Building Green: A complete how-to guide to alternative building methods
Authors: Clarke Snell and Tim Callahan
I checked this beautiful book out of the library because Adam and I are talking about building a shed/playhouse next spring and I wanted to do a little green building research.
The whole book is basically a complete and well-photographed documentation of a little cottage that the authors built using several different alternative building methods: cob, cordwood, straw bale, and earth plaster with a living plant roof. The entire process is covered in exhaustive detail, from initial dreams to site plans, laying a foundation, building each wall, the roof, etc.
As interesting as it was, and as beautiful as the photography was, this book really does not apply to my situation at all. I’m not bloody likely to be building a house anytime soon, as much as I like to fantasize about it. I need to get a “how to green up your 50-year-old, completely improperly situated (from a passive solar perspective), and possibly poorly-sited house (our house sits on a former wetland, which we didn’t know until after we bought it) without breaking the bank” book. Does this book exist?
One of the cooler things about Building Green is that there is a ton of related content on the authors’ website. Since the book came out, Snell and Callahan have started a business, The Nau Haus: they’ve created their own natural building system. There are some very cool home plan ideas on their website.
If you are building a house or cabin anytime soon, I would definitely give this a read and see whether you want to incorporate some of the ideas found here. Even if the idea of using cob or straw bales sounds horrifying to you, there are other things you can consider, such as siting your house to maximize its passive solar potential and thereby reducing your long-term heating and cooling costs.
As for our little playhouse/shed, well, we’ll see what we can come up with.
Here I am digging them up. (And seriously look how big her onions are. I am totally jealous, though I got to take some of those home, too.)
We packed up a flat and brought them home and planted them in my failed-rhubarb spot from earlier this spring. I like strawberries better than rhubarb anyway.
I am always doing this work in half-light which really impedes my photography, but oh well you get the point. This is the east side of the garden, at the front of the house (SE corner). My plan for this spot is asparagus along the back, then a little walking path (yet to be installed) and then strawberries in front. As you can see I have an unplanned hollyhock. A HUGE unplanned hollyhock. I planted it from seed last year and it never really did anything so I had counted it as a loss.
Coming later this week: homemade kimchi!
Our CSA box from 
OK, I’m off to bed now. If you want to follow our CSA progress week by week, 
The recommended way of getting rid of it is simply picking it off the plant and squishing it. This was harder than I thought it would be, since these suckers can fly! I was a pretty comical sight, swatting around my garden tonight. I killed 4 or 5 of them, and Adam killed 4 or 5 of them this afternoon. Does 10 bugs make an infestation? I’m not sure. I’m going to keep checking several times a day for the next few days and see if I can get some more.
These beans are really confusing me. It said “bush habit” on the package, and they’re sorta bushy. But they’re sorta vine-y too. So vine-y that they started wrapping around themselves and the garlic over on the right of them. So today I constructed some little teepees to give them a little bit of support. These are “Black Valentine” beans, an heirloom variety. Anyone else grown this type before?
Adam also added more support to our pea/pole bean structure this week. The whole thing was on the verge of collapse, then clutsy Jennifer fell onto it and collapsed it for good. I think my head has been elsewhere lately because I didn’t notice until today that WE HAVE PEAS:
Like, ready-to-pick peas! Going to try to hold out another day or two so there’s enough for an actual meal.
Brussels sprouts guild: It looks like my guild plan here might not work out after all. The brussels sprouts have gotten so huge that the lettuce, green onions, and dill that I interplanted with them are now completely shaded. I will probably still eat that lettuce as “micro lettuce” when all my other lettuce is done, but I don’t expect to get much dill or green onions. But that’s OK because the main point was that those plants benefit the brussels by repelling insects that eat brussels sprouts (supposedly).
Lettuce/peppers: My lettuce is ready to be picked. NOW. It will bolt soon. But I have two heads of lettuce from my CSA in the fridge. I am overwhelmed with lettuce right now. It’s even kinda crowding my peppers right now, poor things. If you live in or near Minneapolis and want some lettuce, send me an e-mail at jrensenbrink [at] hotmail [.] com and you can totally come and pick some up. In return would you have coffee and talk about sustainability with me for 1/2 hour?
Radishes/Parsnips: Once again not much to see here, except the fact that the radishes are completely gone, and now the parsnips are really starting to take off. I had a parsnip anxiety moment last week when I was afraid that only 2 or 3 of them had sprouted in the left-hand row. Without mercy, I pulled every single remaining radish. Shortly thereafter we got a nice rain, and a bunch of parsnips suddenly popped up. Thank goodness. 
Tomatoes: OK, this is the lamest animation of the bunch. I cannot seem to get two pictures from exactly the same angle. Hopefully you get the idea. My tomatoes are freakin’ huge! And covered with blossoms! Yippeee!
Even typing that post title, it still sounds completely crazy. One year ago, I never would have imagined that this was where I was headed. I wasn’t even baking my own bread yet! Yet here I was 3 weeks ago, searching Craigslist for secondhand grain mills, and found one for $50. I brought it home, unsure of what to expect.
I was actually really scared to use it because Adam had read some Amazon reviews where it burned out Kitchenaid motors. I waited a few days, then I tried milling some wheat berries. Turns out my fears were unfounded; the Kitchenaid didn’t even heat up. (That is one product I would heartily endorse as worth the extra money.)
Stacking Functions Garden 