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not to worry - there is a mate. For months we see male and female near each other on the edge of the pond. Eventually the female disappears, to reappear, i guess, at the right time. i wished i could send you a picture of the two of them - big, fat, healthy specimen of the frog world.

@@hildamaingay thanks so much for taking the time to respond. it does make me feel better to know that there is company for that frog. i am watching youtube videos about your work/life and that of other like minded folks. thanks for making so much public for others, like me, to keep up the faith.

Antonio Julupanter, Thanks, the problem with most compost boxes is that the finished compost is at the bottom. Then you have to remove tone or more sides of the box to get to the bottom. Also, it's easy to say "turn the pile" but it is very hard to do if it is 4 feet deep. This method lets you remove the finished compost without removing the sides,, and I do not move the compost at all, I just wait for it to move down slowly over time; It can take a year or two, If anything makes it to the bottom that is not decomposed, I just throw it on top again.

or even add fittings to both ends with a hose adapter and valves if they are a longer distance than what you can get in the pond. hook a hose to one end and leave the other end open until the water pushes all the air out then close the valves put them in place then open the valves.

@johncollins3910 well I was thinking to remove cost, making it easier to start and add a bit of safety. Adding more fittings doesn't exactly go with removing cost. Also it seems, what you are suggesting, will make it harder to start.

Air accumulating in the top of a siphon is the main problem with using siphons. Air ALWAYS slowly accumulates, slowly reduces the volume of water that flows through, and eventually stops flow altogether. In an opaque pipe you cannot see it happening until it's too late. Even then, when you restart an opaque siphon you can't see how much air is in it at the beginning. The air that accumulates is from tiny bubbles, some are oxygen bubbles from algae, and some are normal air that come out of the water because the space above the water in the siphon is always under a light vacuum and it pulls the tiny drops out of suspension in the water.

The nice thing about composting this way is that it uses time instead of work. The composting takes a year or two for the material to decompose and move slowly to the bottom, but you don't have to do any stirring or turning. And you can take the compost out at the bottom without emptying the whole thing or disassembling the box.

The siphon is always full of water. It works automatically; if the water level is higher on one side than the other, water will flow over to the lower side until both levels are equal. They will stay equal all the time, unless more new water is added to either side. Then they will equalize again until the levels are the same. The siphon is always full; water just runs through it, water never drains out.

@@hildamaingay Thank you for the clear explanation.

Water will flow automatically from one pond into the other from a pond with a higher water level to pond with a lower water level. When the water levels in both ponds are finally the same, the water will stop flowing.

The two ends of a siphon do not have to be level where they rest on the top edge of a pond. It is easier to suck out any air in the top of the siphon if it is held level for that operation. The water will flow from the pond with the highest water level to the pond with a lower water level. It is easy to suck out air through the small tube; when you suck out air from the top, water will rise up each side in the large tubes and finally fill the horizontal tube with water. The siphon will work if there is some air in the top horizontal tube, but more water will flow the less air there is.

Mary, Thanks, one of the best features of these siphons is that they connect two ponds over the top, and you don't have to put holes through the sides of the tanks and try to seal the connections.

Thanks for your evaluation of the video. I forwarded your comments to Lily who made the animation.

We put material into the boxes anytime we have some. Sometimes in summer it includes fresh green weeds or vegetable stems, in fall it's a lot of vegetable stems/vines/plants removed after the season is over and we're cleaning the garden up. In this system the organic material decomposes slowly over a year or more as it gradually sinks down. Because the material is added a lilt at a time, it never heats up. Only when a compost pile is made all at once with layers of green and dry materials does it heat up. It would be OK to add manure at any time; tha would probably make it decompose a little faster. Otherwise it's slow and its speed of decomposing depends mostly on how wet it stays from rain falling on it. Spraying it with water speed it up. What's not obvious is that because there are large slots and holes on the sides and corners, there is no place for rats or animals to safely hide in it.

I'm clearing a garden spot for a first year garden, and there's tons of materials to put in one of those I could probably fill up two of them as is right now we have seven and a half acres of trees and leaves and brush to clear. I would imagine I'm going to have 20 or 30 of them in a row lol. Mostly it's going to be leaves. And small twigs like pencil size. But those will be chopped up and not tons of them put in I can burn those in a bonfire. It'll also be good to have him down that one side of the garden to fence off that side to keep deer out. Cuz I'll probably make them 6 ft tall real Handy. And I'm thinking about making them 4 ft by 4 ft rather than 3 ft by 3 ft. But this design and idea is a Capital One and I appreciate that you made a video about it. Because I was trying to figure out some way to get pallets or somehow get something to start composting all of this stuff that we have. But this will work just perfect. I'm crippled up and can't do a lot for very long at a time but throwing a little bit in there and walking away is perfect for me. As a matter of fact today I'm going to start cutting the logs for it with the chainsaw. I'm going to be using green wood. I figure it'll take a little longer to rot down at that point. Edit.... I've got a fat cedar tree that I cut down that I can chunk up for the base pieces

The solar ponds are made out of Kalwall fiberglass. They are still made and sold by a subsidiary of Kalwall named Solar Components Corporation in Manchester NH. They call them "flat-bottomed tanks". The ones New Alchemy used and we use in the Ark are 5' high and 5' diameter and hold about 700 gallons. They are expensive to buy from Solar Components, mostly because the shipping's expensive - they don't weigh much but are very large to ship. It would be cheaper to buy rolls of 5' wide Kalwall fiberglass and make your own. I have done that in the past. The bottom edge and vertical seam joint on the side are glued with either epoxy adhesive or regular fiberglass resin and glass mesh, like how fiberglass boats are made. We have a 4 page instruction sheet by New Alchemy that gives instructions. They are very durable. We have some that are about 30 years old and still work fine. None have failed structurally in all that time.

The water will always flow from the pond with the higher water level to the pond with the lower water level. The water will flow until the two ponds have equal water levels. The rate of flow slows down as the difference in water levels gets smaller and smaller.

@@greencenter9608 tq

Native Americans did use black locust for bows. it is one of the hardest, most springy and resilient woods. Only osage orange is better for bows. Osage orange was the gold standard material for bows.

The way this compost box is used is that waste organic materials (leaves, weeds, grass, soft stems [no hard woody material or branches]) are put on top anytime they are available, in any combination. The materials get rained on occasionally and slowly decompose over many months sinking down over time. The oldest material, sometimes a year or more old, at the bottom has normally decomposed to the point that it is fine and crumbly like compost, and can be shoveled out from the openings at the bottom and used. The material in this compost box never heats up, even in the center. For compost to heat up, the materials have to be added all at once and in a particular proportion, including lots of fresh plants or manure that is high in nitrogen. It is hard to gather a couple cubic yards of the right materials all at one time to be piled together in one day..Only then will the compost pile heat up, and then it is hot in the center for only a few weeks. This compost system gets new material on top only occasionally, rarely enough at once to heat up. Also, there are many openings on all sides between the logs so any heat that might occur is quickly lost out the sides. All the openings also keep the materials on the sides and in the corners much drier than is recommended for standard compost boxes. Decomposition just takes longer and is activated by periodic rains. The conditions in this compost box is more like decomposition of materials in natural situations, where leaves and stems simply falll onto the top of the ground and decompose at the bottom of the layers. They do not heat up in natuer, there is never enough accumulated deep in one place. There are no hot compost piles in nature. The reason rats don't live in or visit these log compost boxes is because: 1) we do not put food in it. We give waste food and waste vegetables to our chickens. 2) all the openings on all the sides give rats no place to hide. They will not stay there if they cannot hide from cats or hawks or foxes or other predators.

What you can do depends on your climate, and how sunny and cold you winters are. If your climate is temperate like ours, if your winters are sunny and not too cold, you should be able to make a passive solar greenhouse like the Ark. If you are very practical and know how to make buildings, you might be able to build the structure yourself. If not, you will have find a local builder or company who is able to make a custom-designed greenhouse, and work with them. The general requirements would be to make a building with a flat, tilted 45 degree (in your case, north-facing) roof covered with a greenhouse glazing material. It's important to also use transparent glazing for the east wall and the west wall., to let in the maximum amount of light. Glass is possible, but probably too difficult to work with. We use 3-layer polycarbonate glazing made for commercial grreenhouses. in the USA. It can be easily sawed and nailed and attached to a frame. The frame and walls of the greenhouse has to be of metal or pressure-treated lumber; normal lumber and normal plywood will rot and disintegrate in 5-10 years because the greenhouse air is very humid and fungus will deteriorate the wood. We use a welded steel frame and pressure treated wood. It's important to make the frame that holds the glazing to cast as little shade as possible. Heavy wooded beams and rafters can cast 20-25% shade, which is too much. Welded metal trusses for rafters are the best solution. Paint every surface inside the greenhouse white to reflect light. Use lime whitewash on any cement wall inside. Insulate outside the back wall. Vents. It is also important to have many large openable vents at the bottom of the slanted (north) roof (to let cool air in) and at the top of the structure (to let hot air out, to automatically ventilate the greenhouse by convection in summer when it is too hot (to avoid needing electrical fans.). The size of the vents is guesswork; it would probably work to have the open area of the lower vents to be 10% of the area of the sloping (north) glazed roof, and the upper vents to be 20% of the area of the sloping north roof. the cool air coming in will expand as it heats up and has to have more area to go out the top. The lower vents work best if they are vertical. Big vents have to be very strong to not be destroyed by wind. It doesn't matter too much if rain fall in the upper vents - it is a greenhouse and rain will fall on plants and soil. The floor of the greenhouse should be natural soil at least 3 feet deep that can drain downward naturally. You should not make a cement floor. The foundation to the ARk is 4 feet deep, made of 8 inch -thick cement and has 2 inches of water-proof foam on the outside of the cement. Rainwater Collection. If possible, at the bottom of the sloping roof let rainwater fall inside, our use gutters to make rainwater fall inside and automatically flow to the soil in the plant beds by gravity. If there is (south) roof, at the back, catch the train form it and pipe it into the greenhouse and directly to fish ponds and/or the soil. Thermal mass. To stabilize the temperature inside, you need to have a large amount of water in the greenhouse to soak up excess solar heat, and in winter store it for nighttime to heat the air in the greenhouse and avoid needing to burn fuel for heating. The water can be in large, above-ground fish ponds or containers of water (large or small, metal plastic., or transparent hanging plastic tubes of water. You need thousands of gallons of water the more the better. It takes up space, but is necessary. Your greenhouse should be very large, the larger the better. Ours is 100 feet long and 25 feet wide, and 25-30 feet high at the peak. Those are essential details of how the Ark greenhouse is made. Let me know if you have more questions if you start to make one.

@@greencenter9608 Wow!! tank you so much!! It´s a great starting point since all this info is based on experiencie. I´ll try to do my search and figure a budget. we have a nice piece of land to build this. we`ll let you know as soon as we decide yo go for it! !

Not too cold in Cape Cod?

New Alchemy's research on Zweig Ponds (lettuce aquaponics) suggested removal and replacement of 20% of water per week (to remove some portion of the dissolved nutrients). 5'x5' ponds are about 700 gallons. So each pond should get 140 gallons of new water per week . We have a row of 4 connected ponds, so theoretically 560 gallons of new water should be run through, though its not the same as replacing 20% new water into each pond. In practice, we use a timer and put new water in at the upper end for about 30 minute from a garden hose at about half-rate. I donut know the gallons/hour but willmeasur it and let you know.

@@greencenter9608 ok great, i would appreciate. this is gold!

We have wide sliding glass doors separating the kitchen from the greenhouse, to see out and to let light in. But we leave them closed almost all year. In winter the greenhouse air is warm and humid, and if it is moved into the house it condenses on cool surfaces like windows, north room walls, and worst inside cool walls. Condensation in the walls of a house can destroy the wood in only a few years, In summer the greenhouse air is hotter and stays hotter because th outdoor air is warm and the greenhouse air can't passively convect out the vents as fast. In summe we move most plants outside so the air is not as humid, and windows in the house can be open to ventilate air. At some times in spring and fall, or summer mornings and evenings, the air temperatures are about the same and we open the doors to the greenhouse. Surprisingly, when we do open the doors, insects in the greenhouse virtually never come into the house. Crawling insects seem to know that it's an inhospitable place and there's no soil or food there. Mosquitoes don't grow in the greenhouse ponds because we keep a few fish in each pond tha eat the mosquito larvae. Only mosquitoes from outdoors that are just passing through he greenhouse come into the house, but only in the evening, thence close the doors.

@@greencenter9608 thank you. can i ask WHICH fish is specifically held for mosquito larvae, if any?

We have aa couple of small ponds in the greenhouse which are ornamental and each contains 2 small goldfish (2-3" long); the goldfish eliminate any mosquito larvae by eating any they can find.. We occaisionally have a 5'x5' solar fish pond empty of food fish (tilapia, catfish) so we will put 2-3 small goldfish (2-4")in them to eliminate mosquitoes.

@@greencenter9608 thank you! and they are beautiful to look at too!! how do the mosquitoes not develop in the big solar ponds... is the tilapia&catfish eating the larvae too?

The tilapia eat any small aquatic microbes in the water, nibble on the roots of any floating plant, scrape the sidewalls of the solar pond wit their teeth to eat the film things growing there, and filter out algae cells tha are growing free in the water. Also any insect that might fall in to the water from the air. Catfish seem to only eat free-swinning aquatic microbes and things in the mud at the bottom. Catfish spend most of their time at the bottom and don't clean the sides of the pond. But the main reason the aquaponics ponds do not have mosquitos is tha the water is always moving, caused by aeration bubbles always stirring the water and fish moving around. Mosquitos only lay eggs and produce larvae in still water. If all fish are removed from a solar pond and the aeration stopped, mosquitoes will grow in them.

We have several Meyer lemon trees about 7 feet high in large pots. We put them outdoors each summer - rain and sun and birds keep the leaves free of black sooty mold and scales that grow on the leaves if they are left in the greenhouse all summer. We put them inside in winter. The temperature in aor greenhouse often goes down to 40 degrees F and occasionally in worst times can go right down to 32-33 F and the lemons are OK. Lemons are the most hardy citrus; I don't know if oranges could go that low.

@@greencenter9608 ⚠ God has said in the Quran: 🔵 { O mankind, worship your Lord, who created you and those before you, that you may become righteous - ( 2:21 ) 🔴 [He] who made for you the earth a bed [spread out] and the sky a ceiling and sent down from the sky, rain and brought forth thereby fruits as provision for you. So do not attribute to Allah equals while you know [that there is nothing similar to Him]. ( 2:22 ) 🔵 And if you are in doubt about what We have sent down upon Our Servant [Muhammad], then produce a surah the like thereof and call upon your witnesses other than Allah, if you should be truthful. ( 2:23 ) 🔴 But if you do not - and you will never be able to - then fear the Fire, whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the disbelievers.( 2:24 ) 🔵 And give good tidings to those who believe and do righteous deeds that they will have gardens [in Paradise] beneath which rivers flow. Whenever they are provided with a provision of fruit therefrom, they will say, "This is what we were provided with before." And it is given to them in likeness. And they will have therein purified spouses, and they will abide therein eternally. ( 2:25 ) ⚠ Quran