29. Making BioChar Simple
Making BioChar (charcoal) Simple + Safe = Never throw a bucket of water on hot coals when the wind is blowing. BEST to USE a HOSE. Once you have some black stuff you can use a camp oven and a crow bar to make some fine ground charcoal which is good for mixing with sand for seed cover mixes. Backfill tree holes with charcoal chunks and a nitrogen rich additive EG: Blood and Bone. Add a bucket to your Gardens Turkey Nest. Use fine ground charcoal as a grit with chicken food.
PS: PHOTOS BELOW: 1000 litres of water was used to produce 3 wheelbarrow loads. BioChar is used with Turkey Nest Gardens + BioChar Burrows + Tree Hole Plugs. BioChar is part of a process to rapidly restore soil fertility in poor depleted soils.
PHOTO 1: The stack should ideally be built from a consistent material. VIZ All Hardwood or all Bark or all Softwood. Start the burn at one or both ends. Time: 5am
PHOTO 2: At this stage the fire is spreading underneath. Ash and charcoal is building up. Time: 6.30 am
PHOTO 3: With a long handle shovel scrape the coals away. You can use a spray to cool the stack first so that you can get close up. Use a flow of hose water to quench the newly formed stack of coal to the right. Time: 7.00 am
PHOTO 4: Unburnt wet stack to Right will reignite. Time: 8.00 am
PHOTO 5: Starting to reignite. Time 8.30 am
PHOTO 6: Close to the end. This process relies upon you wetting and turning timber to optimise charcoal production. Residual stack to Right may be extinguished and used to start the next burn OR let it reignite and finish it off. Time: 10.00 am
PHOTO 7: Grape grown from seed planted October 2021 into a BioChar Burrow. Date of Photo: OCT 2023
PHOTO 8: White Cedar 3 metre tall in Shaded Forest Grazing Paddock that was planted into a BioChar Tree Hole Plug April 2017. Date of Photo: Jan. 2022
PHOTO 9: Hoop Pine next to companion Belah Tree both planted April 2017 into BioChar Tree Hole Plug. Belah is pruned above grazing height of small cattle. Hoop is a “stock safe sooner tree” responding to recent 12 months period of above average rainfall. During the last 3 years there have been 2 x 10 month periods of no effective rainfall. BioChar Tree Hole Plugs provide for ease of watering as holes are pourous and will absorb applied water direct to the tap root which is part of a strategy to encourage tap root development. Do not overwater – apply small regular amounts of water direct to tap root zone. Date of Photo: Feb. 2022
PHOTO 10: Bunya Pine 2 metres (another stock safe sooner tree) tall planted April 2017 into a BioChar Tree Hole Plug. Date of Photo: March 2022
PHOTO 11: English Oak 3 metres tall + 10 years olds pruned to be above the grazing height of small cattle which has slowed its growth. Same BioChar Tree Hole Plug Method. Date of Photo: March 2022