The year’s sheep shearing season is almost at an end. This week, our friends at Indie Farmer shared with us their sheep shearing photo story and interview with Ed Gingell, the so-called ‘Lewis Hamilton’ of sheep shearing, who visited Hockham Farm in 2015 to shear the flock and returned again to do the same just… Continue reading The sheep shearing season: an interview and photo story Read more

A volunteering event to make beautiful natural buildings affordable for schools, charities, community groups, trusts and pubic organisations who put other people and the environment first. Read more

In August there is even more bounty than in July, whether you’re growing in a polytunnel or a greenhouse. You may have produced enough courgettes and cucumbers for the whole neighbourhood. The tomatoes are made into soups and frozen and you reap the rewards for all your efforts. Read more

August with a little luck brings us the best of the summer weather but being the traditional holiday month it can be hard to keep on top of the vegetable plot growing with a fortnight away, even if a neighbour can be persuaded to water as required. Read more

Many of us consider it a waste product but, in fact, is urine a good fertiliser? Scarlett Penn of WWOOF UK sets out why we should pause for thought before we flush. Read more

The Phone Co-op is the UK’s only co-operative telecoms provider. 100% member-owned, they have a democratic internal structure and no external shareholders. You can just become a customer, or you can become a member too, and have a say in the way the co-op is run. Read more

Asked to describe the average greenhouse, many readers might picture a mainly glass structure. There is, however, an alternative which offers even greater growing potential across the seasons with far less energy consumption: the solar greenhouse. Particularly popular in China since the late 1970s, solar greenhouses make use of passive solar energy to retain the… Continue reading A tale of two greenhouses: in praise of the solar greenhouse Read more

This week Lowimpact.org met Geoff, a.k.a the Veg Oil Guy, who runs two websites and a YouTube channel chronicling his exploration of diesel to vegetable oil conversion and proving veg oil motoring can be done! Read more

This question is really important for us at Lowimpact.org, because we’re all about providing information and other resources on ways that people can live in a less environmentally-damaging way. So I was very interested to see that researchers at Lund University in Sweden recently put the hours in Read more

This year marks the 10th year of SuperHomes, the innovative and multi-award winning national network of over 200 homes which have all reduced their carbon footprint by a minimum of 60%. There’s a record 100 free Open House events occurring across all parts of UK Read more

In the third instalment of the building your own sea kayak series, after a long break in the build over the winter the materials have arrived for the next stage of the process. The Petrel’s cockpit is recessed to give it a lower profile, which makes Eskimo rolls easier.  The forms are temporally glued to the… Continue reading Building your own sea kayak part 3: cockpit, sealing & fibreglassing Read more

This information is now out of date, but here’s Crabapple’s website. Contact them if you’re interested. Thanks Read more

In this post we learn from Cormac Stanton how to construct a pair of working bellows, be they for the fireplace or the forge. A member of the Manaraefan Herred Dark Age and Early Medieval re-enactment group, as Kormak the Carter he works alongside blacksmith Mo Swinhosson. Both are described as highly competent early medieval… Continue reading How to make a pair of bellows: a step by step guide with Kormak the Carter Read more

The first strips are on.  I spent a while setting up the forms on the strongback and securing them with cleats.  I then cut and shaped the stem pieces seen here on the bow. Read more

Chris Smaje of Small Farm Future kindly agreed to share with us a recent blog post of his own about starting a market garden, drawing on his experiences at Vallis Veg, a small farm on the outskirts of Frome in Somerset with a veg box scheme and much more besides. Covering 13 questions collated from… Continue reading Starting a market garden: Q&A with Chris Smaje of Small Farm Future Read more

Your polytunnel or greenhouse is absolutely packed and you’ll be harvesting fruits from your summer crops – the first tomato of the year is always the most anticipated and delicious. Soon you’ll have more food than you can cope with. Read more

July is usually one of the hottest and driest months so a lot of time may be spent watering. You can reduce water loss and so save yourself some time. Mulching with a layer of organic matter will help preserve moisture but may encourage slugs so you will need to take action against them. Read more

I’m going to post three articles about how I built my own sea kayak, followed by some articles about the adventures you can have once you’ve built it. The idea is that you buy some detailed plans and follow them carefully. They will guide you through every step of the build. Read more

What do you consider the correct approach towards multinational corporations – tame them, or start to get rid of them? And what do we mean by ‘tame’ exactly? And what are the problems with multinational corporations in the first place? Read more

Taking pedal power to a whole new level, an ambitious project will see the conversion of a 22 floor building into an entirely human powered community of 750 students at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Dubbed the Human Power Plant, Kris de Decker of Low-tech Magazine and artist Melle Smets will lead a team exploring the… Continue reading The great Human Power Plant experiment Read more