| Support Green Mass Group! |
Donate today to help cover our 2012 costs
if you'd like to see GMG survive & thrive!
|
|
Towards a just & healthy democracy in the Commonwealth... and beyond!
|
Sat Apr 09, 2011 at 17:33:37 PM EDT
|
(cool (warm?) stuff! - promoted by eli_beckerman)
Every year I start my garden early by using solar cloches made from 2 liter plastic bottles. These three cloches were planted with seed in the last week of March and first week of April, respectively, with tomato and basil, cucumber and dill, and zucchini in planting Zone 6A, eastern Massachusetts.
The ring of bottles are filled with water to store solar heat during the day and the central bottle has its bottom cut out and pressed into the soil to protect the growing seeds. |
| gmoke :: Recycled Solar Garden Cloche |
| Recycled Solar video: http://youtu.be/KTLBsxI-Xl8
Recycled Solar
Take the label off a clear plastic 2 liter
soda/pop/tonic bottle.
Cut the bottom off the bottle.
Plant a seed.
Press the edge of the bottomless bottle
into the soil around it.
The bottomless bottle is now a cloche or hot cap,
allowing earlier planting.
Open the bottomless bottle's bottle top
for warm days and close
it
for cold nights.
Take the labels off a few more
clear plastic 2 liter soda/pop/tonic bottles.
Fill them with water
and surround the bottomless bottle cloche hot cap.
Tie a string around this circle
and pull it tight.
During the day, the bottles of water
get warm
and stay warmer longer at night.
This recycled solar cloche
can take a month off planting season.
If you have green
plastic 2 liter soda/pop/tonic bottles,
place them on the North side
of the solar circle.
The darker the bottle
the hotter the water gets
in the sunlight.
This is a two tone solar cloche.
Take some silver paint
and paint the backs of
the green bottles
to reflect
light back
into the system
and you have a
three tone tuned
solar
cloche.
I built one once
for Candide's garden.
Recycled Solar |
| Poll |
| More recycled solar cloches? |
|
|
|
Results
|
|
| About |
|
Green Mass Group is an online forum for Green thought and collective action in Massachusetts. It is a community forum for justice, sustainability, democracy and health in the Commonwealth and beyond.
Read more
|
| Quotes |
"Now, is this the deal I would have preferred? No. I believe that we could have made the tough choices required - on entitlement reform and tax reform - right now, rather than through a special congressional committee process. But this compromise does make a serious down payment on the deficit reduction we need and gives each party a strong incentive to get a balanced plan done before the end of the year. Most importantly, it will allow us to avoid default and end the crisis that Washington imposed on the rest of America."
--President Barack Obama on the debt ceiling "deal"
"Despite Democratic control over the White House, despite Democratic control over the Senate, despite overwhelming opposition from the American people, a small minority of the members of the Republican-controlled House have successfully pushed an extreme right-wing agenda onto the American political landscape. It is an ideology which believes that despite the fact that the rich are getting richer, the middle class is shrinking, and poverty is increasing, all - all of the burden for deficit reduction should rest on working people."
--Independent Senator Bernie Sanders on the debt ceiling "deal"
|
|
Then and Now
|
Then...
"Last year Evergreen, a Massachusetts company, agreed to establish their first-ever United States based manufacturing facility here in Massachusetts. They did so, or are doing so, at Devens. They have now agreed and chosen to triple their size at Devens. Their next phase of expansion, right here in Massachusetts, a signature company in a signature sector, and we congratulate all of the folks at Evergreen and look forward to continuing to work with you...
We made a personal commitment to Evergreen for the sake of Evergreen, but also because we wanted to show that there are ways in which state government, in working together with private industry and with the utility companies, could begin to create a different kind of environment, a different kind of business climate here, to grow that sector, and it is happening. It's happening. Evergreen is one of the most prominent examples, but there are a whole host of examples."
--Governor Deval Patrick, April 7, 2008, boasting about state investment in Evergreen.
and Now...
"Evergreen Solar Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday, completing a stunning reversal of fortune for a high-flying alternative-energy company that once seemed to herald a new era for the Massachusetts economy... At its peak, Evergreen employed roughly 900 people locally and attracted more than $50 million in state support, as its stock price soared above $100 a share.
Yesterday, Evergreen's stock closed at 18 cents. The company shuttered its manufacturing plant in Devens earlier this year and now has only 85 employees left. Massachusetts is one of its top creditors, owed $1.5 million in rent."
--Erin Ailworth, Boston Globe, August 16, 2011
|
|
