Colorado Clean Energy Systems, LLC
(970) 901-8757
"Fighting Global Warming One House at a Time"
(970) 901-8757
"Fighting Global Warming One House at a Time"
| CCE Home |
High Efficiency Heating Design/Installation Services | Building Heat Load and Energy Analysis |
Solar Potable Hot Water |
Solar Thermal Sale Items! | System Portfolio |
The Farm - Various Solar,
Farm,
and Garden Projects
 View to the south - We are at 6000'. This view shows the San Juans, and Mt. Sneffels, about 40 miles to the south. |
 Same view a few weeks later, when we got our first snowstorm of the season! |
 The Orchard and
Playhouse.
We get enough apples to last thru the winter. We dry them, and also
pack them in boxes of soil and store them in the root cellar
(underneath the playhouse). The soil keeps the humidity
surrounding the apples on an even keel (it's a
tried and true old timey method for preserving them over the winter).
Jan also makes lots of yummy applesauce!
Presently, I use pesticide (sparingly), but hope to convert in the next few years to organic methods. Organic pest control is time consuming (a commodity I don't have in abundance), but is my eventual goal. |
 This is the Playhouse - note the sliding board used to come down! I built this over top of our cold cellar (barely visible), where we store our excess fruit for the winter. It's a great place to sit and look at the mountains, or read on a cold winter day (it's well insulated, with passive solar). If you look closely, you can see a wire that is the antenna for a crystal radio set, and the solar powered vent fan. |
 Vegetable Garden at planting time - with windscreen, recycled black plastic mulch, hay bale cold frames, and deer fence. It gets terribly windy here in the spring, so the (rather ugly) windscreen will be up until the plants can handle the wind. I used old black plastic from previous years as a mulch/windscreen. The weeds here are relentless because of the winds and irrigation water, so the black plastic is a real labor saver. Very little weeding is needed, and the mulch cuts down on water usage. Another good method is to use a combination of newspaper/straw as a weedproofing mulch, but it's too windy at our exposed location, and would blow away. We don't use pesticides on the vegetable garden, relying instead on diatomaceous earth, pepper sprays, soap sprays, and our local pest control company (the chickens). |
 Late June... note the weeds in the middle of the photo where I ran out of black plastic sheeting. I weed whacked 'em and added them to Mulch Mountain, since they hadn't yet gone to seed. The weeds are phenominally prolific! This shows how effective the black plastic mulch is at stopping them. |
 Two solar thermal arrays -
one for solar DHW, the other for the workshop heating system
|
 Backside of one of the
arrays
|
 The workshop radiant heating tank - 280 gallons, keeps workshop warm all winter long with no fuel! |
 Another view of the panels
used to create heat for the workshop (drainback arrangement)
|
 Solar Reflector panels
I use the panels to get rid of snow in shady spots that used to not melt all winter long. I will use them this summer to "shed" excess heat on the driveway by reflecting it back up into the sky. The sun gets pretty intense here in June, and the driveway area gets hot! I also use them to shine the sun into our picture window for extra heat in the winter time. I'm using them at present to heat up the garden soil for extra early seed planting. Hope to use them this summer to shine on the underside of apple trees to frustrate coddling moths, which compete for our apples. Snowmelt test before... |
 ...and
a few hours
later. Partly sunny day, and high temp in the teens.
Doesn't look impressive, but it does clear out the spot after a couple
of days, giving me a dry area to work in.
|
 On to summertime... zapping the aphids on the apple trees. Aphids like to hide under the leaves out of direct sunlight. This method confuses them so they don't know where to hide! Coddling moths don't like it either. |
 Notice the bright spot on the underside of the tree. A good stiff spray from the garden hose also helps knock off the aphids. |
 Mulch Mountain - In
the spring, the common practice in "irrigation country" is to burn the
irrigation ditches. As a result, clear spring days here are
nearly always fouled with smoke. In addition, the
resulting ash is not good for our soils, which are already alkaline and
highly mineralized. I try to only burn overy few years (with
heavy growth aroung the ditches, it can be
very laborious NOT to), and use my weed whacker most years. We then
rake up the grass/weeds/leaves and mix them into "Mulch
Mountain". This is a MUCH better use of the otherwise wasted
biomass. I also take moldy hay and horse manure from
surrounding farms to "feed the mountain", and have a nice, rich compost
by fall. This type of soil is a great "ammendment" for our
otherwise poor quality soil (this used to be sagebrush country before
irrigation arrived). Note my mulching subcontractors, who keep the
pile well mixed ...
|
 Typical irrigation paths in the pasture, which originate from a larger "lateral" ditch (offscreen). There is an impressive network of irrigation ditches throughout the Uncompahgre Valley. I fabricated these "paddles" in my shop to divert the water around the field to where it's needed. |
 I built this barn a few years back as a birthday present for my JD 4300 tractor. It's small, as tractors go, at only 30HP. Sometimes I'm frustrated by the lack of power when I have to plow our rocky soil, but, on the other hand, it can work hard all day on about 5 gallons of diesel, thanks to the 3-cylinder Yanmar diesel. |
Thanks
for visiting us on the farm - Feel
free to visit if you're "in the neighborhood"! |
|
Solar
Energy
and
Radiant Heating Links: |
Contact
Info: (970) 901-8757 ccenergy@montrose.net 62847 Ohlm Rd., Montrose, CO 81403 |