Food Forest Update
5:37
8 ай бұрын
Leaky Weirs 2
27:32
3 жыл бұрын
Making Biochar with a Wood Heater
23:27
Compost Bin
11:55
7 жыл бұрын
Compost The Easy Way
11:47
7 жыл бұрын
Wicking Beds
7:45
7 жыл бұрын
Green Houses
6:42
7 жыл бұрын
Food Forest
15:27
7 жыл бұрын
Leaky Weirs
11:29
7 жыл бұрын
3. Rain Water Utilization
6:26
7 жыл бұрын
2. Fire
5:20
7 жыл бұрын
Introduction
7:07
7 жыл бұрын
Пікірлер
@unpopuIaropinion
@unpopuIaropinion 9 күн бұрын
Is it safe to do this in a hot climate (Crete, Greece) In the summer, surfaces can get up to 50 celcius under the sun (air temp max 40C)
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 9 күн бұрын
The bacteria in a methane biodigester comes from the intestines of cows. So 40 deg C is only a few degrees higher. Unless your average air temperature goes well above 40 degrees you won't have any problems. Cold countries are the places that can't have unheated biodigesters.
@davidgordon1981
@davidgordon1981 3 ай бұрын
You need to explain the chute you built to stop the concrete from overflowing the form work. Other than that this is an excellent video! Thanks again.
@davidgordon1981
@davidgordon1981 3 ай бұрын
Mimicking natural processes? It works because you are not fighting natural processes. Cool thanks!
@edwardpeters6389
@edwardpeters6389 3 ай бұрын
Excellent work and nicely explained
@benperry1464
@benperry1464 3 ай бұрын
Mate looking at the slope of your land you could run a trench fron the side of the weir on contour with the hill out in either direction then drop some ag pipe in it and fill it in again and fill that with your weir greatly increasing your seapage area and increasing your grass production although this would consume alot more of your water and reduce the amount of time your valy ran water into the dry area though you could always have a valve for the system and stop using it in the later part of the wet season so you could get the best of both worlds and it would increas the total saturation of the valley during the wet witch would lead to more seapage
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 3 ай бұрын
I have seriously considered this in the past. The reason I haven't done it is because when we get enough rain to make the gully run and fill the weirs, the ground is already saturated. However there is one reason I could possibly still do it, is that during massive rain events that we can get in the wet season, the soil can get waterlogged. I have lost fruit trees to waterlogging. So the agi pipes would be taking excess water out of the soil and into the weirs to minimise waterlogging. However my reading seems to show that it is difficult to have a substantial effect on the water table using just agi pipes. I would be better off using trenches. I tried one trench and it got overgrown and became a hazard.
@absolootely2571
@absolootely2571 3 ай бұрын
Hay-bale walls. I like that idea.
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 3 ай бұрын
Hay bale walls are only useful on a permanent or semi-permanent watercourse. My gully is a normally dry gully that only flows a couple of times a year.
@erwinsegers3696
@erwinsegers3696 4 ай бұрын
Here we have normally sufficient rain (no dry season) but with other goasl (such as a reserve for fish ) the leaky weirs were amlready known in the 12th century 🙂. castle of Gaasbeek ponds
@fuckfannyfiddlefart
@fuckfannyfiddlefart 5 ай бұрын
Live VEGAN, meat is MURDER
@ynocoolnamesleft
@ynocoolnamesleft 5 ай бұрын
i commented 4 years ago, i love what you've done and the video is great, i've since read peter andrews book, i'd say based on what he's said that you had any strong flow at all during a flood means you didn't have enough weirs in place as he describes that australia's rivers as having very little flow and were more like ponds, but a very interesting video that youtube recommended to me again!
@Mach1Greeble
@Mach1Greeble 3 ай бұрын
I'm not sure you appreciate how much water the flodds pushed through people's land.
@ynocoolnamesleft
@ynocoolnamesleft 3 ай бұрын
@@Mach1Greeble fair enough probably not but in his book Peter andrews says how previously all of this was captured on the land stored underground to last with the dry spells, but probably a lot to ask for one property to do
@JPHER217
@JPHER217 5 ай бұрын
Interesting.. I was thinking of trying this on a natural gas generator..
@gordonsmit3396
@gordonsmit3396 6 ай бұрын
Awesome 👌🏻
@barnabyvonrudal1
@barnabyvonrudal1 7 ай бұрын
How much of a collection area (above) would you need for a leaky weir to be beneficial? Got a few possible areas but there's not much catchment area above.
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 7 ай бұрын
It will depend on how much and how often the gully flows. Here the gully typically only flows a couple of times a year, but when it does, it flows with decreasing amounts for a week or more. The catchment is about a kilometre long and two hundred metres wide. Our average yearly rainfall is about 650mm. There is enough water flowing to fill up ten or so weirs in the first day or two. After that the overflow goes to the river. So you could manage with substantially smaller catchment. My weirs still tend to be dry for at least 6 months of the year. They tend to empty from the top one down, as some of the seepage from each weir goes into those below it in the gully.
@barnabyvonrudal1
@barnabyvonrudal1 7 ай бұрын
Cool project! Do you see many more mosquitos as a result?
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 7 ай бұрын
The tadpoles seem to eat the mossie lava.
@davidoutdoors74
@davidoutdoors74 7 ай бұрын
Great video , biogas to me is the best way to power ones home. Im going to build two more digesters to add to my two that i have.
@hsew
@hsew 8 ай бұрын
Thanks for the video. So besides the smell there is no downside to running just regular biogas as opposed to biomethane in your burners and water heater?
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 8 ай бұрын
Biomethane is just biogas that has been refined to remove maybe two thirds of the CO2 and the hydrogen sulphide. It will burn a bit hotter than the regular biogas and will be more suitable for a direct replacement for natural gas in reticulated gas systems in towns and cities. It will have a smell added so that you can smell a leak. There is no smell from burnt biogas. The liquid fertiliser output has a bit of a smell but is not an unpleasant smell. Considering the hydrogen sulphide is a bit corrosive I wouldn't use it in a complicated system like a water heater. However you can put biogas through an activated carbon bed to remove the hydrogen sulphide and my previous bought system came with this, but i didn't find it necessary and didn't want to have to keep buying the activated carbon filters. That system also came with chlorine tablets for sterilizing the liquid output, but i found it destroyed the value of it as a fertilizer. You are unlikely to produce enough biogas to have enough to spare on top of cooking use. I have to be careful to use the biogas as efficiently as possible in order for it produce all my cooktop needs. I also have an induction cooktop for when I don't have enough biogas.
@allseezen3336
@allseezen3336 8 ай бұрын
very cool project. can you share the nursery and different species you have and want to propagate? possible use cases aswell. also, do you have any friends or associates that have properties in the really dry areas/ red desert, that is under and management?
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 8 ай бұрын
Most of the fruit trees I have planted are grafted, however some are grown from seed. With the seedlings, I aim to have ten or so trees of any type so I can select those that grow best to produce the best fruit in my soil, water and climate. For the native trees, most are what we call dry rainforest trees that can handle some frost and dryer conditions than tropical rainforest trees. I am also planting butterfly host plants and rainforest vines etc. Most of these I buy in 50mm tubes and grow them on and repot them a couple of times until they are a metre or so high in a couple of years. If I plant them smaller very few survive. I found commercial potting mix not suitable as it rots down to almost nothing and can leave the roots hanging in the air in a hole. I make my own potting mix with only about 30% compost that rots down. The rest doesn't break down once planted out: charcoal, pearlite, vermiculite and about 15% soil. By the time the large pots are planted out there isn't much more rotting down of the compost to happen in the soil.
@improvetheworldnow
@improvetheworldnow 9 ай бұрын
as far as the erosion control goes I think you'd be better to go with dispersed deep rooting tied in with grass roots. shade cloth is just going to make a sheet that could potentially be cleaved off in high volume 100-1000 year flood events. the roots can make a much more stable network if diversity of depth and density is taken into account
@improvetheworldnow
@improvetheworldnow 9 ай бұрын
but still, what you're doing is awesome
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 9 ай бұрын
That hasn't turned out to be the case. The grass roots go through the shade cloth and bind it to the ground. However the upstream end must not be subject to erosion by being buried in the concrete or by continuing down into deep water on the upstream side The worst that has happened in a few tiny spots is the shade cloth gets exposed.
@improvetheworldnow
@improvetheworldnow 9 ай бұрын
this video contains a potential passage to a fundamental truth of the nature of form
@mathewritchie
@mathewritchie 9 ай бұрын
You can get diamond grinders to fit an angle grinder and then you could plane down the high spots on the concrete walls.
@davejensen7922
@davejensen7922 9 ай бұрын
Awesome work
@davidblake8612
@davidblake8612 Жыл бұрын
Not a fan of concrete etc. I prefer the ones others create, like the first one you show here.
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems Жыл бұрын
The first weir is the best, most natural looking weir. However the problem is the materials and machinery required. The concrete weirs do the same job, can be created by one person without needing any more machinery than a hired trencher. So it's a choice between looks and practicality.
@Ifyouarehurtnointentwasapplied
@Ifyouarehurtnointentwasapplied Жыл бұрын
kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z4XYaoemZtmag5osi=H8W4lpk7rs-NXSIK India spreading water with wiers 👏☝️✌️
@AnnaBananaRepublic
@AnnaBananaRepublic Жыл бұрын
New sub because of this vid. Love it.
@leedza
@leedza Жыл бұрын
Technical the concrete dams are just that shallow dams or wiers in the engineering sense. That said the effect is still profound. Slow and spread the water and hydrate the soil in the process.
@james3199
@james3199 Жыл бұрын
It seems odd to use materials like plastic and concrete. Why not just use wood, sticks, stone and a bit of clay. The sediment from runoff will fill in where needed. In saying that it looks/sounds like it is having a good effect.
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems Жыл бұрын
My first weir used logs, rocks and clay that I had from my building site and a backhoe to build. It works fine and is the best looking of my weirs. It was particularly good because the logs were wedged behind growing large trees However to do more like that I would need to buy the clay and I wouldn't have the braced logs. My aim is to develop a type of weir that doesn't need heavy machinery to build, so that anyone can build them relatively cheaply, just hiring a trencher for the footing. I can build the concrete weirs pretty much all on my own, with just a friend helping with the concrete pour. With my next design using plastic sheet piles I should be able to do it totally on my own, and do away with all the work making the formwork for the concrete. It should be the least labour intensive of them all and still not be expensive to build.
@freethoth
@freethoth Жыл бұрын
What part of the country are you in?
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems Жыл бұрын
Three hours drive NW of Brisbane, near Kingaroy. Being well inland we get about half the annual rainfall of Brisbane.
@hoyks1
@hoyks1 Жыл бұрын
And going off the noise, the frogs are really hating it ;-).
@RobsAquaponics
@RobsAquaponics Жыл бұрын
Thanks again mate. 👍👍
@RobsAquaponics
@RobsAquaponics Жыл бұрын
Thanks for the look & ideas mate.
@peperillon
@peperillon 2 жыл бұрын
How long do you expect the construction to last?
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 2 жыл бұрын
They are basically a concrete retaining wall. So options for how they might fail would be concrete cancer where the reo rusts and expands and cracks the concrete, or the wall moves and falls over due to not being deep enough in the ground. There was some initial cracking due to concrete shrinkage but some sealant closed the worst of them. So how long will they last? Only time will tell. My next weir will be made with plastic sheet piles. The plastic is thick enough that UV won't penetrate. I would expect them to last longer than concrete. www.escpile.com/vinyl-sheet-piles?gclid=Cj0KCQjwhY-aBhCUARIsALNIC04Odr_b_O_cMAcgnxZN4ZJqMUGcM_S7N9nqXXu0oGcbNazU1WIm0-AaAhrGEALw_wcB
@matthewcarr914
@matthewcarr914 2 жыл бұрын
Genius, have you through about attaching small hydro to one of the water outlets. You could probably generate 500 watts of power when needed? More updates please :)
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 2 жыл бұрын
I am an electrical engineer. There is no way I could get significant amounts of electricity from 1 meter of head with even the sort of flow I get when the weirs are overflowing. It requires 15 or 20 metres of head with a 100mm (4 inch) pipe to get 1000 watts
@matthewcarr914
@matthewcarr914 2 жыл бұрын
@@lovingecosystems Does that mean you need more drop ? or you mean bigger pipe?
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 2 жыл бұрын
@@matthewcarr914 you really need at least 15 metres of drop plus a 100mm pipe to generate a worthwhile amount of electricity. Even with a one meter drop a 100mm pipe would drain one of my weirs in a few hours and most of the time there is zero flow in the gully to replenish it.
@TheEmbrio
@TheEmbrio 2 жыл бұрын
Concrete contributes so much to climate change that i really can’t see myself using that . Other ideas?
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 2 жыл бұрын
My next weir will be built using sheet piles. I'll dig the trench only wide enough to fit the piles so there will be a great deal less concrete and no formwork. I'll have to find the right sealant for the joins in the piles. It will have to wait for a dry season to do it though as La Nina and the existing weirs have kept the water table in the gully too high for the trench digging
@TheEmbrio
@TheEmbrio 2 жыл бұрын
@@lovingecosystems perhaps a slightly leaky weir is fine.thanks for the explanation
@IowaKeith
@IowaKeith 9 ай бұрын
Lack of vegetation contributes more to climate change than concrete. If you are using concrete to increase groundwater for vegetation, you'll eventually net a carbon negative to the environment. Humans are responsible for nearly all of the deserts in the world because we've been removing groundwater and vegetation for over 10,000 years. Scientist estimate that if we regreened only 2% of the world's deserted land, we would be removing more carbon from the atmosphere than we are putting in.
@leedza
@leedza 9 ай бұрын
Look at it from another angle. The carbon capture and water cycle restoration over decades will easily be offset. It's the use of concrete for a greater good, the benefits outweigh the impact.
@wrightgregson9761
@wrightgregson9761 2 жыл бұрын
what you call a "leaky weir" we in the States call a B-D-A---a Beaver Dam Analogue. We are gaining a lot of skill in their use. Now that you are reintroducing beavers into the UK, you might be able to blend information.
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 2 жыл бұрын
Don't beavers only build on creeks and rivers with flow? My gully only flows for a total of a couple of weeks a year. ps I am in Australia and we have never had beavers or anything like them with the possible exception of the platypus which doesn't build dams etc just burrows in the banks of streams.
@wrightgregson9761
@wrightgregson9761 2 жыл бұрын
@@lovingecosystems As valuable as beavers are in there home ranges, never place beavers in an environment to which they are not native. Someone released beavers in Patagonia in southern Chile and Argentina and they are wreaking havoc on that ecosystem. There is a campaign to extirpate them.
@owenwoodward4467
@owenwoodward4467 2 жыл бұрын
these are dams
@mechanics4all405
@mechanics4all405 2 жыл бұрын
love your work, what is cost per dam roughly
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 2 жыл бұрын
For the concrete weirs they required about $1000 or more of concrete and a couple of hundred dollars of reinforcing. The formwork was up to $1000 but is reusable. Because I did the labour myself with just a friend helping with the concrete pours, there was no labour cost.
@mechanics4all405
@mechanics4all405 2 жыл бұрын
what is dollar cost per dam
@mechanics4all405
@mechanics4all405 2 жыл бұрын
how many more you going to build. could you become totally drought free. plant big food forest as well,leguimes etc
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 2 жыл бұрын
I expect to build at least five more weirs. Based on how the current weirs leak I think the best i can hope for is to have hydrated soil in the vicinity of the gully all year and from year to year. During drought years the gully may not run at all so that it could still dry out in those years. However deep rooted trees should still be able to access what should still be a water table that is a bit higher than it would otherwise have been. I am already doing the food forest thing with legumes etc. However only the trees have guards so wallabies can eat much of it and leave some fertiliser.
@davebean2886
@davebean2886 2 жыл бұрын
Do you ever do anything to help fish cross your weir?
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 2 жыл бұрын
No because the weirs usually end up empty about half way through the dry season. The top weirs empty first and drain into lower weirs. They aren't dams, the water seeps under and around them. Making them of concrete merely slows down the process. I have built 5 weirs now. I hope that by the time I have built 10 weirs the bottom weirs will have water in them all year and I will have turned a normally dry gully into a permanent watercourse. The spot where the bottom weir will go has a natural granite wall beside it with native fig trees already planted. So maybe I will make it a lot deeper and it can be a shady swimming hole fed by clean water that has been filtered on its way down the gully. If that happens I'll consider putting in a fish ladder
@davebean2886
@davebean2886 2 жыл бұрын
I noticed in the video that you have some thistles. Do you do anything to control them or do you just accept them? Thanks.
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 2 жыл бұрын
I see thistles as good if sometimes painful things as I walk everywhere barefoot. They have deep roots that pull up nutrients from down deep and when they die, the roots rot and allow air and water to better penetrate the soil. Leaving roots to compost in place is nature's way of mixing compost down into the soil. Also the native bees love thistles when they are in flower.
@AussiePharmer
@AussiePharmer 2 жыл бұрын
Good stuff. So much life there. Would be curious to see the growth rate of the trees around those weirs
@AJsGreenTopics
@AJsGreenTopics 3 жыл бұрын
That is a nice size heap. 😎
@rmar127
@rmar127 3 жыл бұрын
Two questions. How wide is that wall. Looks to be maybe 8 inches wide perhaps. Secondly, did you use any reo in the wall?
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 3 жыл бұрын
100mm and x 125mm on the taller wall. Both with reo
@celticgypsy6067
@celticgypsy6067 3 жыл бұрын
You need to watch sequence farming and Peter Andrews.
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 3 жыл бұрын
Peter was my inspiration. However my area has a lot less rainfall than his property. Hence the weirs need to hold water longer.
@joaovox
@joaovox 3 жыл бұрын
Did you need a municipal council permit to build the concrete wall?
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 3 жыл бұрын
It would in my area if it was a named creek, even if it was a dry creek bed.
@allseezen3336
@allseezen3336 3 жыл бұрын
you have a lot of really cool projects. thanks for sharing
@jasonjayalap
@jasonjayalap 3 жыл бұрын
That's a lot of knowledge in one video.
@Bernie5172
@Bernie5172 3 жыл бұрын
I have heard of councils that have prosecuted blokes for doing this great idea
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 3 жыл бұрын
I know the local council tried to prosecute Peter Andrews for breaking some council regulation that was intended to keep more water in the rivers. However I think after a fight, common sense prevailed as leaky weirs do just that.
@Bernie5172
@Bernie5172 3 жыл бұрын
@@lovingecosystems yep. Kyogle council and Richmond fined some blokes extraordinary sums of money . I think its a great plan and everyone should be allowed to do it. My council Tenterfield, wont allow anyone to go near the gullys with a dozer /machinery
@lovingecosystems
@lovingecosystems 3 жыл бұрын
@@Bernie5172 So the concrete weirs would be the best as there is minimal site disturbance. It's totally different to the damage a bulldozer does.
@AA-69
@AA-69 3 жыл бұрын
Is your brain in control of your tongue ?...
@michaelairley2015
@michaelairley2015 3 жыл бұрын
Dismantle all that shit. Let the water flow free. Create natural wetlands.
@chrisp.lettuce8900
@chrisp.lettuce8900 3 жыл бұрын
I wouldn't personally use plastic, concrete or shadesail buried in the ground but this method keeps wetlands wet, without weirs water can flow too quickly and frequently, not absorb into the soil and cause erosion, drying out and killing back the landscape.
@michaelairley2015
@michaelairley2015 3 жыл бұрын
@@chrisp.lettuce8900 beavers
@chrisp.lettuce8900
@chrisp.lettuce8900 3 жыл бұрын
@@michaelairley2015 ahh yes the Australian beaver
@michaelairley2015
@michaelairley2015 3 жыл бұрын
@@chrisp.lettuce8900 haha!. You know what. I didn't realise this video was from Australia. I was watching a few from the US.
@chrisp.lettuce8900
@chrisp.lettuce8900 3 жыл бұрын
@@michaelairley2015 haha no worries mate, Peter Andrews style of leaky Weir using sticks and straw and organic material is basically copying what beavers do in nature to help restore the land
@ThaiNguyen-tn7yx
@ThaiNguyen-tn7yx 3 жыл бұрын
Doing compost without wearing shoes?