Permaculture and Passive solar greenhouses in Ulaanbaatar (Day 21)

Note: All photos on this post are Copyright Pierre Thiriet 2010 and appear with permission of Pierre Thiriet.

Met with Anne Randall today, Agronomist/Technical Advisor at the French NGO Group for the Environment, Renewable Energy and Solidarity (GERES - pronounced 'jheh-rehz', not 'Gee-reez' - it's French after all!) to compare notes and share information between projects.

It's one of the simplest, most important things an NGO can do - share information with other NGOs working in the same area - so that learning curves can be accelerated (mistakes don't have to be made twice if shared), and projects can grow to flourish and complement each other.  Based upon our meeting today and the information shared from both sides, the potential for this to occur between the GERES and ADRA projects is significant.

Photo: GERES Research & Development Center in Ulaanbaatar.

GERES are the good folks that brought us the Passive Solar Greenhouse design in Ladakh which have achieved year-round vegetable production down to minus 25C at approximately 3,000 meters above sea level (and which we modeled during the Permaculture Design Training for the classes on passive solar greenhouse design).

Anne picked up on theGreenBackpack doing further research for her current project, which is to develop & implement a passive solar greenhouse design which can achieve year-round production in Mongolian conditions (illustrating, by the way, another permaculture principle: Multifunction, in which this daily log also functions as an informational resource, a networking tool, and a historical record for future volunteers and aid/development workers to build upon in Mongolia).

Since operating in Mongolian conditions from only August of last year, GERES has already achieved a 3-seasons greenhouse design, using a double-layered, concrete block / brick clad walls insulated with polystyrene (floor must be insulated too), single-sheet polyurethane plastic sheeting (imported from Korea, expected 2-year lifespan), a reflective 'solar blanket' type insulative layer for nighttime, and specially calculated steep-angled 'glass' (plastic) wall to maximize solar gain for Mongolia's latitude.

Photo: GERES 3-Season Greenhouse in Ulaanbaatar.

We shared and discussed challenges, mistakes, and lessons learned about our respective projects, and spent the next two hours brainstorming possible solutions for achieving year-round production within the greenhouse in Monoglian conditions.  Here's a quick list of some of the solutions we came up with:

• Build coldframes within greenhouses to create an even warmer microclimate within the coldframe.
• Use repurposed waste plastic bottles as inexpensive, readily available and durable cloches within the greenhouse to protect seedlings.
• Explore plastic bottle wall construction options for 'glass' wall to create 'double-glazing' effect with air tapped inside bottles.
• Re-using plastic bottles could help keep plastic out of waste stream (and prevent them from being burnt as winter fuel).
• Improved ger stove design will decrease pressure on fuel requirements and the family budget.
• Build root cellar under ger/house to maximize heating/cooling efficiency and security (root cellar must be dug deep enough to perform effectively).
• Household heating system could potentially be extended to heat root cellar and/or greenhouse.
• Establish windbreak/suntrap behind north wall using  fast-growing Populus laurifolia (Laurel-leafed poplar)  + Caragana (Siberian peashrub) species (keeping harsh Mongolian winds off greenhouse could help increase heat retention).
• Organic matter dropped from living windbreak can then be used to build soils within the greenhouse and hasha.
• Organic matter dropped from living windbreak can be used as cover material for pit latrines, for potential future use as 'humanure' (not currently culturally appropriate) .
• Build hot compost heaps (using dungs (such as chicken or goat) which are not used for fuel) inside the greenhouse to add heat biologically and relieve potential conflicts on precious 'fuel'-dungs.
• Chickens could be a valuable addition to a small-scale-intensive, passive solar greenhouse system, conditioning and building soil during winter season in a 3 or 4-season greenhouse, providing nutritionally and financially valuable eggs from March - October, plus meat and/or more chickens when needed.
• Drip-irrigation systems maximize water efficiency and increase thermal mass within greenhouse.
• Human urine from households can be diluted into drip-irrigation system to be used as a free and safe liquid fertilizer (provided all members of household are healthy).
• Raised beds within greenhouse make management and harvesting easier; line paths with dark rocks to increase thermal mass.
• Use planting guilds to maximize production from small-scale-intensively farmed space.
• Plant potatoes in stacks to maximize production and create more space for other crops.
• Cucumbers, squash, and other climbing/rambling crops can be trained up walls or across roofs to maximize growing space for other crops. 
• Alfalpha, oats, or a native 'green manure' species (such as vetch) can be planted around hasha perimeter to help build soils within hasha walls (and provide backup animal fodder).
• Local varieties of seabuckthorn and currants can be planted within windbreak of hasha walls to boost family nutrition. 
• Research cold-climate species native to comparable climates to maximize productivity (eg Lonicera caerulea edulis, or Blue honeysuckle is a highly nutritious, climbing berry native to Siberia that will tolerate minus 40C and produce down to minus 7C).
• Low-grade animal furs not suitable for commercial use may be a locally and readily available insulative material for floor that will break down and build soil over time.
• Coal ash may be a locally and readily available insulative material that could be substituted for polystyrene within the walls, though further research into how safe this material is must be conducted before being implemented.

Ideas were flying so fast & furious that I am sure there are a few things I've missed; the point is that when like minds collaborate towards a common goal,  

1 + 1 can = 3.

In other words:

None of us
Is as smart
As ALL of us.

Best wishes to Anne and the rest of the team at GERES-Mongolia, we hope to continue to support and collaborate with them towards achieving their project goal of building 180 passive solar greenhouse for family beneficiaries throughout Mongolia over the next two years.

A bientôt!

Photo: Inside GERES' research greenhouse.

 

List of useful web resources from Anne Randall (merci beaucoup!) to help you with your passive solar greenhouse design:

• *Sunchart: University of Oregon, Sunchart Program - http://solardat.uoregon.edu/SunChartProgram.html
• *To find easily the longitude and latitude of a point: http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html
• *To find the declination of a location: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomagmodels/Declination.jsp
• *Good source of general info on solar greenhouses: http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/solar-gh.html

 

 

Composting Toilets in Bayan Ulgii (Day 13)

Designing composting toilet systems for Islamic cultures is a delicate matter that demands diplomacy; Moslem belief holds that human organic waste matter is dirty and is something best dealt with by putting it out-of-sight and out-of-mind. 

Most households have pit latrines dug into the furthest corner of the family compound, and where the family has sufficient resources, further steps are taken to hide it from view (such as placing it where the entrance gate swings open so that it can only be seen when the compound is secured at night).  For most of the year, the sewage matter is frozen and so does not create an unpleasant odour or attract flies (though to visiting foreigners, squatting above a frozen pile of faeces pointing at your bum like Vlad the Impaler can be somewhat disconcerting), though during summer the paying a visit to the faecal soup outhouse is a decidedly ordeal.

Apparently, there is a city sewer system of some sort (though I haven't yet figured out how it works or where it would flow to, that is, when it is not frozen), as the apartments (and thankfully, my hotel) are equipped with working flush toilets.

In the lowest neighbourhoods of Ulgii City, pit latrines are dug approximately three meters deep.  The water table there lies at four.  That's not a lot of margin for error.

Q & A time is spent with the class to elicit an urgent response to design solutions to the challenges of dealing with human poo & pee: If 40,000 residents of Ulgii City are poo-ing and peeing in pits dug 100cm above the water table, how safe is the water you drink?

With that in mind, parameters and examples are given for designing alternative systems for managing the settlement's organic human waste:

 

General:

•  Waste is a resource that hasn't been successfully utilized in your system yet.
•  How can the outputs of one element in your system become the inputs for another?
•  Separate liquids and solids.
•  Manage and process waste on-site.

Pee:

•  Nitrogen-rich liquid plant fertilizer.
•  Safe to use immediately on plants (pee in a different spot each time to prevent 'burning' plants).
•  Use later by diluting 10:1 water (suitable for drip-irrigation systems).
•  Mulch pit can be used to compost urine at approx 25:1 carbon: nitrogen ratio.
•  Do not use as liquid fertilizer if you are sick.
  

Poo:

•  Must be processed before it can be safely used as plant fertilizer.
•  Heat to at least 60C for several house to kill pathogens(i).
•  Compost for at least 2-3 years to completely break down waste material.
•  Only apply processed humanure to tall crops (eg beans, other climbers, corn, fruit trees).
•  Cover soild waste material after each visit to latrine with 'carbon material' to mask odour & begin composting process.

Possible design solutions:

•  Separate liquids from solids using separate pit latrine / mulch pit system.
•  Males can simply pee in a different spot around the garden each time they relieve themselves (not a good idea in winter, unless you want a yellow skating rink in your hasha).
•  Bucket system: separates liquids & soilds, must be emptied into drip irrigation or mulch pit (liquid) or composting humanure heap (soilds).
•  Revolving pit latrines: alternate between three or four shallower pits annually, allowing unused pits to break down.  Composted matter can then be harvested before pit is put back into use every third or fourth year.
•  Large scale toilet system (eg for school): solar composting toilet.  Two toilet blocks are built and alternated annually.  A slope is used to transport solid waste matter down and away from the drop zone.  Carbon material is dropped into toilet pit after each visit to mask odour & aid in composting process.  Toilets are built above a 'solar digester', which is oriented to maximize solar gain and heat up.  Solar chimney vents high above usage zone.[see sketch]

Photo: Composting solar toilet design.

 

________________________

(i) ’Humanure Handbook’ by Jospeh Jenkins

(ii) Disclaimer: this information is given for educational purposes only and is not to be construed as professional design advice.  Consult a licensed architect or professional composting toilet systems specialist before implementing your own composting toilet system.

Mongolian Permaculture: Day 22 – Potato Fields and Pit Latrines

CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION.
NOTICE TSURREN IN THE BACKGROUND,
WONDERING WHAT PLANET I'M FROM

Spent the afternoon working the potato fields with the women of the Co-Op.

Our mission today was to start digging an irrigation trench network to catch and use some of that rainfall which flooded the hasha on the Day 01 of the PDC.

We’ve had two more heavy downpours since then, and the co-operative has dug a trench outside the walls to protect the potato crops from being washed away. Since the roadway outside basically drains all the water off to us, we can and should catch and use this water constructively.

So, we dig a trench under the northern fence with an earth berm in the outside moat big enough to catch and divert smaller flows but small enough to let excess water pass. If we have a really heavy rainfall that is too much for our little catchment and distribution network then we can simply close the ‘tap’ by closing off the inlet trench.

OUR HANDIWORK

This inlet trench runs perpendicular to rows of potatoes, so we use it as a ‘spine’ to bring water in, and run ‘ribs’ off it at right angles into the rows of potatoes.

The adjacent crop rows run parallel to the inlet trench at the bottom of a small slope, so we dig a ‘bathtub’ here – just a deeper, bigger pool - to slow the water before distributing it again. The ‘ribs’ run of radially down the slope here, very shallow trenches to ensure the water doesn’t pick up enough velocity to be damaging.

Mongolian women are tough!

We dig through a rocky layer into the brickie-sand soil about a foot down to create our ‘bathtub’ catchment and pile the soil onto hessian bags, which are then carried two-by-two over to the potato crops and used to mound the plants. When covered with soil in this way, the plant produces more tubers where it is in contact with the soil.

Whatever I do, I must not drop one of these heavy bags of soil that they tote around with one hand...

It is a great way to connect with a people, getting your hands dirty by sweating it out in the fields side-by-side. They teach me some Mongolian words: rain [boro], potato [tummus], onion [tsongion] …and we have lively conversation about our families through signing and guessing at what the other is saying. Lots of smiling and nodding.

Oyona, whom I picked to be about 19 or 20, is actually 29 and married with 5 kids. Baska is the wife of Mogi, my friend the Watchman. Tsuuren is quiet and stone-faced, Attakka takes a mobile phone call every half hour like any other teenager, and Mama tells me that I have to think of a better nickname for her because she is far to skinny to be a mama. I can’t pronounce her name, she is my Mum’s age, and she has smiling eyes that remind me of Mum, so that IS the best I’ve come with so far…

At one point, we all stop and watch a herd of horses mosey past the hasha, and suddenly everyone is riding the steppe with the wind in our faces …then the moment passes and its back to the rhythmic digging, heaping, carrying, and mounding of the precious crops.

Meanwhile, we’ve had a major breakthrough with the class this morning… Rick and Kat have found that the students are simply parroting back examples the instructors have given during the reviews, showing a lack of understanding and independent thinking to make connections of their own.

It is not a lack of intelligence or in any way a reflection of the capacity of anyone in the room - many of the students are college educated. It is more so a symptom of a western university system which values a lecture format and formulaic teaching methodology, and perhaps some leftover quota-mindset from the Socialism era.

Case and point: at one point Rick mentions that he has no idea exactly how much vetch seeds you would need to collect in order to plant out enough to fertilize a crop field. One of the agronomists quickly pipes up with the answer, “Ten-to-twelve kilos.”But the connection between this plant’s growing requirements and functions, and actually designing use of this plant into the fields as a green manure system has not yet been made, and the highly specialized knowledge has sat filed and unused while the co-operatives continue to manually collect and haul animal manure as fertilizer for their fields and struggle to efficiently maximize production.

So an adjustment in teaching methodology is introduced, and a shift towards forcing independent thought and connections between the principles that have been laid is made.

This is done effectively by setting problems that small groups have to solve themselves using what they have learnt: parameters are set to design a greenhouse for rural and urban settings, and the 4 unique [and quite clever] designs produced at the end of the session show that the cogs are starting to turn in students’ heads.

STUDENT DESIGN:
A GREENHOUSE ON A GER!

Composting toilets turn out to be another favorite subject, not really that surprising when Rick produces a bottle of poo-coloured water, points out that the pit latrines we use each morning are 4 meters deep, the water table is 5 meters deep, and by the way who would like a sip of his bottle of poo water? …because this is what the water supply in the soums will look like if the populations continue to grow and use their current septic system.

He then presents his crazy idea for the day, a wild possibility for a multi-function sewerage system for the cold Mongolian winters – giant yellow icy-poles. Yup. He went there.

Imagine: it is so cold outside that your urine freezes almost as soon as it hits the ground. Your body shuts adjusts so that you only go once a day. You know that cartoon of an eskimo peeing ice cubes? Like that. Worse if you are a woman, and worse still when it comes to number 2s…

The Problem is the Solution, right?

So why not pee in a bucket in the greenhouse/airlock outside the ger door, then place the bucket outside so that it freezes solid? Better yet, why not put your shovel into the bucket to make a large icy-pole? Then, when the bucket fills up you can simply pop out the giant icy-pole, walk it out to your crop field, and kick it off the shovel.

Over the winter your crop field will become dotted with frozen yellow pee-pops, which will melt in the spring to fertilize your fields. It’s a lot more comfortable way to use the toilet , your waste is harnessed and converted to a valuable resource, and you have the additional multi-function of portable salt licks for the livestock!

The class gets a good laugh out of this wild scenario, which is presented in jest as a humurous way to broach a subject that we don’t even like to talk about in the deveoped world.

All kidding aside, there may be some merit in the idea, which was just thrown out there to open the door to conversation, thought, and discussion about better ways to deal with human waste in rural and urban contexts.

Kat walks the class through her ‘Bucket’ composting toilet system in Melbourne, outlining why she has chosen specific design elements and highlighting the safeguards in place to ensure safe treatment of potential toxins and pathogens. Rick then walks everyone through an above-ground rotational system that could suited to the soums, and possibly adapted for use in and around Ulanbaataar.

Nothing like some good old Aussie toilet humour to loosen things up [excuse the pun – I am clearly spending too much time with Rick…]. …and judging from the questions and enthusiastic discussion during and after this session, this light-hearted approach to teaching this subject worked very well.

RICK'S SPECIAL ICY POLES...

A DEFINITE IMPROVEMENT OVER THE EXISTING PIT LATRINES.