Making Biochar for the Garden in 2019

We have live oaks, water oaks, and pecan trees in our yard and pasture.  They are forever dropping limbs.  We have to pick up sticks in the whole yard before we mow the grass.  There is rarely a time that we don't have at least two 'burn piles' stacked up.  I'm so glad that we live in the country and can burn things when we need to.  We like to sit around the fire pit in the fall and winter and just gaze into the fire.  It's so relaxing.

Time to get rid of this burn pile by the tree.

If you've followed us for any time at all, you know that we are steadfast and focused about improving soil health.  We compost everything that will decompose.  Benjamin caught a fat possum in a trap last night and finished him off with his .22.  He's digging a deep hole in the garden now to "plant" Mr. Possum - Kind of like the Indians buried a fish with their corn planting...

Well, we're in year 3 of making bio char, and that's what we'll be doing in the post today.  Bio Char is also called Terra Preta or "black earth."  Long ago in the Amazon basin, people used terra preta as a soil amendment.  They buried smoldering sticks and organic materials into the soil.  The benefits include the boosting of soil fertility, improving yields, increasing the soil's capacity of water retention, and housing beneficial soil organisms.

Well, let's make some of that!  How do you make it?  Let's get started.  First start a fire.

Come on baby, light my fire

After the fire has burned a little while - enough to burn into coals, but not long enough to turn to ash, stop the process by quickly soaking down with a water hose.  Spray until it no longer smolders.  You can take a shovel and chop into charcoal-sized pieces.

Charcoal

If you looked very closely at the pieces of burned wood, you'd see microscopic, porous holes.  When incorporated into the soil, these become little condominiums for beneficial soil microbes.  I just keep burning and spraying, making batch after batch of bio char until my burn pile is gone.  It is replaced with a mineral bucket full of bio char.

My old trench shovel works perfectly for this.

Now you might think we're done, but if you amended this into your soil now, you'd have problems.  Bio char acts as a sponge and soaks in all soil nutrients and holds them.  If you'd plant into soil with un-inoculated bio char, your plants would be stunted and sickly.  It is best to pre-charge your biochar.  Here's how we do it.  We mix in cow poop.  It is full of bacteria that will inhabit the porous spaces in the bio char.  I mix it all together real good.

Stirring the Poop

I add a layer of bio char and then a layer of poop.  A layer of bio char and then a layer of poop.  Repeat until you fill up the bucket.

When I've exhausted the cow poop supply, I fill the poop bucket with water and shake and scrub the sides down.  Then I pour the poop/water slurry on top of each of my buckets of pre-charged bio char and let the 'poop soup' filter through the layers.

I'll let the buckets sit for a few weeks and fester.  You don't want to rush things.  When the time is right, I'll work this into the garden soil.

Bio char is stable and rich in carbon and can stay in the soil for thousands of years.  I am hoping the Lord returns soon, but if He tarries, we'll continue building healthy soil and will continue being good stewards of His Creation.  Making bio char is just one more way to accomplish that.  God Bless!

Making Lye (Part 2)

Here we are four days later since our first post here in: Making Lye (Part 1) and it is time to check on our lye water that has been soaking (leaching) in our fireplace ashes. The rainwater we poured on top of the ashes has been soaking for about four days and it is time to drain it out and test it to determine if it is strong enough for soap making.  I cut the bottom out of a gallon sized vinegar jug in order to make a funnel. Then I cut an old T-shirt up and placed it inside the homemade funnel to use as a filter. Then I pulled the plug.

Pullin' the plug

I prepared myself for a rush of water mixed with ashes, but I was wrong.  Only a drip, drip, drip of tea-colored lye water emerged and I realized that this was going to be a multi-day affair. The lye water was filtering through the ashes making the progress slow, but in the process making the liquid almost clear.

Drip, drip, drip...

Since I couldn't hold the funnel for days, I did the next best thing.  I put the T-shirt filter over the clean bucket, tilted the top molasses bucket full of ashes and rainwater at an angle to speed up the dripping and just left it there for a few days to completely drip out.  The T-shirt filter caught the minimal amount of ashes that drained through the plug.

Lye dripping out slowly (Patience is a virtue!)

Since we have friends and neighbors coming to get milk and eggs, we wanted to be sure that no one touched the liquid since it is caustic and will burn you.  Tricia made a warning sign to let them know to be careful around it.  I need to correct the sign to read that it is caustic.  Lye is alkaline, the opposite of acidic, and is caustic, meaning it will cause chemical burns.

I ain't gonna lye - this liquid will burn you!

Finally the bucket stopped dripping.  The result was a somewhat clear liquid, about the color of iced tea, and you could see the bottom of the bucket.  I didn't measure it, but I assume that we yielded a little more than a couple gallons of lye water.

Lye water

I learned by checking several places on the Internet that for regular soap making (which is our goal), the way you test the strength of the lye is by putting a potato or an egg in the lye.  If either one has a quarter-sized area to float above the liquid level, the strength is perfect for soap making.  Lye gets stronger each time you leach it.  As you can see the potato floated, but NOT above the level of the liquid.  That tells us that it is not quite ready yet.  It needs to get stronger so we'll soak it again.  We want to be sure and throw this potato away!!

Potato floating in the lye - Not quite strong enough yet.

So I put the rubber plug back into the big bucket of ashes and poured the lye water back into it.  We'll let it leach for another 3 or 4 days, drain it again and then check the strength again with another potato or egg.

Same song, second verse

The clear lye water quickly became "muddy" again when mixed with the ashes.  One side note:  I wore gloves handling the lye water, but when the test showed it wasn't strong enough, I took them off and picked up the T-shirt wet with lye with my bare hands.  I could instantly feel the burn on my fingers!  I will be more careful next time.  I'm okay, but it taught me to not let my guard down.  It is not called CAUSTIC by mistake.

Check back with us next week where we'll post Part 3 in our Lye Making Experiment where we'll test the strength of the lye again.