrooms including; cremini/portabello, shitake and oyster which are apparently the easiest to grow. After that, I'd like to get good at producing the medicinal and highly plant beneficial mushrooms such as red reishi & general mycorrhiza types for soil amendments.

Aphids: Garlic Solution is an Effective Method for IPM

With Integrated Pest Management (IPM) on everyone's mind during growing season, aphids are one enemy in the fight that seems difficult to counter, so we set out to investigate one method we've been using on aphids to control their population & spread; garlic.

There is much scientific brevity here. It works so I'm not going to write a full paper on it, just trying to demonstrate to you that this stuff is the shit.

Theory
Garlic contains certain chemicals such as sulfur that will harm and deter aphids.

Method
Garlic Solution - 3 to 4 Cloves of garlic (Allium sativum) sourced from common grocery variety (imported from China, bleh) was minced and dropped into tap water (approximately 4X the volume of the minced garlic, although up to 10X water should still be effective) inside a plastic bottle.

Live aphids (some died in transport) we're observed in the presence of the garlic solution versus a control (trying to drown them with tap water)

6.4X Objective* Showing Metric Rule
With Aphid on Pepper Flower

40X Objective* on Aphid

*Wild Heerbrugg M3 Microscope with 10X Eyepiece

Observations
Control: Water had little to no effect on aphids. Their bodies seem to float above and so as seen in the video they are quite lively while floating atop. The effect of aerosolized water also did not seem to phase aphids while on the plants.



Garlic Solution: The moment the aphids touched the solution, activity slowed. Within 10 seconds of exposure, all subjects either had no movement or only tiny (end of arm twitching or similar) reactions.



Conclusion & Application
This stuff works well and is easy to synthesize yourself. Create your own garlic solution and upcycle an aerosol type container (our container of choice is eyeglass cleaner) to spray on effected plants and other areas where you think aphids may go. Spraying liberally will help control populations faster.

What you will find is they start dying off, turn black, and drop to the floor eventually. We've seen no adverse plant affects with the limited concentrations that are applied.

Terra Thunder : The Genesis

As a first post to the Terra Thunder blog I guess it's important to try and explain what exactly we are trying to achieve here....(as I've gotten this question quite a few times) so here goes...

Please excuse anything that may be construed as technical jargon, an engineering background does that to you.

What is Terra Thunder?
Terra Thunder is the operating name that covers the projects we are undertaking towards building practical procedures and methods for a fully community sustainable, self-reliant existence.

What do you define as a sustainable and self-reliant existence?
Where one can sustainably produce the following 1. FOOD 2. WATER 3. HEAT/ENERGY 4. ESSENTIAL MATERIALS (clothing, building mtls, etc) without the assistance of; corporations, governments etc. Our primary focus at the start will be in food.

What is the goal of the sustainable existence model?
We'd like to see each person, with community support, manage entirely all their own inputs & outputs, from cradle to grave, and start becoming producers and not consumers.

What will be the key activities?
There is already a vast and extensive knowledge base of practices out there to "go green" or "live sustainably", we aim to filter some of the noise and show by doing what are the most successful practices. In so doing, build and join them into a set of practical guides that we will go out and help others execute upon, locally and globally.

What is the revenue model?
We see revenue in the traditional sense as a barrier to self-reliance, fundamentally our monetary/currency system makes it such that heavy imports/exports and many unsustainable practices are encouraged. So we are aiming to conduct these projects as self-sustaining units and not rely on any recurring revenue. Instead we look at this as producing a value exchange. Barter? Sort of, but I think we can do better. More on this later...

As any good organization we are like a living organism and will be morphing and changing as we find success and failure. We encourage anyone with a similar mindset to reach out, say hi, and of course we are always on the lookout for important value partners.

There will be more to come...hopefully you will understand by seeing what we are doing in the posts to follow and participate in the development of our projects. Thanks for reading!