Sunny Delight

A couple of weeks ago I installed this solar PV panel on my eco-shed. Buster here provides the scale. He also looks slightly guilty, although I haven't found out why yet. It's a 30w monocrystalline panel from these guys. It's transformed the whole eco-shed thing. The difference is amazing. We can barely keep up with it. We've been charging everything: batteries; laptops; phones. It seems to charge faster than we can use it. Having said that, it's turned the shed into what I wanted: a normal room that we can use whenever. This Friday my wife used it for a full working day. I used it all morning today. Doesn't matter if it's windy or not. Wind just means you can do more stuff! I'm delighted.

My wife said, fairly enough, it's not eco if I keep buying stuff. She's right of course. I've almost finished now. I just need to make a workbench for woodwork and fit some guttering for rainwater capture (for the veg patch) and I'll stop buying shed stuff.

Coffee Slug Bugger

I'm not the world's best gardener. Far from it. The neighbours think I'm cultivating dandelions. I think part of the problem is that I'm time-poor so I tend to binge-garden. I planted a whole load of seeds in seed trays. When they started to come up I removed the propagator lids and the slugs had 'em. I hate slugs. No, not slugs, I hate what they do. Love the slug, hate the crime.

So I've been looking for an organic way of banishing them from my veg patch. I've tried taping copper tape round the sides of the raised beds. Last year I did slug patrol every night with a torch. It worked but was a bit labour intensive.

But now I've heard that coffee grounds work. But I don't have real coffee very often. Starbucks give away coffee grounds by the bucketload, free, fair play to them. So I got a few packets and I've sprinkled it all around the lettuce and radish seedlings. Will it work? Is this the end of slug patrol?

Is 'Reduce' the hardest R?

Reduce, reuse, recycle, the 3 Rs. How well we know them. Most school children can recite them by heart. Now, I can recycle, God knows I can. Every fortnight I put out two bags, full to bursting, for the recycling lorry.

I've recently recovered from a cold. I swore I'd never again take the use of both nostrils for granted. But a week later I don't think twice about it. Recycling came late to Denbighshire (don't laugh Surrey), it's only a few months since we've been able to put out huge bags of plastic, cardboard and glass. But now I don't think twice about it. A month ago it was my daughter's birthday, and as I was stomping on the 10th mound of cardboard packaging from a battery-filled plastic import to squeeze it into another blue bag it occurred to me, did we always put this much refuse out? Where does it all go? And how are we going to stop consuming so much?

So I can recycle. I can reuse to an extent. I haven't bought new socks for ages. But can I reduce? Well this is harder. Kids' toys, books, the latest gadget, this is all too desirable. And there's too much packaging. But is a change on the way? Easter is coming and egg manufacturers are starting to respond to our concerns. Computer manufacturers are starting to tout products with fewer toxins and greater recyclability. So maybe less is the new more. If the market responds to our desires, the trick will be to desire fewer, better things. In smaller boxes.

New 12v circuit for the eco-shed!

Last week I added a new 12 volt circuit to the eco-shed. The idea is that this can be used charge mobile phones and battery chargers etc. without switching on the inverter. The inverter draws power itself to raise the voltage to 240 volts, so it seemed a shame to then use a mobile phone's transformer to take it back down to something like 5 volts again. So I bought a 12 volt adapter, such as you might get for a car for charging 2 items from a 12 volt socket, cut off the bit you plug in, wired it to a 1-way light switch and ran a 2-core cable to the battery. Great!

The bad news? My mobile car phone charger is for an older model of phone and doesn't charge my phone. And the universal adapter I bought to solve that problem doesn't seem to work either. What have I done wrong?? Well I would check but I accidentally left my multimeter on & the battery went flat. And it's a weird battery too, a 12v 23 amp one, so I'll have to order a new one before I find out. Drat!

Does environmental protest work?

I read Plane Stupid's latest blog with mixed feelings of mild amusement and futility. There's some useful contributions to the climate change debate on their website, and there's no doubt that the right to protest is an important part of a functioning democracy. But I have big doubts as to whether waving placards in peoples faces, interrupting public debates and normal peoples' working day has any effect on anyones behaviour at all. It's a democracy. Engage in debate, sure, but don't stifle it, that just leads to stronger polarisation of everyone's views, wastes energy and prevents positive change.

In all likelyhood the global economic downturn will have a bigger effect on airlines that any banners or placards. If you really want to affect change, 

• don't buy out-of-season foods, consumer electronics, clothing or goods manufactured outside of your own country
• become an independent MP and engage in the political debate
• live the life you think people should lead - become an example to us all
• don't get your electricity from the national grid
• use public transport, don't drive (not even to protests!)
• work near where you live
• grow your own food
• plant trees
• buy local

Want to change the world? Change yourself.

Nano-heating for eco-sheds

I spent three hours up there yesterday, marking schoolwork. It worked exactly as planned, a quiet sanctuary in which I could blitz the workload before rejoining the family. It was pretty seriously cold up there, so after a short while my thoughts turned to heating. And that's there they stayed, more or less, until I returned to the house, except for the occasional diversion to wondering whether my toes were still there. 

It's well insulated with eco wool, but that doesn't get it warm in the first place. If it's going to be a proper, year-round alternative workplace, I'll have to heat it. I reckon I've got three options.

• some sort of low energy electric heater like this one, which, apart from the environmental cost of manufacture, should be fairly green once purchased given my windmill energy production. Although I'd really need a solar panel to boost input
• a tiny wood burning stove like this one, I do a bit of woodwork up there and always have plenty of off-cuts, so with sawdust and everything I might have enough to keep warm, carbon-neutrally. But the flue would cost, as it would have to be double-skinned to avoid burning the roof down
• the final option is some kind of wacky tiny solar set-up. I could put a little radiator in the shed linked to another one, painted black (as Mick Jagger suggested) in a glass-fronted box. A tiny solar-powered pump could circulate water round the system. This would be great but I can imagine all sorts of engineering problems and I don't really want to spend the whole summer setting it up.

I'll dwell on it some more, but I can imagine going for the little stove solution preferentially. It seems like the cosiest option. Unless anyone else has got a better idea.

Get the book! And feed the birds!

I've just finished a glass of apple juice made from the last apples from our apple trees, picked in October. I think that's amazing! I didn't even store them properly! I left them in plastic bags in the conservatory which is not really the recommended storage method. Mind you, most of them were all wrinkly and some of them went off as a result of my inadequate storage regime. But that had an unexpected benefit. With the cold weather the poor old birds here have zip to eat at the moment. I've put out seeds for them and boy! do they get through them. So I chucked the rest the apples out for them and they love them! What a green solution to the winter bird-feeding problem. Next year I'll try to store them properly (I'll get some apple boxes from the grocers) and save more for us and the birds.

Ok, a plug. I've written some notes outlining how to wind-power your shed, just like me! They're very comprehensive and take you step-by-step through the whole thing, from sourcing materials to having plans for the brackets and things. They're available from ebay here and they're terribly good value and 2 quid. I'm trying to raise cash for me solar panel, you see.