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Post by MikeH on Oct 8, 2014 9:20:22 GMT -5
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Post by littleminnie on Oct 14, 2014 20:09:53 GMT -5
That was pretty cool. I have been brewing on it. My back is bad right now though.
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Post by MikeH on Oct 15, 2014 20:00:46 GMT -5
That was pretty cool. I have been brewing on it. My back is bad right now though. Carrying vegetables that size'll do it every time. Did you bend you knees when you picked it up so that you were lifting with your back??? |
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Post by littleminnie on Oct 16, 2014 23:18:55 GMT -5
Its not really a bend at knees problem. Usually I am reaching into my truck bed to get boxes weighing 50#.
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Post by littleminnie on Apr 14, 2015 22:44:56 GMT -5
I have a couple huge piles of bamboo poles. Can I hugelkulture them or does bamboo not work for that?
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Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 28, 2015 14:22:20 GMT -5
Why not find out? I would recommend inoculating them with some mushroom spore and MAYbe a sprinkle of soil?
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Post by steev on Apr 28, 2015 14:27:14 GMT -5
It's just giant grass, slow to decay, but not plastic.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 28, 2015 14:58:09 GMT -5
Concur. Potentially VERY slow to decay. So, use that in your favor. If you want it to go slow, you can also "sculpt" with it. If you want to speed it up... shrooms are definitely the way to go.
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Post by steev on Apr 28, 2015 22:27:50 GMT -5
Um, Jo, I assume you aren't recommending "those" shrooms, not that there's anything wrong with that!
If you were, of course, right on!
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Post by mnjrutherford on Apr 29, 2015 6:45:12 GMT -5
Shrooms may save the world Steev.... I'm not prejudicial.  I am BIG on diversity too. Get a cow up on that bamboo. LOLOL |
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Post by prairiegarden on May 14, 2015 20:33:48 GMT -5
You don't need anything fancy to make biochar. I punch a few holes in the lid of a gallon can, fill it tightly full of whatever..trash mailings, twigs,etc. and put the lid back on then pop it into the wood space heater usually with the back higher than the front so that all escaping gasses get burned rather than escape up the chimney. Some of those gasses such as methane are extremely toxic and worse than carbon dioxide for greenhouse gas.If you do it right, the finished product will have almost the same volume and shape as the original material, but will crumble into dust like particles with just hand pressure. You need to make sure the lid is on tightly or it may pop off and then your end product is not as good as it then will somewhat burn.It is still usable though you will lose volume.
It's neat to watch the gasses shooting out blue and then catching fire, frequently you will hear a loud roar like a small jet engine, and the process adds heat to the house with the combustion.I've even seen the gasses maintain combustion when the fire was, um, less than enthusiastic, but that's not optimum.
All that said, I tried a very small experiment in two raised beds, one with and one without, and didn't see any difference in anything, vigor, height, production, but both were made out of such things as grass clippings and compost so they probably were already rich enough in habitat. A study (in Sweden, if I remember) concluded that biochar is much much more useful in tropical countries where material breaks down to nothing so quickly, not so much the case in more temperate climates. So I mostly use if for extra heat and getting rid of the stuff that nobody wants to recycle like glossy flyers and so forth. Soft brown cardboard boxes work VERY well but it's a bit difficult to pack in there, I find rolling it tightly works best for me. You need a hot fire for it to drive the gasses out as completely as possible, but that's not often a problem.
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Post by mnjrutherford on May 27, 2015 6:16:06 GMT -5
So you are burning it inside the house Prairie? That's cool... I've been wondering how safe that would be. We have a fireplace, but it's on the shallow side so there might not be sufficient ventilation... But if we ever remodel, that could be changed. We have a large outdoor "pit" that burns year round. It has 2 sides so one side cures while the other side burns. They are switched annually. I can't say that it's good or bad for the gardens, I just know we produce about a quarter the amount of outgoing trash that a "normal" family of 4 would produce. As far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing.
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Post by prairiegarden on May 27, 2015 13:41:20 GMT -5
You aren't burning charcoal, the gasses of which are so dangerous, you are actually burning the gasses themselves. The reason for a hot fire to start out with is to make sure of that...The "fuel" is contained with only a few small holes in the lid for gasses to escape which I generally aim into a very hot flame to be sure they catch fire as soon as they are produced. You can actually see them flaming as they stream out of the holes. You do need the lid to fit tightly or it may pop off from the pressure (not dramatically thrown across the room or anything, it just falls off with a pop..though come to think of it it might have blown a bit further if in an open fire, I don't know about that.You might want to aim the can toward the wall of the fireplace just in case.) If the lid pops off you will get less biochar as the contents become more like regular fuel, although if you've packed it tightly enough some will still turn into char if oxygen can't get at it all to burn the feedstock. The gasses emitted still burn as they pass through the flames of the fire.
I have a wood space heater with a door but even with the door open there's absolutely no evidence of any gasses escaping the flames..no smell, no sore eyes or headaches or sleepiness or anything to suggest they aren't being totally burned. The one time the fire got lower than it should have, although the can was resting on red hot coals, the only actual flame was actually the gas from the biochar, sort of like a propane torch keeping itself going in fact. Not recommended though,.. it seems best to have it in a healthy fire both as a safety measure AND to have the most complete biochar you can get, rather than bits of uncharred fuel.
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Post by poorboy on Jan 31, 2018 11:36:36 GMT -5
So you are burning it inside the house Prairie? That's cool... I've been wondering how safe that would be. We have a fireplace, but it's on the shallow side so there might not be sufficient ventilation... But if we ever remodel, that could be changed. We have a large outdoor "pit" that burns year round. It has 2 sides so one side cures while the other side burns. They are switched annually. I can't say that it's good or bad for the gardens, I just know we produce about a quarter the amount of outgoing trash that a "normal" family of 4 would produce. As far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing. I found this a while back. He uses those stainless steel, rectangle restaurant buffet table trays in his woodstove. Stuff comes out pretty nice. |
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I am BIG on diversity too. Get a cow up on that bamboo. LOLOL
