@Retiredoldguy LoL i think organic grows taste better
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@Reed71 never did the organic soil just my dirt from my yard with some HappyFrog fertilizer …so I cannot compare to organic…my few local growing friends all do hydro of some sort, hence how I was convinced to try hydro again. To be honest before I retired I was not heavy into my grows just always had a plant or 2 growing either outside or inside…I was a road warrior for 40 years so was usually gone 4 days a week from home.
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@Reed71, @noddykitty1, I’ve not tried the bio char yet, but I definitely want to give it a try for my outdoor ladies. Can you guys share your bio char / compost recipes in here? I think I remember the technique you described NoddyKitty, but others might be interested as well.
Are there any wood types to avoid? Walnut, red cedar? Is there a preferred type or hardness of the wood? I’ve got black locust all the way down to white pine in my stacks.
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Saw the eagles again today. The stand of trees they’re perched in belongs to my neighbor- they’re all ash and all dead.
When I first saw them I was thinking it was a sign of health for my woods, to be able to support that amount of apex predators. But today it occurred to me, them seem mostly interested in where the pockets of dead ash are concentrated, 3 of which were logged a few months ago.
So maybe they’re actually being opportunistic, there’s probably a lot of little rodents and other small creatures who lost their habitat. I know my dogs have been finding a lot of them, it’s kind of thing when we go on hikes.
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I think they are migrating through your region headed north to Canada… They are beautiful birds for sure.
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Gorgeous!
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Them eagles nest along the ohio river i use to fish it alot and they nest everywhere up and down the river @CurrDogg420 the recipe for bio-char it calls for manure put it down add grass clippings same thickness keep putting it down add your bio-char in the middle and you want to cover with tarp rotat every 3days 18 days its done
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@CurrDogg420 i say you have a nest of eagles close by
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Currdogg, since you have the correct tools…
You don’t need a retort oven to make good char. Just put on a big fat log before bed and damp down the combustion air intake. Just so it’s cracked. You’ll get a nice bed of coals in the morning (as u know). But then scoop out those coals in the morning instead of throwing on a fresh log. To the metal can and I douse with water. Or if it’s hella cold winter time just let it chill out with the lid on.
Once you’re looking for is the soft crunchy coals that are crunchy like popcorn. If it’s hard nuggets like charcoal brickets it’s not the same. It will just act like wood chunks huguel style.
The only bad thing is you have to Mary Poppins the chimney more. It is worth it to have piles of char.
I love to use use bio char and wood ash baby. I have added uncountable pounds of these materials to my raised beds over the years. They are wonderful and I can’t praise them enough. The wood ash adds potassium and is an alkaline buffer so all the compost doesn’t make your soil too acidic. Especially if you add citrus or citrus peels to your compost. The char acts as a nutrient sink and carbon sink. So all that compost i add to the garden doesn’t wash out with the rain and hose. I have also read several studies done in Yellowstone park that state so thick enough bio char you can make your garden carbon negative. You read that right. Your garden can be pulling CO2 out of the air and into the dirt. Just add char.
Also the mycelium seems to love to go in to the char. If I break open a fresh piece of char a couple of weeks after I turn it under it’s literally covered in hyphae from the mycoboost. The only other thing to add about char is it must be charged first. Or else it will literally steal the nutrients away from your plants roots in the garden. Never put raw char into your garden.
I just flood it in a bucket very similar to the weed soup compost tea. I load my bucket about half full of char and half of the compost. Then I flood it with urine. And put the lid on. And forget about it for at least two or three weeks. If it’s the grow season it stays like that until the crops are in. I have many buckets with lids.
Here are some more observations about biochar. Microrhizae growth blows up. You see hyphae just wrap up the char. It holds moister, yet ironically helps with drainage. Drainage probably isn’t a problem if you have sand. But most importantly char (carbon has 4 unpaired outer orbital electrons) chemically binds nutrients in your soil so they they don’t flush out with the drainage. Especially from the rains off season. Less nutrient (N and P) wash out into river or lakes (or the Gulf of Mexico dead zone). In Washington feed lots and slaughter yards preach spreading fresh unloaded char around the perimeter of fields and penned enclosures. It takes care of livestock “poop” algae blooms (eutrophication) of lakes and streams. I even read about it being added to the livestock feed itself to bind up methane emissions out the backside. Talk about at the source. Carbon loves double bonding to carbon. Then it is spread over field crops. I also read that Warehouser does it a lot too on its tree farm fields out on the Olympic peninsula. Biochar and biosolids from the sewage treatment plant= board ft of lumber. I also read studies in Yellowstone Park using biochar. The results were more plant species diversity the following year and increased soil moisture during droughts. They use it to turn pine beetle killed trees into char. They have a big towable retort oven the forest service uses. So I read.
Yeah biochar👍.
If you really wanna blow your mind go down the “Terra Preta” rabbit hole. The people living in the Amazon in BC era: the Aztecs and Mayans both did this. Some of the best soil on earth to this day. You can literally buy bags of it. They will dig it and ship it to you. Anyway, scientist today still don’t know exactly how they made it. But what so amazing about it is how that soil has stayed loaded fertile for thousands of years. It’s super super rich and black. When every other soil in the Amazon is literally leached by the rain in virtually nutrient void. It’s was the char….
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Hey that’s crazy about the Eagles. I swear we must be quantum atomicly linked. Ha. or something. Because, we have eagles here to this year. I’ve lived here for 17 years this spring. I have never once seen Eagles here ever. At least not in my Greenbelt and personal living area. Definitely in Washington state before.
Anyway, this year we have a pair of nesting eagles. I see them up in the maple trees breaking off fresh branches as long as their wingspan. They’re flying around carrying twigs everywhere. I see them just about every day. My clue is the local crow population. They seem to fuc**** hate the Eagles. Every time there’s a crow ruckus of 100 dB or louder outside it’s always related to the Eagles. There’s a flock of crows in the sky trying to harass the eagle and vice versa. It least the crows are busy now so they aren’t bored; stealing all the tags from my veggie starts and clones.
I oldest son came in last fall around harvest time, and said there was an eagle on the deck rail. He always plays funny jokes so I didn’t believe him at all. He’s kind of a comedian. Anyway I said I don’t believe you and I walked outside. And on the far side of my deck an eagle as big as my chest looked at me and then flew away. Totally blew my mind. Two days later, my neighbors told me about how they were eating dinner and a freaking jet came out of the sky straight down. It was an eagle and it grabbed the bunny out of the Greenbelt.
I think the eagle populations are doing better now for whatever reason. Maybe they just needed warmer winters Ha
Crows are brutal little beast. I have seen on multiple occasions crows coming down two at a time. Picking up baby bunnies by the hind legs. Then flying up to about 30-40 feet and splatting them on the sidewalk. If crows were bigger they would totally rule the world. I heard this god-awful screaming and went out onto my porch. And watched this happen live. I didn’t know a baby bunny could squeal so loud. The ironic part is, the bunnies shred my strawberry plants. I just wish they could take out the bunnies in a more humane way. At least the coyotes snap their necks first.
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Carbon with 4 unpaired electrons can hold 4 different things at once.
Or it can hold a long lipid chain or enzyme at one of the corners. Or a co2. The beauty is if something gets used up off of the carbon, the carbon will quickly rebined to another element or polyatomic molecule. That’s why it can strip CO2 out of the air, or remediate methane emissions as your compost breaks down from the microbes. Or a cows backend. It’s kind of mind-boggling to think about. Also, the most common way that elements or nutrients get moved out of the carbon bond, is through microbes. Microbes make all the magic happen between the plant roots and the nutrients sinks such as biochar. I can’t preach enough how much I like biochar. I think it is one of the most under utilized and overlooked aspects of all gardening. Cannabis or corn.
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Sorry for the essay.
Spent stink filter carbon is some good sh**. That makes great char. You know, that stuff we spent money on all ready. Never chuck that filter carbon out. Put it into the bucket and make it some fine char.
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@noddykitty1 lots of knowledge on this…loved the drawing of carbon by the way…very technical made me laugh…
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I love your essays my friend! 
Thanks for the suggestion about the carbon filter. Didn’t have a clue what I was going to do with the spent ones. Guess I need to start peeing on them. 
I just read that wood ash is also 25% calcium carbonate, hence the alkalinity. It also has phosphorus and magnesium.
I just did a slurry test on my garden sand and the worm poo yesterday - both bang on 6.5. So I don’t actually need or want to modify the pH.
Could the ash maybe be balanced with some spent coffee grounds? Or, what is a “safe”amount to use if I don’t want to adjust pH? How about the bio char?
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With Wood Ash, if you’re using it on living plants, you have to take it easy. Like you would chemical salts. I would use like a half teaspoon per gallon as a starting point. And I would only want to do it if I had a deficiency. Wood ash and char, make some pretty good soil amendments. They are very complementary.
Otherwise, throw it out thick in the off-season. Like before the snows or the rains. Right after you cut down all your crops. I think the rain the worms and the microbes do all that’s needed. And of course the char. If you were putting it in right at planting time you definitely want to take it easy with the wood ash. But if you load it up in the off-season I think the microbes in the soil really do take care of it. Just like you described/answered in a living soil pH question post a while back I saw Currdogg.
I would say a safe cap is four weeks before planting dump your last bucket of Wood Ash and char. Otherwise just throw it in the compost Tumbler. If you end up with any in the summer from campfires or occasional romantic evening fire.
It’s reason alone to make your own char at the campfire or fireplace. Rather than buy it in the bag stuff made in a retort oven. From the grow shop. Another thing MDbuds got me doing is if you pour fresh char with water you can add some calcium and magnesium. Like when it’s still steaming hot out of the fireplace. Dowse it with magnesium and calcium rich water. Snow works too, ha.
As to your question way back, about certain woods, walnut or cedar. I don’t think it matters at all. You’re basically burning off all the sap and terpene that are in the wood. All thats really left is the carbon. I have read about commercial char being made from corn stalks, wheat stalks, sugar cane, switch grass, any kind of annoying nuisance annual weed.
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Yikes I better pay more attention while working. I just brushed my arm on those rose bubble anemones. Always feels like poison ivy on the old forearms . I am going to check in later friends.
Not fan leaves. But always reminds me of them. Maybe I have a one track mind.
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Recipe… would you ever use it indoor? I’ll use in my outdoor gardens.
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I was going to ask if calmag would work as a substitute to urine. I swear that stuff is aged horse pee. I grew up on a farm.
I’ve been heating my home exclusively with wood for years. I dump the ashes on my burn piles out back. The garden would be way closer…. 
It gets a bucket or two occasionally when the snow gets really deep but I’ve been cautious about over doing it.
Sorry about the anemone- hope it’s not too bad?
Happy birthday @1HappyPappy!
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Thank you my freind 
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