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"A little light relief" is just the right title for this post. good fun - thanks for putting it up

there have been some good suggestions so far on this thread and I can't think of a specific recommendation to add other than to suggest just experimenting. With only 2 or 3 hours of direct sun a day, you won't get buper crops from most vegetables, but if you really like tomatoes, why not try a plant...

I looked at the sales page that began this post. It describes an evacuated tube system, but I didn't see anything that looked special about theirs. In general evacuated air collectors are more efficient and heat the water to higher temperatures. The vacume in th4e tube insulates the same way a vacuu...

This most likely won't be suitable for a retrofit, but I'm a big fan of masonry heaters. These have much more thermal mass than a wood stove and a convoluted exhaust path that both allows for complete combustion and transfer of heat to the thermal. In use, you have one or two short, hot fires a day ...

I'm with Andrea - I wouldn't burn any kind of plastic. It just puts too many funky chemicals in the air. Our son is long out of diapers (nappies), but when he was younger we were in a similar situation. Like you, we used cotton ones 90% of the time like and disposables when it was more convenient. T...

Willow can be used as fuel if your committed to it. With coppicing, the small branches to be dried and chipped and burned like you would wood pellets. I read somewhere (sorry I forget where) that coppicing can sustainabley produce 8 tons of material per acre per year vs 11/2-2 ton for hardwood. Rich...