NZ Resilient

  Xmas has dominated the period, including the traditional race to consume the maximum calories possible before the New Years diet begins. I've done more than I realised and also found my limits and am doing enough for now. Goals I set myself before Xmas were:  1.  A general tidy-up to pare back the spring chaos (weeding, bolted crops etc).  Relocate the lettuce (and probably the baby spinach) to a shaded spot.  2. Continue the cauliflower & coleslaw experiment. 3. Progress tomatoes and capsicums.  4. Harvest current lot of potatoes, plant next lot. (No action) 5. Revisit more of my natural disaster prep.  (No action) Plus my freeze-drier finally arrived! I'm still getting the hang of it, so not much to say at the moment. 1. General Tidy-up Overall, proceeding.  I'm most pleased with creating a 'house' for the water pump and filters. So this eye-sore...                      ...

I'm thinking about installing planters with extra water storage on the north-facing lawn. There is space for 3 to 4 planters of 1 metre-square.  To buy similar planters would be about $1500  - $2000 ballpark. I wondered if  I 'could build my own for significantly cheaper, so I built a prototype Wicking beds are a common technique used by gardeners, preppers, homesteaders etc to provide a larger scale raised planter with onboard water storage.  In this post, I review my experiment at building a 1-metre square wicking bed, the various considerations for 'build' or 'buy', and what I think is is best for my situation.  The format is first a synopsis and then some light additional detail. Synopsis    I converted an IBC tote into a wicking bed.  (see 'What I Built' below).    Being an experiment, I tried to cut costs by using existing materials on hand, which ended up causing more work for myself. I took the approach of a 'hollow centre' ...

Spring is over and summer is here, with what seems like constant sunshine and frequent rain. With the change of seasons, it seemed like a good time to consider progress in developing my resilient home. This period has  been a mixture of 'prepping' and 'homesteading'.   Currently I'm dividing my efforts across growing more vegetables and revisiting my civil defence preparations for natural disasters.    The garden is paying dividends with c urrent crops of: lettuce, spinach, spring onions, celery, cabbage (red and green), carrots, silver beet, beetroot & potatoes. However, s ummer has not been kind, killing some plants and others are bolting. Progress The areas I've worked on are  Some reflections on what being resilient involves:  A framework of the risks I perceive and responses. Solar Backup Review. Benefits and reasons to be cash-flow positive. An experiment with turning an IBC Tote into a wicking bed garden Coleslaw and cauliflower Which, now t...

  In this blog, I process the effectiveness of my residential solar power system during a cyclone.  This is based upon the experience of Cyclone Gabrielle in February 2023, which was 4 months after the solar system was installed.  I review the performance while the cyclone was overhead.  To be clear, I didn’t lose mains power during the cyclone, just did some test runs.    My main lessons were   Solar backup still means power rationing. Actual generation reduced to a trickle. A trickle was enough to get by on. More realistic expectations. Limited benefits but still meaningful. I had some minor disappointment and surprises due to not understanding the technology limitations. I assign this to not having done a trial run before the cyclone.  Various gaps/questions  arose, which I have resolved through writing this article. I imagine the lessons are common to the type of installation – grid tied without a wired-in house-battery (I a...