Question and Survey About Gardening/Landscaping

[P Chippa]

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Homemade bricks. That is so sweet.

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LOL. A lot of the things we do serve dual purposes. One of the reasons for making adobe bricks versus going out and buying bricks is to build up my strength. My muscles had atrophied so bad last year. With my right hand and arm, palm facing down, I couldn't even pick up a one pound weight. Gardening and these other household chores are really good exercise. Now I am lugging around 50 lb. bags of compost and soil, just like Glenn.

Felicia [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Congrats on your progress with recovery!

When you began with the dual purpose statement, I thought you were gonna say, "What the hell else am I supposed to do with all these damn tumbleweeds?"

I was gonna buy some of those garden border stone paver thingies, but you've inspired me to look into making them myself. Do you have any recommendations on a good how to site? I'd google it, but it looks like you had great success from whatever reference material you used.

[DOMIT]

I found a site where a student had done an experiment/project where equal parts of straw and dirt for the best "strength" of the bricks. This was from someone who's parents and grandparents where natives of New Mexico (I believe) and had been using adobe as the natives had (at least the grandparents, from what I gathered). So I figured that they were probably reliable [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Another one that I liked, did NOT state how much straw, though he talked about making adobe.. he instead gave info on using cement and/or lime additives (lot of good info here): http://sleekfreak.ath.cx:81/3wdev/VI...1/STABERT2.HTM

So, equal parts dirt and earth... for water, add enough to make it workable, but not so much that the bricks lose their integrity once you lift the mold off of them.

[FeliciaLee]

Domit is Glenn, btw.

Felicia [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[DOMIT]

aiyaa!

not "equal parts dirt and earth.."

equal parts dirt and <u>straw</u>