My little garden is shaping up, planted a boy and girl Sea Buckthorn, with one pathetic yellow berry. We will see how they take.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippophae_rhamnoides

Found some bastard Peonies growing by the road on the remains of a demolished garden. Tore the roots out and planted them as well, they do say Peonies sulk for 3 years after you tear them out.

Some great ideas to replace decorative japanese garden plants with edible.

http://balconyofdreams.blogspot.com/

Replace Bamboo with Asparagus

Replace clipped pine with clipped rosemary

Masanobu Fukuoka is a farmer/philosopher who lives on the Island of Shikoku, in southern Japan. His farming technique requires no machines, no chemicals and very little weeding. He does not plow the soil or use prepared compost and yet the condition of the soil in his orchards and fields improve each year. His method creates no pollution and does not require fossil fuels. His method requires less labor than any other, yet the yields in his orchard and fields compare favorably with the most productive Japanese farms which use all the technical know-how of modern science.

Instead of deciding which vegetables would do well in which locations he mixes all the seeds together and scatters them everywhere. He lets the vegetables find their own location, often in areas he would have least have expected.

Slow sand filter- filter your water with a simple sand filter to 99.7 cleanliness.

strange edibles

to end – this is wonderful

and some Swedish permaculture resources
swedish DN article on biochar
Sweden/ Sverige permaculture

One couple’s journey to independence with a green house and motel.

Papercrete, reuse and recycle, and a lot of great ideas.

http://blog.holyscraphotsprings.com/

Found via Ryan Is Hungry

http://ryanishungry.com/2007/04/26/green-acre-the-40-yr-old-mobile-gets-a-green-re-do/

Maybe with 2 laptops to power and 4 LED lights for the house we will be ok, store food in the basement cellar (will have to cut some rock, it is all rock in Sweden, all the way down)and do laundry in a hand-crank machine.

http://www.velacreations.com/

I have a friend, farmer Paul, that put up a wind turbine on a 30 meter pole, and no wind…. This was in NY. So i am sceptical of alternative energy, no hippie that I am. It’s just that it does seem the only way for independence.

A timber frame small house built on a layton camper trailer bed.

The camper is from the70s and was bought for $100.
The owner did all his own building, with the help of his brother, an experienced framer.
I wonder how heavy those large timbers are.

For those contemplating stripping a used camper bed-

You need to calculate carefully the costs of stripping a trailer for a frame for building a small house.

One must inspect the trailer bed carefully before purchase, and you need to make sure the camper is road-worthy. Can you even get it to your new location?

-stripping / deconstructing new trailer cost of labor and time

-old trailer remains /garbage disposal

-transportation to new site (you will need to rent a truck if you don’t have a pick-up)
-repainting the trailer bed

Camper Trailers (or trailers of any kind) are much more expensive in Sweden than the US, so I am not sure what the alternative is here.

source: Minimal Mansion

We think the photoshopped presentation for the bridge is over the top, but even if it is just a publicity stunt, at least it is a green publicity stunt.

source:inhabitat
You do not need a fancy bridge to help your local bird population.

Bird homes, feeders, and hedges and trees for Birds to live in are an easy way to help birds in your are today.

The easiest to start with is a bird feeder made out of a box / milk or juice carton or a plastic bottle [video].
This is another bottle project fun to do with your kids
Remember to hang it up without cats nearby! House cats kill too many birds today.

One very easy thing to make is an owl box
Here are more links on making shelters for owls

check out their image gallery

Simple and un-flashy, the owners moved out into the New Zealand woods to build their house with recycled lumber, windows and doors. An organic vegetable garden and a wood-burning stove are just a few of the ways they intend to live as simply and sustainably as possible…

The owners bought the lumber from a mill with unused logged trees that had been sitting there for years. All the windows and doors were sourced from thrift stores, dumps, and the side of the road. The wood-burning stove provides all the necessary heat for the home: it warms the rooms, heats all the water, and of course, it cooks as well. Rainwater is collected in tanks and then run through the home’s plumbing system. Right now the bathroom is outside (!), but there are plans to complete an indoor bathroom soon, and to make it a sawdust composting toilet.

It’s inspiring to see people taking this life so seriously, and it can be a little overwhelming as well. Clearly moving out to the bush is not an option for many of us, even if we wanted it. That’s why Kimberlee of Anemone reminds us that there are still things we can do, however small, that help “lighten the load.” Try to use less. Less space, less resources- less waste. Shop locally. Support small businesses. Try not to commute too far, or at least carpool or ride the subway. Share your resources, like public transportation, parks and libraries.

It might not be a house in the woods, but it’s something.

via
re-nest

Michael Janzen:
I’ve embarked on a little experiment. I’m building a tiny house that’s cross between Henry David Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond and a Tumbleweed-like Tiny House on wheels, the only difference is that it will cost nothing. Any money I spend on building materials will be recouped by selling discarded things I find and most of the wood will come from old shipping pallets.

tiny free house

Addressing the urgent need to green our built environment, Kjellgren Kaminsky Architects have conceived of a Super Sustainable City

that re-envisions Gothenburg, Sweden as a future-forward ecotopia. Designed as a dense and interconnected urban area, the master plan incorporates everything from green rooftop gardens to water and energy harvesting roadways, towering solar arrays, and soaring wind turbines. These measures address the issues of density, energy, and food production, while staying true to the city’s architectural heritage.

One of the smartest steps we can take towards a more sustainable future is to build denser, more efficiently designed cities. In doing so we stand to cut down on the materials required for buildings and infrastructure, decrease the distance residents need to travel, and provide space for the world’s surging population.

By 2020 the city of Gothenburg, Sweden will be growing at a rate of 8000 new inhabitants per year, and thus far the majority of this growth has taken the form of lateral sprawl. The Super Sustainable City addresses this issue by forming a dense city center that will house one third of the city’s growth until 2020 while forming a strong connection between each bank of the site’s river. The plan is inspired by the architectural heritage of Gothenburg, and will feature traditional yellow bricks, streets paved with granite, and plenty of markets and canals.

More at inhabitat