Rhubarb

Stuart and Gabrielle give a good tip for growing rhubarb and making cocktails from a rhubarb cordial!

Rocket stove mass heaters!

Another very inspiring idea I knew nothing about, until Keith blogged it that is! Rocket stoves with mass heating.

I'm seriously considering building one of these downstairs. We have a log burner upstairs, and we need to install some thermal mass around it to make it more efficient, but downstairs has no heating! On the one hand we could extend the log burner downstairs, but I think I'd rather build the rocket down there for my learning's benefit, try and make it so it effectively heats down and upstairs, then consider uninstalling the log burner and selling it to recover costs... permits will be an issue :(

Here's a great video Keith found:

Here's the book that the video refers to, but I'm gutted to find my local library doesn't have a copy :(

And here's a really good illustration of the functional design from Erica, along with many other photos she took during a build in the US. Thanks Erica!

Here's another photo documented installation with some adaptations by Michael Blaha.

Update:
I started a Wikipedia article to see where it might take me information wise. Also, an Appropedia page to document our progress and hopefully meet experienced people.