permaculture

[Rain Tenaqiya <raincascadia@yahoo.com>]

The suggestions by Lawrence and Dave sound similar and sound.  The indoor 
earth floor methods are not appropriate for outdoor spaces, and I've had 
indoor results I'm not satified with either.  Any sealer will trap moisture 
on one side and result in mold if there is any surface moisture around.  The 
linseed oil/wax sealers are very prone to mold if anything impermeable 
(plastic bag, most mats) is laid on top of them for very long.  Furthermore, 
the indoor earth floors I've seen are very fragile, being easily scratched or 
dented.  I wish I had not put one in my kitchen.  You just need something 
that will stay solid and not put out lots of dust.
 
Rain



>From venaurafarm@bellsouth.net  Sun Jul 25 18:56:06 2010
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Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:55:45 -0400
From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
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Subject: Re: [permaculture] outdoor earth floor
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On 7/25/2010 4:06 PM, Rain Tenaqiya wrote:
> The suggestions by Lawrence and Dave sound similar and sound.  The
> indoor earth floor methods are not appropriate for outdoor spaces,
> and I've had indoor results I'm not satified with either.  Any sealer
> will trap moisture on one side and result in mold if there is any
> surface moisture around.  The linseed oil/wax sealers are very prone
> to mold if anything impermeable (plastic bag, most mats) is laid on
> top of them for very long.  Furthermore, the indoor earth floors I've
> seen are very fragile, being easily scratched or dented.  I wish I
> had not put one in my kitchen.  You just need something that will
> stay solid and not put out lots of dust.

In a hot dry tropical climate where doors are optional an earth (or
compacted rock dust) floor could be OK, especially in a kitchen area.
In other rooms grass mats could be used to keep from tracking dirt into
bed or having it drift onto household items, i.e. dishes and kitchen
utensils. I would think that a new PC craft to be taught in workshops
should be floor mat making using grass, reeds, bamboo, palm fronds
and any other suitable plant material. The Japanese are masters at this
as they are with most anything else worthwhile. They use woven mats
extensively to cover floors Westerners use w2w rugs. The individual mats
are call Tatami. As wooden culinary cutting boards are not capable of
harboring or incubating pathogenic microorganisms I would imagine floor
mats made from plant material would have this same property.
Diatomaceous earth could be used to discourage other insect pests
sprinkled sparingly into the mats followed by a spray of tea tree oil
as an additional deterrent.