I was happy to recieve a gift from black swallow living soils yesterday! They sent me a good 10 lbs of charged biochar. Biochar is charcol made without oxygen and used for the garden and not for burning.
Before you ask the charcol you buy at the grocery store is made for burning not for holding nutrients and microbes. And the briquettes are full of fillers and what not. You can use the hardwood charcol from your store but its pointless. Youd be better off soaking your perlite in a teaXD
You can make it by starting a fire of wood stock in a pit and covering it with soil so smother and smolder it. (Warning: Doing it this way is illegal in some areas due to the large amounts of smoke it makes.)
Another way is to make a ākilnā. Its basicly a metal barrel full of woodstock with some holes in another bigger metal barrel with burning wood put in the area between the smaller and bigger barrel with a chimney. You then light the wood in the bigger barrel on the outside of the smaller barrel on fire on the top and put the lid on the barrel the wood will burn down causing very no oxygen in the smaller barrel and for it to all turn to biochar. Now you take this and you can leave it fairy chunky or you can break it into smaller chunks. But dont powderize it. Now take this and cover it with compost for a week or two. Or put it in a tea of some sort. What were doing here is charging the biochar. You collect nutrients and microbes on and in the charcol doing this then you add it to your soil. If you dont the charcol will charge itself with the nutrients in your soil. You can also use this for aeration instead of perlite, lava rock, pumice, etc. Now you can powderize it if you like but its not needed. I like to have powder, small, medium and big chunks. I do 5 or 6 cups per cuft of good vermicompost. Worms will use this to make tunnels in your soil. These tunnels allow for nutrient delivery, aeration, and to keep your soil loose! Check out http://www.biochar-international.org/biochar for more info on biochar.
You might like some of this for reading there is also a you tube video on " Tera Preta" some where thatās worthy of viewing ! Iāll see if I can find it!
Organic material and many also believe human waste. So unless willing to poop on your compost pile you may have difficulties w terra prieta. But good luck with reproducing terra prieta! If you can reproduce it, I can see many awards coming your way including huge financial gains
Dont forget the clay pots as well. They shit I the pot then throw it in the fire! Clay has a high CEC, many organic growers add it to their soil recipes.
Yeah, personally think the reason for all the peanut allergies and other ānewā medical afflictions is from a hyperhygenic culture the āwestā has created. I think the reason our bodies struggle with pathogens is because parents constantly use antibacterial everything on young kids. That being said, NO I donāt shit in my garden
Not to get too far on a tangent, but research has shown that the beneficial microbes in the soil will also benefit us as humans. Ever feel better after gardening? That is because you increased your beneficial microbes. Kids should be encouraged to play in the dirt.
it could be a toss up between the paranoid ignorance you describeā¦ or the massive accumulation of synthetic super-toxins & chemical stirring humans have been creating. like the OPPOSITE of biochar!
may the plastic & petro-chem-eating bacteria end the humanoid plague!
My sister in law is like thatā¦well was. She would snub her nose at how dirty my kids were in the summertime which I would just shrug and say, there is a difference between being dirty and being unclean. She didnāt get it until I sent her a study that backed up my thought that kids kept too clean are sick more often as they donāt get the opportunity to build up their immune systems.
Agree with ya on that one brotha! Iāv read some books by Paul Staments regarding fungi, in one of his books " Mycelium running" he states that if it werenāt for fungi we all be buried in our waste! Something to ponder imo! Take care of your soil peeps itās important!
Iāve got 3 grandsons. I encourage them to be outside as much as I can. They run around barefoot catching bugs, worms and snails. Their faces are always dirty (unless in public) and I am very proud of that fact. @ReikoX you are exactly right!
I am hoping for a little guidance here. I just finished charging my Bio-Char, for my No-Till bed, and had a question about mould.
I am kind of worried, I may have messed up when I made my tea to charge it? I used nylons filled with kelp, bone, blood, and some Bokashi. I also used a nylon for worm castings separately. I then added cold pressed Squid juice, and Black Strap Molasses (organic).
Well after I soaked it for 48 hours, 24 with an air stone, I extracted the BioChar, and air dried it for two days in a rez. That process seemed to be alright. But after the buckets with the Tea sat for a couple of days, the buckets started to fill with mould very fast. I was hoping somebody may be able to tell me, if the mould in the buckets is bad, or good? If it looks good, I would be happy to have the Microbes. If it is bad, I will throw it out immediately (worried about EColi etc)ā¦ I have attached some pictures of it :
Nah, not evenā¦ smashed up some ānaturalā charcoal BBQ briquets in a ziploc bagā¦ 
