Straw bales

content/blog/2023-07-24-harvesting-onions.gmi

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+---
+title: "Harvesting onions"
+---
+
+It's been a busy few months on the allotment since I last posted. Plenty going on, but the big news is that I am now self-sufficient for onions!
+
+=> /img/harvesting-onions/onions.jpg Harvested onions
+
+This is half of the crop: 43 onions (one isn't visible). I planted some sets out in April, on a whim (I wasn't planning to grow any this year), then felt bad for the left-over sets and planted those too, a month later. Successional planting isn't actually a very good idea with onions, and that second planting is looking a bit weedy compared to this one, but I'll make the best of it.
+
+When onions are ready to harvest, the green tops start to fall over; once around half of the crop has done that, you bend over the neck of the remaining ones, pull them, and set them out in a dry, airy place to start drying out. These onions are bred for storage - if they're harvested in optimum conditions and "cured" correctly, they might last for a whole year after harvest - at which point the new crop of onions will be ready. Plant enough of them each year, and you'll never have to buy an onion again.
+
+Did I plant enough? ~100 onions is ~2/week for the whole family, which might be a bit short. I'm planning to get some more in the ground in September - onions can be overwintered, which moves the harvest from July/August to June/July, so that cuts me down to 11 months to cover. You can also pull and eat onions before they form bulbs, so hopefully that'll be enough to get us by. It's quite a feeling!
+
+## Other alliums
+
+I also started leeks from seed in May, in a temporary seed bed. These got transplanted this week, and should be ready from December.
+
+=> /img/harvesting-onions/leeks.jpg Leeks in a raised bed
+
+It turns out the allotment has a patch of wild garlic too - but by the time I noticed, harvest time was over. I'll be watching for it next year! Living in Devon when I was a kid, we used to forage for this stuff along riverbanks - the leaves are delicious, but also the flowers. They grow enclosed in a sort-of pod, and if you pick them before they flower, they're amazing - fresh, cooked, or even pickled. The seed they set is also garlicky and lovely, but mostly pickled.
+
+=> /img/harvesting-onions/ramsons.jpg Wild garlic!
+
+## Sweetcorn
+
+The most backbreaking thing I've done so far is to set up a crop of sweetcorn. I've got a big 8M² field into which I crammed ~200 seeds, back in May. I'd covered it in cardboard over winter to keep the weeds down, but I needed to dig, furrow, and then plant. And wait.
+
+And wait. And wait. Looking back, I missed every single opportunity to improve germination rates, so from the ~150 seeds, I got perhaps 35 plants. I'd gone for direct sow in the belief that 200 plants was too many to manage in seed modules, and planting them out would be a pain, which is kind-of true, but at the same time, this is my main crop and I couldn't really allow it to fail.
+
+I still had 50 seeds, so in June I got them into an emergency seed bed (the one the leeks are in now, actually). I still missed some tricks to improve germination rates (pre-soaking, for instance), but managed to get pretty much all of them to germinate, and finished transplanting them out to fill in some of the gaps in the field. So I'm still well short of what I'd hoped to grow on this field, but it is at least worthwhile. 1-3 cobs per plant mean I could stlil end up with 160 cobs of corn, which is respectable - maybe 16kg of cobs.
+
+=> /img/harvesting-onions/maize.jpg Sweetcorn field
+
+Still, I learned a lot for next year. Also, weeding this field has been an incredibly time sink. I was hand-weeding for much of it, but switched to a dutch hoe this month which has helped a bit. Still, it's a huge time sink.
+
+## The other two sisters
+
+The "three sisters" are sweetcorn, beans, and squash. I'm growing all three, but I was too much of a wimp to put them all in the same area. With the benefit of hindsight, that was a blessing this year - I've been walking all over the sweetcorn field with weeding and transplanting and would have done a lot of damage to the squash if they'd been planted together. On the other hand, it's not very space-efficient. I'll probably try co-locating them next year.
+
+Anyway, here's the squash, which has been a joy to grow. 8/10 seeds germinated and it's quite vigorous:
+
+=> /img/harvesting-onions/squash.jpg Squash in a raised bed
+=> /img/harvesting-onions/squash-closeup.jpg Close-up of developing squash
+
+I chose a "landrace" - Desert Spirit - which means the plants should show a fair bit of variety, and I do see that in their fruits. It creeps along the ground and I could see it helping to suppress weeds when interplanted with the sweetcorn.
+
+The beans have been a different story. With the help of a friend, I built them a frame and planted them out in late April, and they... yup, failed to germinate. I got four plants out of ~60 seeds. Again, the soil was too cold - I was being impatient. The seeds rotted and/or were eaten by hungry critters. The plants that did come up were devoured by other hungry critters, leaving an empty bed. Completely empty. No beans.
+
+I'd planted a borlotti variety, and I was hoping to harvest them dried for storage into winter. Fortunately, the previous allotment tenant had left behind a bunch of seeds, including some regular French runner beans, so I planted them in the emergency seed bed at the same time as the sweetcorn. The good thing about planting too early is that you have time to plant a bit late! A neighbour also came through with four extremely vigorous plants he'd grown from seed and didn't have room for. So, despite the failures, I've got a fully populated bean frame with red flowers showing up all over - I just won't be able to store them dried. They should be fine to freeze, though.
+
+=> /img/harvesting-onions/beans.jpg A bean plant climbing up a pole
+
+Also completely unexpected, but much appreciated, were six broad bean plants left on the communism table at the entrance to the allotments. i'd not thought to plant any, and had to scramble to find somewhere to put them, but they matured early and provided us with ~800g of pods over the course of this month. I should definitely plant more of them next year - I seem to have planted relatively few things for an early summer harvest this year.
+
+## Asparagus
+
+Just a quick note to say that it isn't dead after all. A week after my last post lamenting its demise, it started pushing spears up through the mulch. I didn't know when it had been introduced, and you're supposed to leave it alone for the first three years, so I decided not to harvest anything this year - but later learned from an allotment neighbour that it had been planted at least five years ago, so I missed an opportunity here. Another one for next year.
+
+Well. I did harvest *one*. And it was delicious.
+
+=> /img/harvesting-onions/asparagus.jpg One single solitary asparagus spear
+
+## Culinary fruits
+
+Rhubarb, gooseberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, whitecurrants, strawberries, and raspberries have been popping up since June in various quantities. I got 1kg gooseberries off a single bush, and they were incredible. Of the various currants, the blackcurrants have been by far the best, but when fresh they have a taste that's taken me a bit of getting used to. It's nice, but almost wine-like - nothing like Ribena. We've had ~1.5kg of them, anyway, most of which are in the freezer. Strawberries and raspberries are still going strong - just like last year, they provide the baby with his daily fruit, with a bit left over for us from time to time.
+
+=> /img/harvesting-onions/blackcurrants.jpg A typical blackcurrant harvest
+=> /img/harvesting-onions/showing-off.jpg Currants and gooseberries and broad beans, oh my
+
+The rhubarb is incredibly prolific. I've harvested ~20kg so far this year, and it's barely made a dent on what's available - I could double that tomorrow if I wanted. I've given maybe half of it away so far, and have the rest preserved, either dried or frozen. I do want to try pickling some, and perhaps making a rhubarb syrup. However, the best thing to do with it is "Icelandic Rhubarb Bars"
+
+=> https://www.saveur.com/recipes/icelandic-rhubarb-bars/ Hjónabandssæla
+
+There's more butter in these than rhubarb, but they are absolutely delicious and definitely contibute to a happy marriage.
+
+Oh, and it turns out we have a peach tree on the allotment. I thought it was a cherry. It's only given us a single fruit though. I may replace it for next year.
+
+## Nightshades
+
+The aubergine plants I was so concerned with in my last post have survived, although I wouldn't necessarily say they've thrived. They spent a long time sat in a stunted state, with very few leaves - I think it was a mixture of them being too cold, and me over-watering and under-fertilising them. I finally relented and gave them some organic chicken manure fertiliser while reducing the watering frequency to twice-weekly, and they recovered somewhat. I've got flowers, but no fruit - exactly where I was in April.
+
+No pictures. I am somewhat disgruntled by the aubergines and probably won't try them again next year.
+
+The tomatoes, by contrast, have been a joy. They germinated copiously, and I managed to get all 30 planted into a single greenhouse (since the aubergines were taking up so much space). They're a bit crowded, but every time I go in it smells amazing, and I am getting some small fruits. There's a lot of green tomatoes in there, so I'm hopeful this will pick up through August and September and it can start to make a significant dent in my tomato buying. There's no chance of becoming self-sufficient in them, though - we get through ridiculous quantities.
+
+=> /img/harvesting-onions/tomatoes.jpg Tomatoes (and a few more gooseberries)
+
+Giving them more space might be possible next year if we skip aubergines - 16 plants per greenhouse would be much more sensible, and might let the fruits be larger. I managed to get 30kg of compost (produced from our garden waste bins) off of the local council, which has been a great soil improver for the tomato greenhouse, and I've been feeding them with an organic seweed-based liquid feed as well, but there's probably more I could do there. They've not had any chicken manure yet.
+
+The peppers have been a mixed bag. I've got a pot of chillis growing outside the house in a hanging basket, which are developing nicely enough - although the foliage is turning a funny colour. I think it needs feeding as well!
+
+=> /img/harvesting-onions/chillis.jpg Chillis
+
+Of the ~30 capsicum seeds I planted, only 5 germinated, so they have the third greenhouse to themselves. I haven't converted that one back to an earth floor yet, so they're in pots. They suffered pretty badly when we took a week's holiday at the start of July (up to Shetland to work on the house there - more on that in another post) - but have bounced back really well and we have ~20 fruits growing, somehow. Fingers remain crossed for them.
+
+=> /img/harvesting-onions/sad-pepper.jpg A sad-looking capsicum plant
+=> /img/harvesting-onions/happy-pepper.jpg Juche necromancy at its finest
+
+## Coming up
+
+I've been keeping a running count of things I've harvested; so far I'm at ~16,000kcal, which I calculate to be about 0.75% of our annual calorific demand, ignoring dog and cat (~6000kcal/day). So we've got a long way to go. About half of those calories are in the onions I harvested this week, and which prompted me to get writing again. The fruit are much more energy-dense, but the quantity is less, of course - except for the rhubarb, which is difficult to eat in huge quantities without also getting through a lot of sugar.
+
+The three sisters should provide the bulk of the calories remaining to come out of the allotment; back in January, I was hoping for 25,000kcal of sweetcorn, but I probably won't make even half that. Hitting ¼-⅓ of the family's calorie intake is probably not going to happen, but it will be interesting to see how wide of the mark we are.
+
+I already mentioned trying to overwinter onions; I've got broccoli and carrot seeds coming too. Those should provide a decent boost over autumn and into winter. You can "clamp" carrots to store them, which might be worth a try.
+
+I've not done any salad yet, so that will be a focus over autumn and into winter. I've got winter purslane seeds coming too, but I'll also try a bunch of stuff inside as the greenhouses get freed up.
+
+The allotment has a blackberry stand, which I've managed to keep in fairly good order, and the apple tree at home is looking weighed down with fruit. I'm also going to be foraging for plums a fair bit over August and September - there's a lot of trees around, but I was a bit late to it last year. I think it's reasonable to count foraged food towards the total. In that vein, I'm also on the lookout for sweet chestnut trees in the vicinity - we always used to forage them as kids. You can get a lot of calories very quickly that way, and they're absolutely delicious.
+
+=> /img/harvesting-onions/blackberries.jpg A well-pruned stand of blackberries
+
+That picture also shows off a refreshed woodchip surface around the greenhouse holding the peppers. Maintenance work, weeding, pruning, composting, watering - it's constant effort and I've not really talked about it above. Just let it be known that I'm putting an hour or so per day into this. Very inefficiently, I'm sure, but human labour will definitely be the limiting factor on a larger plot.
+
+Onwards!

content/blog/2023-08-28-straw-bales.gmi

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+---
+title: "Straw bales"
+---
+
+Part of our long-term plan is to get some land and build our own house(s) on it, in a manner that's suitable for self-sustainable living. Building houses is hard work, of course, and the modern building industry is rather problematic, so I've been looking into "alternative" methods of building for a few years.
+
+The Centre for Alternative Technology is a bit of a hub for that in the UK, and I was signed up to both their "Natural Housebuilding" short course and "Green Building" MSc pre-pandemic and pre-baby. This year, things felt stable enough for me to get back to it, so a friend and I went on their "Building with Straw Bales" course last week. Five rather intensive days of theory and practice that left me feeling quite capable of.
+
+I'll detail the main things I learned day by day, but there's a canonical book if you want a reference manual, which I shall link to here as well.
+
+=> https://cat.org.uk/ Centre for Alternative Technology
+=> http://schoolofnaturalbuilding.co.uk/barbaras-book/ Building With Straw Bales book
+
+## Prospectus
+
+Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday all followed the same general format:
+
+* 0800 - 0900: breakfast
+* 0900 - 1045: practical
+* 1045 - 1115: tea break
+* 1115 - 1300: practical
+* 1300 - 1400: lunch
+* 1400 - 1630: practical
+* 1630 - 1700: tea break
+* 1700 - 1800: practical
+* 1800 - 1900: dinner
+* 1900 - 2100: seminars / lectures
+
+Monday and Friday were both part-days, but add them together and you've got almost another full day. We were quite busy - the overall impression was of a course that should be twice as long or have half the content.
+
+The course has space for twelve people; we were nine this time around, as three were no-shows.
+
+### Monday
+
+Officially, the course started at 5pm on Monday afternoon with a tour of the CAT facilities, where we visited the straw bale buildings they have on site, talked about how they're put together in broad terms, and then had dinner and a couple of hours of seminar-format conversation about the course and each other.
+
+We did all that, but we actually got there Sunday evening and ended up helping the course organisers (Bee Rowan and Hassen Mzali) to set up. CAT weren't super-organised, and the course space ("the pole barn") was a mess. We swept out large quantities of old straw, uncovered the demonstration kit we were going to build on, and then started sorting the straw bales we were meant to be using for the course, which had been stored from the previous year under the barn's roof overhang.
+
+Nobody thought to check for hazards, and we ended up breaking open a wasp's nest that had set up between two of the bales, leading to a swarm of angry wasps and 20-40 stings apiece for several of us. I got off lightly with just a couple, but it wasn't the most auspicious start to the week - although it made for a reasonable bonding experience. We ended up relocating the course (and the demo kit!) to the CHP building instead.
+
+### Tuesday
+
+We spent this day getting started with the demonstration kit, which is used to demonstrate load-bearing straw bale construction. It consisted of a sole (floor / base) plate and a roof plate, with room for six bales between them. Timber uprights were fixed to the sole plate and passed through holes in the roof plate, simulating timber framing for doorways and windows, while a brace was present at each corner. These all mirror or represent actual construction details.
+
+=> /img/straw-bales/demo-kit.jpg Image of the demo kit, some straw already in place
+
+The overall process was explained to us - we build the walls using straw bales, which must be made to fit the lengths required, and placed in a running bond. Once the walls are completed, ratchet straps (5 tonne+ loading) are used to squeeze the three components together, giving a solid construction. The roof is then built, putting its load onto the roof plate (which distributes it along the walls). Sometimes the roof is sufficient to maintain compression all by itself, but you can also replace the trucker's straps with packing straps (similar loading) and leave them there permanently. Compression forces air out of the wall and makes it behave as a single unit.
+
+The first layer of bales is held in place by upward-pointing green hazelwood spikes set into the sole plate. These go about ½-⅔s of the way through the bale, and give it some resistance to being knocked out of place. Two of these per bale, and yes, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer theme tune was playing in my head throughout.
+
+The timber framing is used to keep openings square as the house shifts, and is generally useful for attaching heavy things to, since it's fixed into position. It's not load-bearing, in that it's not needed to hold the roof up, but it does take some of the load if it's there, of course.
+
+Where a timber post is present, the end of the surrounding bales must be 'notched' - a space cut out - to wrap around it. Fit everywhere should be snug, but not too tight - forcing a too-large bale into an opening will just push other bales out elsewhere. We saw this in action, popping a corner brace of entirely at one point. Friction makes getting bales into place difficult, sometimes - this can be overcome by using plastic bags to temporarily lube the gap, or by putting bales in with their mates 'corner-to-corner' and pushing two in together - either horizontally or vertically. Or you can use ratchet straps to compress horizontally, making space to slip a bale into its place in the wall before removing them again.
+
+Each bale must be checked for damp or mould and have each of its faces dressed. This means cutting away loose straw to get a flat surface (as much as possible). We used alligator saws (double reciprocating blades) for this, and also for cutting the notches. If a bale is too long or too short, we need a specific length, or if it's not dense enough, this can be fixed by modifying the bale, which we got to practice at length.
+
+Techniques for bale modification centre on the two strings holding it together. If a bale needs splitting into two smaller bales, we use baling needles to insert two new strings. These are tied off with a trucker's hitch (to get tension), and the old strings cut and removed. This can turn a single 1M bale into two 0.5M bales; or into a 0.3 and 0.7; etc.
+
+If a bale needs to be lengthened, we can cut the strings and add some straw from another bale. They generally consist of leaves of straw, so you can take slices quite easily. Extend the cut strings on the bale with a length of baling twine, then use a trucker's hitch to get tension again. Always add a centimetre or so to account for increased tension.
+
+To shorten a bale by a small amount, such that the baling needles are silly (there's no real use for bales < 25cm in length), you can do the same - cut the strings, remove some straw, re-tie. You can also use a clamp to streamline the process.
+
+We built some wall and tried out the dressing and bale modification techniques. It was slow going to start with, but things sped up after the tea break and we made some real progress.
+
+The seminar covered properties of straw bales and some history. Fire resistance, insulation, acoustics, historic buildings in the UK and elsewhere. We also talked about foundations a bit - the straw and sole plate both need to be protected from water. Car tyre foundations is one option; a plinth wall is another.
+
+### Wednesday
+
+This was a very practical day. We worked pretty much flat-out, modifying straw bales and building the walls up, until we hit five courses. Time and straw supply was somewhat against us, and the alligator saws were emitting smoke, so we left it at five bales high, rather than going the full six - the principles of compression are the same, regardless of height. You're going for ~2cm per bale.
+
+At four bales high, longer spans of wall without a timber post were reinforced by knocking long green hazel wood stakes down through the wall. These go in at an angle and take some horizontal loading. Make sure the wall is good and level before adding these! We got to work on that with the subtle application of "persuaders" - huge wooden mallets - to the wall, to push individual bales out or in. Focus on getting one side - typically the outside - level, since bales have variation and the outer surface tends to need the best weatherproofing and visual appeal.
+
+We tackled some awkward spots too - putting bales above and beneath windows, particularly. The framing around a window requires a long notch to be cut *along* the bale to receive the horizontal post(s) of the frame, which is enough of a faff that they brought along a pre-cut bale as a shortcut. In a real build, on a given storey, one does all the spaces above and below windows first, compressing them and getting the frames into place before moving onto the rest of the walls. Compression can be achieved with ratchet straps, and held in place with the horizontal parts of the framing, or a temporary horizontal member can be screwed into place and bottlejacks (or even car jacks) used to push against it and compresss the straw that way. Properly a faff, but necessary.
+
+We took a break for a talk on coppicing with Sven, to talk about where our green hazel comes from, then we went back to it and prepared the building for compression, giving the walls a final finish with a hedge trimmer, stuffing gaps with straw, and putting the trucker's straps in place. We didn't have time to actually do it, though, so left it for the following day.
+
+=> /img/straw-bales/demo-kit-complete.jpg Walls of the demo kit (almost) complete
+=> /img/straw-bales/demo-kit-straps.jpg Straps in place on the demo kit
+
+The evening was more of a personal lecture by Hassen, who walked us through his introduction to straw bale building, and the projects and people who have filled his life since. Very heartwarming.
+
+### Thursday
+
+Compression! We ratcheted the straps and watched the roof plate squash the bales down by around 10cm, took away the braces and admired our handiwork. Very good. Then we loosened it all off and took the house down.
+
+=> /img/straw-bales/compression.jpg Compression of the demo kit
+
+All done, right? Wrong. We had two more straw-bale building techniques to learn, so went back over to the pole barn (the wasps had been removed in the interim) to get started as two separate teams.
+
+Those indoors worked on the infill technique, where a timber frame is the loadbearing element and straw bales or SIPs just provide the insulation. The principles are otherwise similar to loadbearing, but there's no roof plate. Instead, the frame is built to the post-compression dimensions and a temporary metal plate, or set of plates, is stacked on top of the penultimate course of bales. Slight over-compression is achieved with ratchet straps against that plate, the final course of bales (uncompressed) is put into the gap, and then the tension released and the metal plates (very quickly, lest they get stuck) removed. The bottom courses of bales relaxing causes the top course to become compressed.
+
+=> /img/straw-bales/infill-straps.jpg Straps on the infill technique
+=> /img/straw-bales/infill-compression.jpg Compressed infill wall
+
+Us outdoors worked on a straw bale wrap instead. This is designed for retrofit - you have an existing structure and want to improve its insulation by adding straw bales, either to the outside or indoors. Space is generally at a premium in retrofit, so we stacked the bales 'on edge' (so ~350mm depth rather than ~450mm). This was all relatively simple, except achieving compression was fiddly - as it would often be in real retrofit. Rather than trucker's straps, we used packing straps directly, held against the existing wall with hooks (eyebolts would be better, we were told). Unlike in infill, the compression plate remains in place and would typically be wood - perhaps ply, although it needs careful design to avoid cold bridging.
+
+=> /img/straw-bales/wrap.jpg A section of wrap on the exterior of a building
+=> /img/straw-bales/wrap-buckle.jpg Close-up of the packing strap buckle
+
+We also had a workshop and some practical work on clay with Dieter, since clay plasters are commonly used internally in straw buildings. We were then set to work preparing various clay mixes for use the following day.
+
+The seminar was, again, more of a lecture format, this time by Alex who did the Green Building MSc the previous year and had just finished up some research on moisture levels in straw bale walls during and following a storm - basically comparing lime plaster with a vapour-permeable membrane + wood cladding. Interesting stuff, but needs further research (of course).
+
+### Friday
+
+The final day finished with lunch at 1pm, and was focused on plastering and rendering. We applied an initial layer of clay slip to the infill wall, which is generally called the 'discovery coat', and learned how to make 'rats' - twists of straw dipped in slip, used to fill any remaining gaps exposed by the discovery coat and get the surface as level as possible. Then we applied clay plaster by hand, throwing lumps of it onto the surface and feathering out the edges of each blob, before coming back over with a trowel to level the surface and 'knock it up' ready for the finish coat to be applied. Then we went outside and had a go at applying a finish coat to a "here's one we made earlier" piece of board.
+
+=> /img/straw-bales/plaster.jpg Plastering practice
+
+Oh, and we took down both kits and cleaned up after ourselves, then got everything packed away ready for next year. A quick trip to the lime kiln to see how it's made and look at some lime putty rounded off the course - we didn't get the chance to play with that ourselves.
+
+## Future projects
+
+I had the long-term future in mind when taking this course, but came up with a bunch of ideas for things I could do in the short term while on it - and feel confident I could actually pull any of these off. Here's a summary of each.
+
+### Garden boundary walls
+
+The fences between us and the neighbours on either side are flimsy wooden things held up by concreted-in wooden posts. They need renewing anyway, and I'm considering lime-rendered straw bale walls, a bit under 2M high, as a cheap and sturdy option. They'd look great and the acoustic attenuation (around 54dB for this buildup) would do a great job of muffling waist-high noises like heat pumps and babies.
+
+This project is about 12 x 6 bales, and maybe 1M³ of render, per wall. The foundation can be a small plinth wall; the really important detail is how to finish the top, which is something I'm not really clear on just yet. Here's a couple of similar projects:
+
+=> https://strawbale.com/bale-landscape-wall/
+=> https://strawbuilding.eu/strawbalewall-straw-bale-wall-in-england-2/
+
+Initial thoughts are an EPDM "hat" on top of the straw but below the render, along the length of the wall, perhaps with something approaching a weep vent to aid runoff of anything that penetrates the render.
+
+We also have the boundary at the back of the garden, which just has an unadopted road on the other side. Noise does penetrate, though - we hear their kids playing, and they hear (and make comments about) ours. Since there's already a good brick wall there, with wooden cladding panels between pillars, I'm thinking a vapour-permeable membrane between that and the straw bales, and rendering just the inside face. Again, the hat needs some attention to detail. There are also runoff pipes coming into the garden from the road behind the wall, so they'd need some reworking.
+
+### Garden room
+
+Integrated into the rear straw bale wall, located centrally, we can create a D-shaped space for not many more bales. Perhaps 4M x 3M or so - whatever we can get away with without needing planning. The foundation and roof needs some thought, but I'm very confident we can get the structure in-between up!
+
+### Garage infill
+
+We have a brick-and-block garage that's really too small for a car, and I've been thinking about converting it for a while. It's around 5.1M x 2.8M, with 2.6M to the roof trusses. Straw bales on edge on both long walls would reduce it to a ~2M space, which is probably too narrow. We could use straw bales on just the short sides, perhaps. One for more thought.
+
+### Movable walls
+
+We're not allowed permanent boundaries along the front of the house, as there's a service trench right where the wall would usually go - and there's almost no space between house and street. So I'm imagining straw bales in a wheeled tray, compressed and lime rendered, at a height of 80cm-1M. This would cut out a small amount of road noise, but allow the baby and dog to go out round the front of the house. It would also be a good practice project - we didn't get to try lime rendering on the course, just clay, and I'm sure there are relevant differences.
+
+### Allotment shenanigans
+
+My allotment already has a couple of sheds, but they're coming to the end of their lives and I have a friend with no sheds at all. Adding a simple straw bale building to each shouldn't be the end of the world, although it would need committee approval, of course.
+
+## Sourcing bales
+
+Between them, the above projects could use up 500-700 traditional "flat 8" bales (around 1 x 0.45 x 0.35M in dimensions). These typically have a density of 80-120kg/M³, and are actually starting to get a bit difficult to find - modern straw bales can be much larger, and are only suitable for moving by telehandler. There is a supplier who will send 40 at a time via palletised delivery, at a cost of around £6.25/bale all-in, but you can get them much cheaper (£1-£3) from local sources. The ideal is meeting a farmer who's interested and willing to produce bales to order. Let's see what we can rustle up!
+
+## Lime-stabilised soil
+
+As a bit of a coda, Bee isn't doing much straw bale building any more; instead, she's focusing on the use of lime-stabilised soil in foundations as an alternative to modern concrete foundations, particularly in disaster relief efforts - she's spending a lot of time in Bangladesh working on exactly this. The basic idea is to amend soil with hydraulic lime, which makes it strong enough to pop small buildings onto, and resistant to flooding, earthquakes, etc. We had a very good chat about it on Sunday evening.
+
+Lime-stabilised soil has been used in civil engineering for decades, but hasn't made its way to foundations in a big way yet. Something to watch for, and something I intend to do some experimenting with myself. There's a book, but it's not cheap - fortunately Bee had a copy with her so I got to read it in the evenings.
+
+=> https://practicalactionpublishing.com/book/2550/building-with-lime-stabilized-soil Building with lime-stabilized soil, the book