I did this exact same thing probably 4 years ago in Arizona! Instead of pouring biochar and compost in, I augered a 4 foot deep hole and made the biochar in that hole. Once the biochar was in made I poured composted manure, and all of our food scraps for a week into the hole. Then we moved on to the next hole. Once the acre was done we used a deep riper down the center of all of the holes. We then planted native trees every 10 feet and native understory every 5. Finally, after all of the trees were established for a year we covered the acre in wood chips and low growing prairie grass seed like blue grama and curly mesquite grass. Sold the house the next year unfortunately but the experiment was an integral part of my life. Then and now!
I love this. Planning to make biochar for my garden. I don't have lots of compost and dried leaves but i need to feed my raised bed so planning to make liquid fertilizer with biochar. Also planning to use it and buried it like that for my next bed. Also what did you grow??
what ratio of wood chips do you use? I've used similar methods of this, so I love that others have found a way to implement it also. Also, do you innoculate your biochar or wood chips before using them, and are your wood chips fresh cut or aged? Thanks!
Profile of soil restructuring depends on what I am growing- bacteria/mycelium ratio important when charging and green material deeper for better results and longevity. Regards
Hi, i’m trying to work on really sandy soil, would you mind helping by explaining why you are adding wood chips to your bio char mix please, you are the only person i’ve found doing it so far
@@Fredricksaviour I’m really interested in what you are doing so it would be great to chat if you are happy to. Do you find any issues with nitrogen being locked up in the wood chips that are buried?
@@danmi6099 currently I'm researching about a couple of countries and their startups and along with that learning about gardening and farming. I learnt that people used to bury wooden blocks and cover it with soil and grow fruits on those raise beds. The woods slowly decay but also release water constantly nourishing the vegetation which is planted over there. Regarding the nitrogen content , I'm not sure. But one thing is instead of using chemical fertilizer, this is an ancient technique people have been using for a long time. Search for hugelkultur beds and you will find your answers.
@@Fredricksaviourdoesn't seem useful, as the entire point of biochar, which is made from wood, is that the carbon in it creates tonnes of surface area thst js really good at holding onto moisture. The wood chips seem like they would be a very poor additive in that they wouldn't hold nearly as much moisture.
In your case, I think I would recommend getting worms and have a box you put vege foodscraps in. From what I've heard, they don't like meat and spicy things. As long as you keep continuously adding food scraps in, they will populate the box to suit the amont of food you put in. Over the course of weeks, they will convert it to soil. Just make sure air can get into the box as abundant oxygen keeps methane production down. I've also seen some people use a multi-bucket system, with 5 gallon pales. They punch a bunch of holes through the bottom of 2 of them, and stack them in a third one. They place a bunch of food scraps in one, put it in the bottom one. They put the worms in with the scraps. Then they put the other one with holes in on top of that one and lid it. Then, whenever they add food scraps, they add it to the top bucket. Once rhe worms jave finished with the scraps in the middle bucket, they migrate up to the top one. When that happens, you pull out the middle one, and dump out the soil where ever you're going to use it. The just place that one back on top for you to add new scraps to. From then on, you just have to rotate the buckets. You can even speed up the process by adding more sets of buckets and taking some of the worms from the first batch and putting them in the new ones. They'll breed and make more worms to keep up with the food scraps. This creates better soil you can then mix in with your sand. The biochar is a good way to lock in moisture and nutrients added in to the system later, but it doesn't add those things right away. Worms are great for making soil though
Probably didn't do it here, but you could distill wood gas to run the auger. Part of the energy recovery from old biomass or a good use of remaining oil.
Yes the benefits outweight it but investment always comes with inputs first.. Ah, and maybe you can only rent this machine for one day and it depends how many holes you make if it's worth it or not. And if you have 1-2 friends with a big garden or a small homestead you could share the costs with them hence reducing the costs for all 🙏🏼
I did this exact same thing probably 4 years ago in Arizona! Instead of pouring biochar and compost in, I augered a 4 foot deep hole and made the biochar in that hole. Once the biochar was in made I poured composted manure, and all of our food scraps for a week into the hole. Then we moved on to the next hole. Once the acre was done we used a deep riper down the center of all of the holes. We then planted native trees every 10 feet and native understory every 5. Finally, after all of the trees were established for a year we covered the acre in wood chips and low growing prairie grass seed like blue grama and curly mesquite grass. Sold the house the next year unfortunately but the experiment was an integral part of my life. Then and now!
I love this. Planning to make biochar for my garden. I don't have lots of compost and dried leaves but i need to feed my raised bed so planning to make liquid fertilizer with biochar. Also planning to use it and buried it like that for my next bed. Also what did you grow??
what ratio of wood chips do you use? I've used similar methods of this, so I love that others have found a way to implement it also.
Also, do you innoculate your biochar or wood chips before using them, and are your wood chips fresh cut or aged?
Thanks!
Profile of soil restructuring depends on what I am growing- bacteria/mycelium ratio important when charging and green material deeper for better results and longevity. Regards
Hi, i’m trying to work on really sandy soil, would you mind helping by explaining why you are adding wood chips to your bio char mix please, you are the only person i’ve found doing it so far
Wood chips slowly release water over a period of timeline and then they become charcoal over a period of years naturally. Correct me if im wrong.
@@Fredricksaviour I’m really interested in what you are doing so it would be great to chat if you are happy to. Do you find any issues with nitrogen being locked up in the wood chips that are buried?
@@danmi6099 currently I'm researching about a couple of countries and their startups and along with that learning about gardening and farming. I learnt that people used to bury wooden blocks and cover it with soil and grow fruits on those raise beds. The woods slowly decay but also release water constantly nourishing the vegetation which is planted over there. Regarding the nitrogen content , I'm not sure. But one thing is instead of using chemical fertilizer, this is an ancient technique people have been using for a long time. Search for hugelkultur beds and you will find your answers.
@@Fredricksaviourdoesn't seem useful, as the entire point of biochar, which is made from wood, is that the carbon in it creates tonnes of surface area thst js really good at holding onto moisture. The wood chips seem like they would be a very poor additive in that they wouldn't hold nearly as much moisture.
In your case, I think I would recommend getting worms and have a box you put vege foodscraps in. From what I've heard, they don't like meat and spicy things.
As long as you keep continuously adding food scraps in, they will populate the box to suit the amont of food you put in. Over the course of weeks, they will convert it to soil. Just make sure air can get into the box as abundant oxygen keeps methane production down.
I've also seen some people use a multi-bucket system, with 5 gallon pales. They punch a bunch of holes through the bottom of 2 of them, and stack them in a third one. They place a bunch of food scraps in one, put it in the bottom one. They put the worms in with the scraps. Then they put the other one with holes in on top of that one and lid it. Then, whenever they add food scraps, they add it to the top bucket. Once rhe worms jave finished with the scraps in the middle bucket, they migrate up to the top one. When that happens, you pull out the middle one, and dump out the soil where ever you're going to use it. The just place that one back on top for you to add new scraps to. From then on, you just have to rotate the buckets. You can even speed up the process by adding more sets of buckets and taking some of the worms from the first batch and putting them in the new ones. They'll breed and make more worms to keep up with the food scraps.
This creates better soil you can then mix in with your sand. The biochar is a good way to lock in moisture and nutrients added in to the system later, but it doesn't add those things right away. Worms are great for making soil though
Probably didn't do it here, but you could distill wood gas to run the auger. Part of the energy recovery from old biomass or a good use of remaining oil.
what's that machine called?
Auger
@@lukeboshier thanks
What you planting?
🎤👍
Wtf ,,👍
why?
auger go brrrrrrrrt
That’s what they used in Fargo to kill people in the ice
And here we are using it to build up the soils carbon level, funny old world!
That looks like an expensive process
Rewards outweigh
You can make/get these things for free
Yes the benefits outweight it but investment always comes with inputs first.. Ah, and maybe you can only rent this machine for one day and it depends how many holes you make if it's worth it or not. And if you have 1-2 friends with a big garden or a small homestead you could share the costs with them hence reducing the costs for all 🙏🏼
Not expensive when you consider what ag usually does.
Good luck with that.