The Terra Preta Experiment Continues

Now that our gardens are established and we’ve moved in and gotten comfortable on the new homestead, we’re back to experimenting with terra preta. Our previous terra preta experiment came to an end due to our move; however, we get quite a few comments asking for updates on how it went.

I can’t say, since we no longer have access to that property. Yet we can start again.

And we’re starting now, since few things came together at once for us.

First, a local restaurant said we could have all their chicken waste, which is mostly leg bones. We’re getting about 12 trays of chicken parts a week right now.

Second, my friend James brought over his backhoe to level the ground for our new greenhouse, then used it to dig us a big new biochar burning trench.

Third, the weather is cooling off and fires are fun again. 100-degree days are just miserable!

What’s Missing

We currently need lots of pottery fragments to complete our mix. We may also have to create a humanure composting toilet system again in order to completely recreate the ancient “waste site” properly. We’ll also need more clay, as the Amazonian terra preta sites were built in clay, not sandy, soil. Finally, we’ll throw in some vegetable waste as well, as well as some forest duff.

We filmed a video of our new burning setup yesterday and will probably post that tomorrow.

The remnants of a burn really are impressive:

Even if we don’t manage to recreate terra preta, we will have lots of good minerals ending up in the garden.

Have a great Tuesday.

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Today’s music:

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