I've just harvested the first of my roma tomatoes from the main garden. About half the row had biochar added to the soil while the other half didn't get any. The toms on the left are from the plant at the biochar end of the row while the ones on right are from non-biocharred plant. Everything else is exactly the same but all the biocharred plants are putting out bigger fruits consistently. I can tell no difference in the taste from what I've nibbled in the garden but am going to do a blind taste test with these later in the evening.

http://i701.photobucket.com/al...hartomatoes81009.jpg

Granny Kate, thanks for posting the pictures. Seeing is believing, huh?

If you don't mind, a question or two--What did you use to make the biochar? Did you produce it in situ or somewhere else and then add it as an ammendment? When was it made/added in relation to your planting the toms?

Is there a book/article/link where you found instructions?

Oh, and be sure to let us know about the taste test!

Thanks,
OB

I'd like to know the above too--I've got a brush pile where I want to put a new bed next year, and have been meaning to burn--but biochar in situ might be a much better choice than a true burn. Either that or get a chipper to make mulch out of the whole thing.

now I'm confused.

Is biochar something you buy, or make yourself?

If some one would like to play Merriam Webster, I would so very much appreciate it!

I made my biochar from small limbs brought down by an ice storm in late January. I did the first batches in-situ because a goodly amount of debris had landed in and around my gardens. I laid down a mat of large dead weeds (anything combustible will work) across one end of my garden. I did three small piles experimenting with the smother technique. I piled the brush on top of the weeds and lit the weeds. When the weeds are aflame and the brush is beginning to burn I throw wet leaves, wet newspapers, damp straw or something along those lines onto the fire to smother it. (HINT: do not attempt to use a plastic tarp to smother the fire. My DSIL, bless his heart, learned this the hard way.) Let it cool overnight and spread the char around a bit and turn everything directly into the soil. If there are big chunks just rake them aside and toss them into the next burn.
If you can't do it in-situ you can carry out the same process on a large piece of metal or other fire-resistant material. A piece of barn tin is just about right for a garbage bag full of deadfall brush. The tin will allow you to recover all the char and transport it to your garden.
The idea is to stop the burn when most of the wood (bio-material) is charred. When the char is used to amend the soil the plants growing in that soil are very happy plants.

Five people did the blind taste test and every one preferred the taste of the bio-char roma.

Beets in the bio-char portion of the garden are baseball-sized and still growing happily. Beets in other gardens are golf ball-sized and struggling.


I did the in-situ burn when the ground was frozen in hopes of not roasting the hordes of earthworms in my garden. I can see no difference in the worm populations in the bio'd part and the bio-free part of the garden. The only pest in that part of the garden was some sort of maggot that tried to get some of my onions. Otherwise it has been remarkably pest-free. (Knocking wood and crossing my fingers, no tomato hornworms in that part of the garden)
MsT-Bird, There are some commercial biochar producers, can't give you the specifics off the top of my head but I read where some timber companies were producing it from milling debris.

A good place to begin learning about this is the link I posted for minnie on another thread. http://www.biochar-international.org/
You can cruise through at your own speed. I did a lot of reading about it when faced with mountains of debris. The more I read, the more I realized that my grandfather had amended his soil in much the same way. He made walnut and pecan shell char on pieces of tin in the fall to add to his gardens. He sifted the wood ashes from the stove and fireplace. He put the charcoal on his garden and my grandmother used the ashes to make soap. He fed several families from his garden until he was well into his 90s and never used a chemical fertilizer or pesticide. He always said there was no need for those things if you just paid attention to "the wee ones."

Granny Kate, why did you not use water from a hose to smother the fire?
Would water affect the process negatively?

Facinating,

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain, GrannyKate!

Sound lovely, but don't know if I can get away with it in chicago, but I am plotting.....


plotting....

Octave, I think the effect you need for biochar is not to smother the fire completely, but to let it smolder and essentially process it like you would for charcoal. You want just enough air to get to it to let it char without a blaze.

Wiley, You've got the exact idea!
My #1 son was here over the weekend and was recounting his attempts at making biochar for his gardens. His home is technically inside the city limits so he's been experimenting with a chiminea. He cut pieces of wood to fit the openings then stapled a fire-resistant insulation (got it from a glass blower friend) to the wooden covering. He puts the bio material in, sets it afire and lets it get going a bit then pops the covers onto the openings. Two of his neighbors have expressed interest after seeing and tasting his production of tomatoes, peppers and corn this year. He thinks he has one family converted from being "synthetic" to organic since his gardens that managed to get the biochar last fall were far superior to the neighbors' who used Miracle Gro. While the neighbors were at the big box stores buying pounds of chemicals, he was adding char to his ground along with the compost and worm poop. The guy who laughed the loudest at him in March is now battling several different kinds of pests and blight in his chemcially-supported "garden" and begging for more of those "chemical-free maters."
It's not rocket science to make the stuff, just takes a bit of time and experimentation with the smothering technique. My Daddy had a "fireman's blanket" (probably made from asbestos) that he used to throw over the barrell that he used to make charcoal. (He learned to make his own charcoal from his great-grandmother who had been employed by the iron industry to do that very thing.)

Photos of the beets I mentioned earlier:
http://i701.photobucket.com/al...grannykate/beets.jpg

Thanks for the link, granny kate!

I LOVE the tomato photo! It looks like a substantial size difference. I will be also be planting biochar trials in the garden next year. I produce my own biochar in an easily constructed home made stove.

Plans and discussions are plentiful at the following website:
http://www.bioenergylists.org/

Also check the instructables website for other ideas.

The stove I built to make biochar is a Top-Lit Updraft stove - or TLUD. I built mine from two drums: a 22 gallon and a 55 gal food-grade metal drum and some odds and ends (no welding either) for less than $50.

Producing the biochar is even easier if you have dry feedstock to work with.

I'm new here at the site so when I figure out how, I will post some photos of the stove and biochar.

Cheers,

Rob

I should add that with a TLUD stove, dry feedstock and bit of practice, biochar can be produced anywhere with barely a wisp of smoke.
The design very efficiently burns up all the gases (smoke). There's just a bunch of steam at the end when you douse the char with a watering can.

Cheers again,
Rob

I am SO glad some of you are getting into biochar. Outside of good compost, it's as close as I've come in a lifetime to a wonder ingredient for growing.

We tested it last year at The Hermitage, and discovered an *amazing* difference in the size, vigor, and pest-resistance of our greenhouse seedlings. I left for Colorado and couldn't follow through, but the stuff is clearly good.

What's more, you needn't cook your own. They sell it at Wally World, Lowe's, and the like. It's branded as natural charcoal. Same thing. Same price.

The problem lies in breaking the chunks down into a powder. Bride's Cuisinart didn't work (she said, "Try that again and you'll be looking for a divorce lawyer.") We finally settled on a metal canister with a piston-like thing we could drop in to pulverize the stuff.

Mind the dust. Stuff's messy.

My BIL made some recently using the natural charcoal but he dumped the charcoal into a couple of heavy paper bags and laid it on the driveway and drove over it a few times.
My fireplace is providing nicely now that the evenings are chilly. I just dump the ashes through my compost screen and toss the charcoal into the gardens.