Building a compost toilet on a dime

     We have been working on a composting toilet system here on the farm these past few weeks. After consulting several designs we decided on a system that drops solids to a 55 gallon barrel in the basement and diverts urine to another barrel in the basement which we can pump out as necessary. 

Composting toilets are very popular in many places around the world. Surprisingly, they see little use here in Canada where the preference is to use expensive septic systems which dump raw sewage directly  into the ground contaminating precious ground water (i.e drinking water). 

     In our situation, the existing septic system is poorly constructed and situated about 20 metres from our well; not a sustainable arrangement. Moreover, the cost of installing a new septic system is high, upwards of ten thousand dollars; this composting system cost us less then one hundred and does not pollute our drinking water. The main obstacles are mental and cultural; we in Canada are used to flushing away our wastes leaving someone else to deal with it and paying high taxes to maintain municipal sewage treatment systems.

A tube made from folded and glued counter top laminate is used for the poop chute.   The indentation at the front is for the urinal to sit into where it drains to a separate tank. 

This tube sits over a 55 gallon plastic barrel in the basement.  The urinal is not installed yet but the drain hole is visible at the bottom of the photo. 

A box covers the tube. 

     We wanted something that was cheap, NOT smelly, aesthetically pleasing and easy to maintain. So far it has met these criteria. I think separating urine is an essential part of keeping the system non-smelly and easy to maintain. It means less dry organic material is needed to absorb the extra water. The urine can be used directly on the garden as fertilizer when diluted and need not take up space in the composting barrels. This is our first experience with this design so we will see how it holds up over time.

Stay tuned.

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The Manure Tea Barrel

Here is our new manure tea barrel. The recipe is simple.  Fill the barrel about a quarter full of fresh manure from your animal of choice. We use alpaca dung. It is allegedly a 'cool' fertilizer; i.e. it will not burn plants when applied. Here it is very diluted so there is even less chance of harm. If you use another hot manure, like chicken poop some caution may be required. In our case,  the fresher the manure the less dung beetles will be crawling around inside the manure. We like the dung beetles because they bury the manure in the ground for you so we don't like to drown them.

55 gallon manure tea pot

Any barrel will do; we use a lot of the stuff so this 55 gallon drum is nice. We filter it once through a screen, then through cheesecloth into our sprayer - Then we just spray the stuff around the garden.

Garden after several fertilizer treatments

This is what one of our edible back door gardens looks like after several applications of the manure tea. Before everything was struggling in our heavy clay soil. 

The tomatoes after feeding on manure tea

 The tomatoes like the tea too. This plant here is over four feet tall after a few weeks of manure tea.

Potatoes love manure tea

I'm having a hard time keeping up with piling hay on the potatoes after fertilizing them with the manure tea. The stuff is truly magical; especially if you have marginal soil to begin with. It feels like cheating. Over time as the soil improves less fertilizing will be necessary. But for now, this stuff is really handy.

Attack of the horseflies!

Hoards of blood sucking demon horse flies abound in these parts. They flood in droves from the forests like orcs and goblins out of the gates of Mordor. Thus we have resorted to taking up arms, in self-defense, against these ghastly flying demons. The first solution to this emergent crisis is the state of the art contraption you see below. 

Fly Trapper-Zapper Mark I

We don't take credit for the design, just the construction. It is commonly available as the 'Horse Pal'. The main difference is price. Theirs costs $265 while ours cost us about $0.25.

The fly death chamber gets up-cycled from it's previous status as a peanut butter container.

It works by mimicking the movement of a warm blooded animal. The black exterior mimics the body and the black milk jug hanging below mimics the head movement of an animal. The flies are attracted to the swinging 'head' of the animal. When they realize they've been had, they instinctively fly for the sky, i.e. straight up into the trap. Eventually they make their way up the cone into the peanut butter/death container where the sun zaps them. We are peaceful folks, but when you mess with our animals, you're messin' with family, and we are gonna mess back.  Flies - leave us in peace please!

Next year we're are calling in the swallows for aerial support by building many garrisons bird houses around our property. We WILL be ready.