Garlic

As I've mentioned before I've had some good success with garlic in Christchurch. Garlic requires quite rich soil as it has very short roots. The soil in my raised beds is a mixture of saw dust, pig manure, chicken manure and few other goodies which seems to work.

Around this time last year I visited our local organic green grocer and purchased a few bulbs of organic garlic. I broke these up into the individual cloves and planted the larger ones. Traditionally garlic is planted on the shortest day and harvested on the longest day. Mine was planted just before the shortest day and harvested mid Janurary.

Planting garlic is quite simple. After the soil has had compost spread on it use the handle of a fork to press holes about 50mm deep and 150mm apart. Drop the cloves into the holes, pointy end up and cover with soil/compost. Then place a layer of straw or mulch on top to protect the new growths from frost.

The garlic can be harvested and used at any time, after it has grown but for best storage it seems better to leave it in the ground until the top growth has completely dried out.

Top Bar Hive - Reasons Why

Top Bar Hives seem to be surfacing as a good alternative to the Langstroth hive, more so for the hobbyist than for commercial operations. This post details some of the reasons why and takes a look at my initial attempt at building.

Some of the advantages of a top bar hive (TBH) that I have seen in various publications are

1. Simple to build, as opposed to the complex frames of the Langstroth
   True, although the design is very well understood now and pre-made parts of readily available
2. Much less disturbance of the colony
   This is the feature I am most interested in. The hive can be opened without creating a chimney that quickly cools the hive. It is also theoretically possible to inspect the brood nest without disturbing the storage and vice versa. I'm not sure yet, as I have only just populated my hive, whether this is practical as I can visualise the top bars being fairly well stuck together after a long period of with no inspections
3. Harvesting honey is simpler, though more destructive
   I picture harvesting the honey with a bucket and a brush. Simply brush the bees off, then cut the comb off the top bar and drop it into the bucket. It should be possible to make an escape board to fit a top bar hive but I'll wait and see if its needed.
4. The combs and cells are the size the bees want, not the size of the manufactured foundation
5. Very little off season storage required
   No supers to store, closing a hive for winter should just involve sliding a separator into the hive, at the end of the brood area.
6. Less chance of transferring diseases like AFB
   As no frames are removed and stored then redistributed there should be very little transfer of materials between hives. It is still possible to boost the population of one TBH with a comb of brood from another hive, but that is easily kept track of.

There are many designs of TBH, I chose to base mine on the design at www.biobees.com because it detailed the dimensions and provided a simple method. Much of the material I read suggested that the dimensions are quite critical and vary from species to species so using existing research made sense.

I bought some native timber tongue and groove from a demolition firm (for the body of the hive) and some untreated boxing timber for the top bars. The base is some fibreglass fly screen and the lid is just a frame made with some tongue and groove and black plastic. I intend to bend some galvanised iron on to it at some point but the plastic will do for now. I've also but some carpet underlay between the roof and top bars to provide some insulation.

This is the finished product with a house warming gift for the new occupants. The black square on the side is a CD case that is glued in place and can be opened to peer inside (more on this in a later post). On the right you can see the landing area and the hive with no top bars. I'm not sure that putting the entry perpendicular to the combs is a good idea but I'm sure I'll find out soon enough.

You can see the fly screen secured to the bottom of the hive in this upside down photo. The intention is to cut a board that will cover the fly screen material in winter to reduce drafts.

The top bars are untreated boxing timber ripped down to the correct width (see the plans at biobees) and then a groove is sawn to a depth of 2mm up the center. I've then melted some wax and pored a patch in the middle to encourage the bees to build their combs in the 'correct' place. The correct place being where I want them to build the combs.

In a later post I'll cover the trials I had getting the bees to stay, but I think I've solved that problem now. All that remains to be seen is whether they will survive the winter.

Walking Robot Project (Hexapod Part 1)

Every since I started building robots out of technic lego and programming assembler into my C128 to make them run I've wanted to make an autonomous robot. There are many things it could do such as seek out sunlight to charge itself, move towards the loudest noise in the room (such as a clap), map a room using dead reckoning, solve a maze or just move in a straight line over a contrived obstacle course.

My current idea is to build a 6 legged insect using 18 servos, 3 servos and one low end micro per leg. This micro would be on an I2C bus with the master controller to receive instructions about where to move its leg and also to monitor the current draw on each servo so that it could report on stalls and whether the servo is in motion or stationary. This would take a bit of research as the servos will use power to maintain their position but I'm assuming this current would spike when in motion.
The PIC16F88 or (the PIC16F913-I/SP) looks like a good choice for the leg controller. It can be an I2C slave and has multiple IO pins (possibly enough for one processor to manage two legs). They look to be around $NZ9 a piece. Using a 5 way switch could provide some useful feedback.

The master controller would talk USB (or maybe RS232 for starters) to a PC  where I could write the 'personallity' in .net code. This code would just specify high level commands like 'left 15 degrees' or 'forward 5 steps'. It would be up to the master controller to pass specific instructions to each of the leg controllers and to report back to the PC any problems.

It would also be possible to use a servo as a directional control for a pair of ultrasonic sensors or light sensors or maybe even a simple CCD.

This is all way beyond my skill level at the moment but my approach would be something like this

1. Program the master controller to accept simple, byte code commands from a USB (or RS232) connection. A program to control a few LEDs via USB would be sufficient. There would also need to be some feedback loop so maybe a push button or two that can be queried via the USB.
2. Connect a leg controller to the master controller via the I2C bus and extend the above program to be able to report on the status of a pin on the leg controller and control an LED attached to the leg controller.
3. Connect another leg controller to the master controller and extend the program to be able to control both leg controllers
4. Extend the leg controllers to be able to control 3 (or 6? 2 legs) servos each.
5. Worry about the feedback later

We'll see how R&D funds go...

Worm Farm Recommendations

Over my 6 year career as a worm farmer I've used a few different designs of worm farm and have a clear opinion of which one I would recommend to anyone looking into setting up a worm farm. The simple answer is use a bath, I've listed the reasons below. Worm farming, in my experience, is all about surface area and volume. The more surface area you have the more space for the worms to be active. Volume is important because it keeps the temperature stable and keeps a huge populate of microbes, which speeds the process. My biggest worm farm germinates everything (including capsicums) all year round because the decomposition keeps it warm.

1. Can-o-worms (or similar)

The can-o-worms is one design of many that are marketed to households with a small amount of space. The are sold as easy to manage and simple to set up. My experience is that this is not true. I found it difficult to keep the worms out of the bottom tray (where the fluid collects) and found that it couldn't keep up with the waste output from two people, even when I mashed everything with the food processor.
Advantages

• small so not much space needed, good for apartment, townhouse etc
• ready to go, just buy it off the shelf, add some worms and you're away (sort of)
• rodent proof
• collects fluid for use on garden

Disadvantages

• small so intolerant of temperature change and large chunks of food. The worms tend to dig down when too warm so end up in the liquid tray
• difficult to manage because the balance of food going in has to be just right
• expensive, not much change out of $200

2. Wooden Box
I made a wooden box, out of untreated boxing timber. It had two lids and a divider so I could feed in one side and then the other. One lid had a handle on it and the other did not so the lid with the handle indicated which side was being fed. The worms migrated through the divider from the inactive (not being fed) side to the active side over a few weeks. The vermicast could then be harvested.

I put everything into this worm farm including onions, garlic, chillies and bread and have not had any problems (other than a mouse infestation). The large volume allows the worms to avoid the things they don't like until they have broken down through decomposition.
Advantages

• Cheap (~$50 of timber and screws)
• Big and therefore stable environment
• Harvesting is easy(ish), just start feeding on the other side (see below)

Disadvantages

• untreated timber rots away in a few years
• no fluid collection (I just move the bin from time to time)
• not rodent proof
• harvesting is a bit awkward because the vermicast has to be lifted out of the box

3. Bath
A bath is simple, easy and cheap to set up. I have two bath based worm farms. One at work in a full length bath, that processes between 10 and 15 kg a week, and one in a shub (a small, square bath) that processes all our household waste. I don't know how much it processes because I don't weigh into it. The full length bath has processed over 200kg of waste so far and we still haven't had to harvest the vermicast.

The farm at work is up on a frame so that it is easy to work. This one is run by a couple of volunteers and me so it needs to be easy to run. Having the bath at waste height, covered by a piece of roofing iron, makes it very accessible and easy. Because of the volume we don't have to pick bits out of the waste. This worm farm processes large amounts of onion, bread and citrus peelings without any problems. We do use a handful or two a lime a week to keep the acidity under control but otherwise its just a matter of dump the waste and leave the worms to it.

Advantages

• cheap - I paid $5 for one and nothing for the other (both from trademe) The timber frame for the work worm farm did cost the better part of $100 but the farm at home just sits on a few bricks.
• large volume - temperature is stable and harvesting is infrequent
• large surface area - can handle volumes of 10-15kg a week or better. My large farm has only been running for 6 months so the worm population has not reached peak yet.
• easy to manage - just spread the waste on the surface and you're done.
• easy fluid collection - I have a pot scourer stuffed in the drain hole (held in place by a cable tie) and a brew barrel underneath collection the fluid. The stand holds the bath at a 15 degree angle to aid drainage. The tap on the brew barrel makes it very easy to put the fluid into used milk bottles for people to take home.
• rodent proof - especially if its up on stilts

Disadvantages

• quite large - requires too much space to fit in an apartment or townhouse (probably needs more than one family's waste to run properly anyway)
• some setup time if placing on a stand. It took me a Sunday afternoon to collect the timber, build the frame and 'plumb' the brew barrel to the outlet.
• harvesting is a bit awkward because spades are square and baths are not

So, if you have the space and the volume (10kg+) a week then a bath is the best way to go. For a smaller system you could probably use an old kitchen or bathroom sink in the same way as a bath, but bear in mind that the volume is important to keep the temperature stable.

Finally, don't spend a lot of money on your worm farm, the worms won't notice if you only spent a couple of dollars on their house.

Garden Log #1

I'm really bad at keeping records, every few weeks I wonder what I did last year, what I planted when and what the yields were. This post is an effort to keep a reference for future years so I can improve my processes and, hopefully, not make the same mistakes. I'm also interested in yields vs inputs and how the garden produce compares, financially, with the supermarket. I'm not expecting that it will be cheaper

One of the biggest challenges I find in keeping the garden productive is getting the timing correct. Its not just knowing what time of year to plant because the weather varies so much, however there are plenty of guidelines which I attempt to adhere to. The Yates garden guide is a very handy reference here.

Our front door porch is no longer used as an entry way and gets a lot of sun so it have become my seed raising area. It there now, planted in vermicast, are

• 1 tray onion seeds
• 1 tray salad greens

Last year I planted what I thought would be plenty of onions (one a week or 52 in total) but that is insufficient so I'll plant twice as many this year (120ish). We seem to have plenty of garlic but as I didn't keep records I don't know how many I planted. I harvested around 40 bulbs of very tasty garlic, so much better than what is available in the supermarket.

The weekend just been has seen me set up an experiment in companion planting it the hope that my brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower etc) will not be quite so infested this year. In the south raised bed (1m by 2.4m) I planted the following

• front row of Nasturtium and Marigolds (seeds)
• back row of Borage (seeds)
• 5 broccoli seedlings
• 10 garlic cloves around the broccoli seedlings

Its probably the wrong time of year for planting the flowers but the seeds should stay dormant until summer. I'll also put a cloche over them to keep them a bit warmer and keep the cats out.