One of the next stages in our plan to be carbon neutral is to start generating our own electricity for the site. We decided that the best way to do this is to put a wind turbine on the roof of our factory. However, the wind turbine in question will not be an off the shelf model, it will be a bespoke design based on a modification to a Savonius rotor. Although ours is not a particularly windy site (being in the middle of London and surrounded by lots of other taller buildings), we decided to go ahead with this project anyway for a number of reasons, but mainly to test out this new design. The configuration should lend itself very well to generating electricity from the wind flowing over buildings in urban environments.

 

Vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) like the Savonius rotor are more suited to urban environments for a number of reasons. Firstly they will turn whatever direction the wind is coming from whereas the more conventional horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWTs) must turn to face the wind in order to extract energy from it. Secondly, wind in urban areas is often very turbulent because of obstructions like buildings or trees. HAWTs don’t work very effectively in turbulent air but VAWTs are affected less severely. There are however, many issues to overcome before we can actually put the turbine on the roof…more about that another day…

 

 

Not sure that mulching with the rye flakes has actually worked very well. It sees that they don't really block out enough light to prevent weeds from growing as I found some small leaves poking through! Never mind, I think we'll just compost them instead and continue mulching with cardboard. Our apple trees are now blossoming which is very pretty!

On Monday we're planting blueberries and continuing to dog our pond so I hope that the weather gets a little better by then. Please feel free to come and join us if you're available.

Last week we received a delivery of organic rye flakes that our quality department rejected. The supplier didn't want it back and we didn't really want to throw it away as we are trying to get to zero waste to landfill, so after much discussion we decided to try mulching with it. Regular visitors to the site might remember that we had been mulching with cardboard boxes and paper sacks from our factory as described in this post - but that looks really untidy. When you walk into the garden the cardboard and paper on the ground is one of the first things you notice.

So anyway, mulching with rye flakes seemed like a good idea as they will rot down eventually but should do the same job as wood chip or bark chippings. Mulching blocks out light which should prevent weeds coming through, keeps moisture in the soil and will provide some frost protection for our new plants. I tried it with a couple of bags this morning and it definitely looks much prettier than the cardboard. It might even be better than the cardboard because the flakes will allow rainwater to reach the soil whereas it might just run off the sheets of cardboard. If anyone has any comments about this I'd love to hear them as this is a bit of an experiment for us.

 

At Alara we have a chef who comes in every day to cook for our staff at lunch time. We have quite a varied menu of salads, rice dishes pasta dishes, meat and vegetarian dishes, all very tasty and all freshly prepared. We recently decided that all fruit and vegetables that are served up for lunch should be organic since we firmly believe in the benefits of organic food production and wholeheartedly support the organic movement. Although this is more expensive, it is much better for the environment and we feel it is much better for the health of our staff too!

There has been a mixed reaction from our staff to this change. Some have welcomed it and are quite enthusiastic about the idea whilst others are less supportive. It seems that one of the reasons for this resistance to change is that there is now less meat on the menu. Organic vegetables cost a lot more than their non-organic equivalents so the budget sometimes doesn't stretch as far as meat. In some cases meat has been replaced by soya and in others it's just that there's less meat in whatever dish is being served up. So in summary, the vegetarians are quite happy with the change but the carnivores are finding it more difficult to adjust...we'll see if attitudes change in time...

 

Following the success of our last planting day, I'm now organising another one for the 30th April 2007. This time we will be planting lots of smaller undergrowth plants to build up the lower layer of the garden. A lot of the plants we are putting in will be nitrogen fixing which is important for keeping the soil fertile. We'll also continue to dig our pond for harvesting rainwater. It promises to be a great day, especially if the weather holds!

More details can be found here including how to register your interest

If you'd like to volunteer, we'd love to see you there so don't hesitate to get in touch!

 

Today we had another very successful planting day in our permaculture forest garden. 9 volunteers came down to help us plant another 30 fruit bearing shrubs including blackcurrants, gooseberries, kiwi, and passion fruit. Once everything was planted we also did some mulching around the more vulnerable trees using cardboard boxes and paper sacks that came from our factory. Some of our more energetic volunteers also made a start digging a hole for our pond as you can see in the picture below.

A very big thank you goes to all our volunteers who did an absolutely fantastic job on the day! We couldn't have done it without you and really appreciate all your hard work - especially those of you who spent the afternoon digging out our pond. It was back breaking work, made even more difficult by the fact that the ground contains loads of old bricks and rubble left over from when the site was derelict.

The pictures of that I took on the day can be found here...enjoy!

There will be another planting day at the end of April...more details coming soon.

Spring has most definitely sprung in the garden! Everything is looking a little more leafy now and we even have some peach blossom on the peach tree. We also found some fruit on one of our elaeagnus which was just about ripe - it was very bitter though so I don't think I'll be snacking on those just yet! But it's nice to know that our plants are happy enough to start fruiting. Looking forward to more...