Landscape Juice Rammed Earth course

Wednesday 28th April was Landscape Juice's inaugural rammed earth building course. We were due to have nine on the course but a complete mess-up on my part and an over-running activity, meant that three LJN members were unable to make it - I hope to see James, Bruno and Pip on the next course. Five Landscape juice Network members (seven people in all), got together at the Landscape juice headquarters, here in south-west France, to learn and put into practice the techniques to create sustainable structures, from ordinary soil. Self taught rammed earth expert, Michael Thompson, travelled from the Norfolk Broads laden with all the gear and equipment needed for the course. This included the formwork that the soil is rammed into as well as a projector for the powerpoint presentation and a rammed earth manual for us all.

Jill and Simon Foxley, Wendy Allen and husband Paul and myself spent the two warmest days of the year understanding how the ancient craft of building with soil can be adapted to almost any type of wall construction; our particular interest is its application for garden walls. I had arranged accommodation locally for our party of four whilst Michael and his wife Bridget stayed in our Pigeonnaire. After a nice BBQ on respective evenings with our guests, Michael - after he had partially recovered from his mammoth +800 mile drive - and I spent Tuesday setting up the course. The weather forecast promised great weather and it didn't disappoint with us all waking up to a cloudless sky - almost too nice to think about doing any work. After coffee and fresh croissants, brought in by our guests, we sat through a three hour presentation. Michael explained the theory and practice of rammed earth construction and talked us through how he had built his shed out of the soil he's dug from the footings and spoil that was being thrown out from the scout hut down the road. Read about Michael's shed here.

After a scrumptious lunch of cold hams, salads, pate, fresh asparagus and a drop of the local brew, we set about putting the theory into practise. First we took two simple soil samples to determine the composition of our soil - these were simple jam jar tests (just as we did in science at school) where water is added to the soil and shook up until the particles were in full suspension; leaving overnight for the soil to settle: the following day it was clear that my soil was a high silty clay soil with no discernible course particles in evidence. Michael explained that in cases of high clay, a course sand would be added to the mix - clay is unstable because it contracts and expands (heave) with moisture and warmth and sand reduces this movement. Normally, the soil used for building is a sub-grade and it should not contain organic matter. It's recommended that the top seven inches or so is removed and discarded and only then should the sub-soil be used once it has been sieved. Smalls stones will enhance and not harm the rammed earth construction construction - in our case, and because there was little stone (but mainly because there was not room to transport the soil improvement device or SID for short) we elected not to sieve the soil; we all soon learnt that the soil would roll into marble like balls and become a little bit of an issue while ramming into the forma.

Toward the end of the second day we sieved some soil by hand and it's workability was evident. Read Michael Thompson's Landscape Juice guest blog about his rammed earth shed. It was not all work though and we managed time to walk up into the hay meadows and see the orchids and wild flowers before returning to HQ for a sumptuous duck and chicken BBQ. Course attendees also tasted a little bit of France's delights with wild mushrooms and nettle soup. See the LJN rammed earth course photos.

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