GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

Category: DIY

Hydroponics plus Fish Farm equals Aquaponics; a how to

How to build a hydroponic system, or an aquaponic system, has been a continuing theme here on GardenFork.TV . If are interested in building hydroponic or aquaponic or aquaculture systems, the following how to by GF contributors Stephen and Abbie on building an aquaponics system is full of great photos, click on the Next Page link at the bottom of each page to get to the next one. Eric.

We started with a greenhouse (a rebuilt shed) ( size: 7’ wide by 15’ long ) in 2006.

Aquaponics Shed & Fish Tank

We used a 300 gallon “Rubbermaid brand” stock-tank (recessed in the ground) for the fish tank.
Use 3….55-gallon “food-safe” plastic barrels, cut them in half lengthwise so you have 6 grow-beds, approximately 2’ wide by 3’ long by 12 inches deep. By the way a 300 gallon fish tank will allow 8 such grows-beds…

[wide][wide]
Use another 55-gallon drum, cut out the top (leave the rim, for strength) this is a dump-tank for the “Flood and Drain” system. Inside the dump-tank you need a syphon, attached below, to fill line for grow-beds.

Use some PVC (polyvinyl chloride) pipes to run water feed-lines from the “bottom of the syphon” (of the dump-tank) to each grow-bed. I used two lines running down both sides of the greenhouse to feed the 6 beds (three beds on each side). Or you could have all beds “side by side” on one side of your greenhouse using one line. (we tried that, but they didn’t fit “in a row” in our building). Position the grow-beds higher than the fish tank. (We need the dump-tank to flow into the grow-beds and the grow-beds to flow into the fish tank).
Place a waterfall/pond pump at the bottom of the 300 gallon fish tank, and run a pipe (from the pump) up to the top (and inside) the dump-tank so it will fill the dump-tank. This pump will be the only pump in the system and it will run 24-7 (all the time).

OK, so at this point we have the water leaving the fish tank entering the dump-tank, that fills until the water level reaches the top of the syphon, which then activates, the water will start to flow through the syphon pipe, down to the feed-line going to the grow-beds, which will fill with nutrient rich water (from the fish waste/poop). OK, we’ll need additional syphons (to drain the grow-beds) and a drain-line to return water to the fish tank. The white “upright” pipe attached through the grow-bed, with a covered/capped pipe slotted on the base (allows water into the syphon), and down into the drain-lines to the fish tank…
NOTE: IF for some reason the pumps stops…. most of the water (in this system) will drain back into the fish tank… some may remain in the dump-tank… some may remain in the grow-beds… but the majority of the water will return to the fish tank, keeping the fish alive… we’ve lost electricity for three days, the fish and plants were fine. Our system is stocked with goldfish and KOI (pronounced like “Koy” …as in Roy– with a K).
The grow-beds should be dry on the surface (which is good); about 1 inch lower, it will be moist/wet.
We fill the grow-beds: We use “pea-stone” or “pea-gravel” (normal gravel that is screened to allow only pea sized rock to remain); we fill the beds up to within 1” of the top of the grow-beds…

Make sure the grow-bed syphon is installed and add pvc drain-lines from bottom of grow-bed to the fish tank. The top of the syphon should be 1 inch lower, than the gravel surface…
Continued on next page

November 7, 2012
A Logging Tool For Part Time Loggers

After the hurricane, there were several trees down on the road to the camp, so I rounded up a few friends and drove up to the first downed tree, a large white pine.

One friend brought along what he called a Peavey, which looks like a large tool from the 19th century, which it probably is. But its an amazing tool to have when cutting down trees.

You don’t need to be a logger to own a peavey, its super handy to have when cutting trees or clearing an area. What the peavey does is make moving logs and downed trees very easy.

The Peavey has a large hook and a pointed end, and using simple leverage, allows you to move logs or turn a tree that is lying on its side. You engage the hook on the side of the log and push up on the handle. The engaged hook allows you to turn the log, thus moving it. With practice you can turn the log with the peavey too.

Engage the hook of the peavey, then turn the log

With the peavey, you can cut a downed tree into lengths. First cut 2/3 of the way through the tree at firewood sized intervals, then using the peavey, you can rotate the tree and finish the cuts without getting the chainsaw chain in the dirt. Keeping your chainsaw chain out of the dirt is very important, it dulls and damages the chain.

I have a variant of the peavey called a timberjack, its a peavey with a T bar attached that allows you to raise a log or tree up off the ground to cut it up without getting the chainsaw chain near the ground. Neat tools. To order a peavey, click here

Do you use logging tools when cutting up wood? Let us know below:

November 6, 2012
Spilled Paint Cleanup!

“Eric come here quick!”

Not the phrase you want to hear on a paint job.

It doesn’t happen often, but this is what you prepare for, the unexpected. The one time you don’t prepare is when it will happen.

When painting rooms, I am obsessive about covering every square inch of floor with either paint tarps or red rosin contractor paper. It pays off in a number of ways, we spend almost no time cleaning paint roller splatter off the floor, any plaster or sheetrock repair dust is easily cleaned up, and if one of us happens to step into a drop of paint that has happened onto a tarp, we don’t get even more paint on the floor from walking all over with paint on our shoes. The tarps soak up the paint from the sole of the shoe.

Painting a brownstone last week one of the crew accidentally kicked over a gallon of paint, but because we had laid down heavy duty muslin paint tarps, the clean up was easy.

when painting, use a tarp!

We first scoop up as much paint as we can and put it back into a paint can. You might need to strain that paint if it has sanding debris in it picked up from the tarp. We roll the tarp up into itself and take it outside. We then sop up the rest with paper towels, and lay out the tarp to dry. Latex paint will dry slowly when its thick, but after it dries, you can use the tarp again.

If you are painting more than one room, consider buying muslin tarps instead of plastic tarps. Plastic is slippery to walk on, muslin paint tarps are much better and last for years. Be sure to write your name on your tarps, your friends will borrow them, and its a subtle way of reminding your friends whose tarps they are.

What are your paint catastrophes? tell us below

October 6, 2012
Simple Loft Bed Plans DIY

This is a loft bed a friend of mine made for his kid’s room. The bedroom is narrow, so building a loft bed with a desk underneath made the best use of a small space. You could use these plans for a loft bed in your tiny house plans as well.

The crossbeams that support the bed are tied into the studs in the walls of the bedroom. This is house is an old brownstone with sturdy wall studs, so no need to strengthen the supporting studs. The crossbeams are tied together with screws and corner brackets, the kind used for joist hangers, which you can buy at your local lumberyard. Don’t use drywall screws, use real wood screws, drywall screws won’t support the weight.

The platform is sized for a single bed mattress, two 2×6 studs along the width of the loft bed platform support the middle of a piece of 5/8″ plywood.

Where the cross beams connect to the wall studs, we connected the beams and then repaired the plaster and painted the room. We found a ladder on the street that worked well for getting up to the bed. You could also buy a wooden step ladder to get to the loft bed.

Have you built a loft bed, or have a plan for a loft bed? Let us know below:

July 23, 2012
Workshop Organization is not genetic

While visiting my family I am always in the workshop fixing something. My dad’s workshop is like mine, semi-managed chaos. There are many projects scattered in various stages of completion, some have been there a few years. There are bits and parts of things you can’t bear to throw away, thinking you might be able to use them for something one day. There are still things in dad’s workshop from when I was a kid, a pair of garden tractor tires for some sort of cart we have yet to build, but those tires will be good for something.

Then there is my sister’s workshop. Immaculate and organized, one project at a time on the workbench, which is a recycled kitchen countertop and cabinets. [ we made a Real World Green video about making this work bench here ] The shelves have nails and screws in plastic storage bins with the actual screw length information present. The screw gun’s batteries fully charged, tools on the pegboard.

Sister's workshop

I still struggle with organization. I’m close to hiring someone to come in and organize the place. The trick is to keep it that way. Its hard to part with stuff that may have a use some day. The anxiety of knowing that a year from now I will need those small ikea counter brackets left over from a job to hold together some wood frame i’m building, but I already have a ton of brackets.

What do you do to deal with the workshop chaos? Are you the organizer or the keeper of stuff?

May 13, 2012
Lawnmower Tune Up and Oil Change Tips
Time for the lawn mower tune up. I pulled the lawnowers out of the garage today, ready to change the oil and do a tune up on both mowers. We have several how to tune up a lawn mower videos on GardenFork ( links are below ), here are some photos and tune up tips as a refresher.

Lawnmower Oil Change and Tune Tips:
- Change the lawnmower oil at least once a season
- Replace the Air Filter every year, more if its a dusty environment
- Change the spark plug each summer
- Sharpen the mower blades when the grass cutting suffers
- Remove debris from under mower deck after each use
Add and Drain mower oil here.

The Lawnmower Oil Change is crucial to the mower engine. The oil lubricates and cools the engine, and the oil slowly breaks down and loses it ability to do this over time. If you use your lawnmower more than the average person, consider changing the oil more than once season. I change the oil in the mowers twice a season – i’m a firm believer in the idea that regular oil changes prolong the life of your lawnmower. Most mowers drain the oil through the same tube where you add oil.

Always recycle your waste oil, bring it to a car repair shop or oil change shop. Some towns offer used oil recycling.

Make sure the gas cap is tight first.

Replacing the air filter is something many people don’t do, but it should be changed or cleaned when you change the oil. Air filters are not that expensive, and easy to change out. We show you how in our How To Tuneup Your Lawnmower video here.

Use a spark plug wrench to remove the spark plug

If your mower is hard to start, it may be because the spark plug is failing. The spark plug provides the ignition in the engine cylinder, and if its failing or dirty, the engine runs poorly.

Sharpening the lawnmower’s blades is crucial to cutting the grass, dull blades tear the grass leaves. You want the blades of grass to be cut cleanly. Its not rocket science to sharpen mower blades, we show you how in this How to Sharpen Lawn Mower Blades video.

Sharpen blades and clean mower deck

Clean out all the cut grass from under the mower deck. This will help the mower last for years. Wet grass clinging to the underside of the mower allows the deck of the mower to rust out prematurely. It only takes a few minutes to scrape the underside of the mower, put the clumps of removed grass in your compost pile.

Watch our Lawnmower Repair Videos:

How to change the oil and tune up your lawnmower

How to sharpen lawn mower blades.
May 5, 2012
Plywood Boat Video by Students in Denmark

I received this email today;

We are a group of design students interested in recording and documenting processes involved with boat building. We modeled our first boat on the one in your video, and would like to know what you thought! Have you changed your boat in any way since you first made it? Do you have any advice for us on how we could improve it? Please could you reply to us as soon as you can, looking forward to your response!

How cool is that? Wow I am flattered. They took the GF Plywood Boat Plan Video and made it their own.

I have to make some modifications to the original How to make a Plywood Boat ,

1. Let the caulk cure more for the clear plastic window in the bottom of the boat

2. Use finish nails ( the kind with a small nail head ) to put the boat together and then seal all joints with fiberglass tape and resin.

This is neat. Thanks to Jeak (Jordi, Ellie, Alex and Kate) !

March 6, 2012
Pizza Oven Plans & Photos from Steven of Tiny House Listings

Here is a different take on the portable backyard pizza oven by Steven of TinyHouseListings.com . Steven sent me these photos of the brick pizza oven he built. Here’s Steve’s note to us:

I love your website and loved the post on your pizza oven. After I saw it I posted a wanted ad on Craigslist for clay fire bricks and the next day went to pick up 100 of them from a fellow for free.

I played around with the bricks in my back yard and came up with a way to setup an oven with no mortar, no rails, no nothing except stacked bricks. My wife and I cooked 4 pizzas last night and they turned out nicely.

Since it was my first time setting up something like this it was a little crooked (you can tell especially in the pic from behind) but I plan to take it down and restack it. One other recommendation I would make should you decide to take this approach is to make the oven about two or three layers of bricks deeper to allow more heated air to circulate over the pizza. My oven is only 4 layers deep since I ran out of bricks! Once I get a couple more I’ll make it deeper.

When building it be sure to build all of the layers of the wall together. In other words, lay all bricks down for each row on the entire side of the wall, then move up to the next layer so they bricks can rest on each other for support.

I think its brilliant that Steven posted a ‘wanted’ ad on craigslist looking for bricks, I had not thought of doing that, I kept looking in craigslist for people offering bricks. Smart.

Dry Fit Pizza Oven by Steven

rear view of pizza oven

Fire = Good

Other Pizza Oven Plans and Photos Posts on GardenFork:

Brick Pizza Oven Video and Plans GF TV video

Brick Oven Plans and Photos from a GardenFork Fan

Pizza Oven Photos from John

Backyard Brick Oven Discussion! GF Radio

Homemade Pizza Recipe : Christmas Eve

How to make a bread peel or pizza peel : Gardenfork.tv

February 8, 2012
Home Made Pizza Oven Photos from John

After watching our brick oven pizza video, John in Arizona sent us these photos of his DIY brick oven. Much like our brick oven design, it uses brick and angle iron. I forgot to ask John where he got his angle iron from. I like that the brick oven fits nicely right next to his propane grill, right off the patio, all set for cooking.

“My wife and I love your show. We put this together and wanted you and your wife to see it”

Cool! This is the second set of pictures I’ve got from a viewer. A big thank you to John for sending these. love it. See the link at the bottom of this post for links to other pizza and bread oven photos.

John tried out his oven with a pizza stone, and I’ve talked with a few people who have tried this method, its much better to just slide the pizza right onto the hot bricks. The bricks are about 700F, so its pretty sterile. And bricks are made out of clay, which is what pottery is made out of, so i’m thinking its pretty safe to do.

More Pizza Oven Plan Photos Here
Love that roaring fire in the photo there, and the pizzas have a smokey hint to them when using wood. Do you have a backyard oven? send us photos or a link to your site, thanks!

January 27, 2012
Humble Homes; Tiny House Plans Book by Derek Diedricksen

Looking for tiny house plans? Here they are. The Tiny House or Small House movement has a number of well known thought leaders, Derek Diedricksen leads by building Tiny Houses. Derek is the author of a new book of tiny house plans and ideas, Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts
.
The best way to describe Deek’s book is a mash up of Tiny House Architecture meets Comic Zine.

Reviews of the book describe it in a similar way, Mad Magazine meets This Old House meets Wayne’s World.

<br />

And the book is very GardenFork; unpretentious and not afraid to be who he is, Deek fits right in in the GardenFork world. Taking found materials, stuff you find in your neighbor’s garbage, and building Tiny Houses with fun names. “TV Viewing Fort Cube” and “The Yeehaw Spa” are just two of the many small house designs in the book.

Deek’s book is an idea starter, not a book of finished tiny house plans, its a book to start you on 100 ideas of how to build a tiny house that fits your world. Each page is jammed with what comes out of his head – which is similar to how my head works, i just can’t draw or drink as much caffeine.

Derek “Deek” Diedricksen in one of his tiny houses

You will read each page more than once, you will forget what page your were on and it wont matter, because whatever page you land on is filled with more cool ideas. If this book were designed like most how-to books, it would be 400 pages.

This book will take you on many tangents and you will land somewhere unplanned, but that’s a good thing, I think.

Deek was on GardenFork Radio talking about how to build a tiny house and other fun tangents, you can listen to the show here. Deek’s website is RelaxShacks.com

January 26, 2012
Brick Oven Plans and Photos From a GardenFork Fan

After watching our Simple Brick Oven Plan Video, Roger sent us these photos of his Brick Oven Construction. He has modified the Brick Pizza Oven Plan we used to be able to hold more heat and make a Backyard Brick Bread Oven.

Enjoyed your brick oven video. We found the same plan after being inspired by our daughter who had spent a week with Bread and Puppet on her campus in Iowa (they built an oven and baked bread for the audience after their performance).
Attached are some photos. We added the wooden door for bread baking. We soak it prior to baking so that it steams the oven and gives the bread a nice spring as it bakes. We purchased a [ Fluke ] infrared thermometer to ensure the proper temp for the baking. Fluke 62 Mini Infrared Thermometer

A typical baking progression includes: flatbreads, pizza, bread, tart. It’s great fun. Thanks for sharing your video, Roger

I like how Roger has added more mass to the Wood Fired Brick Oven to allow it to bake bread, yet still retaining the break down portable nature of the oven, keeping the oven a simple dry fit brick wood oven, easy to build and then take down.

I need to buy one of those Infrared Thermometer gizmos

Bread and Pizza Oven using dry fit brick

A wood door was built and it is soaked in water to give steam in the oven when baking bread

Bread from a simple brick oven

Pizza from the backyard brick oven

a tart for dessert!

<br />

January 22, 2012
Pizza Oven Sneak Preview

Probably the only people to see this post are the ones who read GF on an RSS feed or similar gizmo.

Here is a surveillance photo of the said portable wood fired brick pizza oven. Video will happen next week.

January 4, 2012
Don’t Dump Me, Bro’

106 bags of leaves

You can hear the discussion I had with Eric on “Tom Sawyer Composting” here on Gardenfork Radio.

Here’s the leaf composting bin I created just yesterday. 106 bags of leaves (mostly 30 gal. bags) gathered from around my neighborhood, shredded with a mower. Add a bit of high nitrogen fertilizer before the rains this evening and it will be cooking by morning.

If I’d had the time, I’d have been able to build 3 more yesterday, based on the number of bags at the curb in my neighborhood. They’ll all go to the dump today.

Pity. All that good nitrogen and carbon going to waste in the dump.

Don’t Dump me, Bro’.

(and yes, I garden and compost in the front yard. That’s the edge of my winter garden to the right of the compost.)

November 29, 2011
Homemade Wood Stove Floor Protector

You just bought a wood stove, now you need a wood stove floor protector. Here’s how to build your own wood stove floor pad and save money. A DIY friend of mine has fixed up a cabin up in the Catskills, and built this wood stove floor mat for his wood stove.
(Also see the neat outdoor shower they have, link at end of this post)

A wood stove floor protector does just what it says, it keeps the floor from getting damaged by the wood stove. Wood stoves put out a lot of heat, and a floor pad shields the floor from that heat, it also makes it easier to clean up ashes and coals. And, a DIY floor pad looks great, as it matches your home.

He collected tiles from a few tile stores, with a blue color scheme for the one pictured.

a mix of tiles works great here

My friend built this out of a piece of tile backer board, a popular brand is Durock, but there are others. You have to use the heavyweight tile board, not the lightweight stuff. Below the tile backer board, he used a piece of plywood to add strength to the floor protector.

Tile backer board and plywood support the tile

a DIY wood stove floor protector that looks great.

Standard tile installation practices were used to make the floor protector, choose the tile and color combination, build the plywood / tile backer base, apply the tile adhesive, lay the tile, grout the spaces between tiles. If you know of anyone looking for wood stove floor protector ideas, here you go.

Note: this floor protector is a DIY project. Use this information at your own risk. Check local building and fire codes in your area.

Check out the Outdoor Shower they have as well!

November 26, 2011
Hotbeds

A couple of weeks ago Eric and I were talking on Gardenfork Radio about his new DIY Cold Frames video, and I mentioned winter gardening in hotbeds. I’d seen some hotbeds in the garden in Colonial Williamsburg, where they still garden the way colonial people did.

3 feet deep and lined with bricks to hold and distribute the heat.

Hotbed are like Eric’s cold frames with glass on top and all, but deeper. Last weekend we went up to the Williamsburg Farmers Market for their big pre-Thanksgiving holiday market and I took some pictures of their hotbeds to show Gardenfork readers.

What makes hotbeds particularly attractive to the DIY organic gardener is that you get a twofer. First, you use the otherwise wasted heat of composting to get an early start on Spring. Second, you have fresh, finished compost to spread on your garden.

A hotbed needs to have a mass of at least 1 cubic yard to be effective. That’s because what you’re building is a compost pile and compost needs mass to really cook. So these beds are deep:

— It helps to line a deep hotbed with plastic sheeting or weed block fabric to aid in cleaning it out in the Spring.
— Layer in browns (cabon): dry leaves, leaf mold, spoiled hay and bedding from a stall.
— Layer in greens (nitrogen): kitchen waste, fresh manure.

Hotbeds are an excellent use for chicken manure as well as horse manure, which can be “seedy” in the compost otherwise. Cattle manure is good too.

If done right, enough heat will be generated to kill all seeds, worm eggs, and pathogens. In fact, hotbeds have been known to combust and smolder if too big. Obviously, you don’t put compost worms into a hotbed to help with the composting unless you want them to cook.

add 12 inches of rich growing soil onto the top of the fresh manure.

— Add about 12 inches of good soil for growing.

— Carefully manage your glass frames so that your plants don’t overheat.

Hotbeds are an ancient method of sprouting seeds and growing plants during the winter, Aristotle mentions the Egyptians using compost piles to sprout seedlings. Europeans imported hotbeds from Arab countries after the Crusades.

In fact, the colder and more sunless your winters, the more hotbeds will help you get an early start on the spring garden and bridge what was called in early colonial America the Starving Time, January to March, after harvest stores from the previous fall had run out but before plants would grow in the frozen fields.

Hotbeds don’t have to be buried, either. The Romans had hotbeds on carts so that they could be moved under cover when it rained. In medieval Europe, hotbeds were frequently just dung heaps that people planted vegetables into over the winter.

Manage your hotbeds like a coldframe. Overheating is as dangerous to your plants as freezing.

But regardless of how you build your hotbed, proper timing is important. Few plants or seeds can tolerate the intense heat of an early hotbed. So start your hotbed a month or two before you plant. So plan to plant or seed on the backside of this period, when the hotbed is warm but not hot.

And remember, you have to manage the moisture content of your hotbed, just like a compost pile; neither too wet nor too dry.

And when you hear on the news that a place is a “hotbed of political activity” you’ll know what they’re full of. ;->

November 21, 2011
Tiny House Directory free from Tiny House Blog

GardenFork became a fan of the Tiny House Blog on Facebook today, and at the same time signed up for their email newsletter.

get this free directory

As a bonus, when you sign up for their email newsletter, you get a neat downloadable PDF, the Tiny House Directory, an indexed list of websites, blogs, architects, builders, and kits of all sorts of tiny houses. Tiny houses include boats, yurts, wagons, trailers, tipis, straw bale houses, log cabins, prefabs. Neat.
I like that a bunch of links have been indexed and are all there on a few pages, so you don’t have to use a search engine to find stuff; Tiny House Blog has done all the work for you.

Andrew Odom, author of the Tiny rEvolution blog and a contributor to Tiny House Blog, got me interested in the Tiny House movement. He has a new post on hanging windows in your tiny house.

Not all of us will be living in tiny houses, but even if you are not downsizing, you can get great ideas of how to live with less stuff, and lessen your impact on the earth with the info on the Tiny House Blog and Tiny rEvolution.

You can sign up for our email newsletter right here:

Subscribe to our mailing list

How are you downsizing? Are you moving to a tiny house? Let us know below:

November 10, 2011
Podcasts Worth Hearing: Negotiations

haggling price

The first haggler to mention a price loses, right? Wrong. The first person who proposes a price sets the tone & expectations of the entire bargaining session. Even if it’s just for self defense, I highly recommend Slate’s Negotiation Academy, a series of 10-minute podcasts, one per week, on the art of negotiation. Session 3 just published. http://slate.me/vanUPk

November 3, 2011
Rice Cooker Repair – Rick’s Column

Our $10 Wal-Mart B&D rice cooker stopped working last night. I just opened it up and, using a multimeter, found an inline fuse blown.

I clipped the fuse off and reconnected the wire. I can’t imagine any real harm, since the circuit is gfi protected anyway. Am I missing something? Running a test batch of rice now to see how it turns out.

BTW: if you’ve always wondered about those center spring mechanisms, they’re pretty simple…and interesting. The center plunger is not charged with electricity (unlike a lot of toasters, which are actually engaging electromagnets when you put the plunger down–hence the futility of slamming the plunger down, it not a mechanical catch of some sort). Inside, the rice cooker there’s a magnet on an arm connected to the front mechanical operating slide, a bit like a toaster–up is warm, down is cook. The weight of the water and rice in the pan hold the plunger down and the magnet sticks to the underside, closing the high heat or cook circuit.

When enough water boils away, the spring pushes the plunger up, which lifts the pan and breaks contact with the magnet breaking the high heat connection. There’s a separate permanent circuit always connected for “warm” with it’s own little heating element. You have to unplug the whole thing to turn the warming circuit off.

—-
the system just “popped” open, turning off the high heat coil. Looks fine, but you always wonder…at least I do. OTOH, a rice cooker isn’t like a crockpot. We’d never leave it running all day. Any ideas? At $10 am I being penny wise and pound foolish?

November 2, 2011