No Shed

I had hoped to be blogging about the new shed by now but it still hasn't arrived, already three weeks overdue I got a call from the agent to say I will not be getting it until the end of the month. So there will be no shed blog for a week or two. Still that has allowed me to ease back into work around the place as I'm still feeling a bit doughy after the surgery.

The cooler weather and a little bit of rain have been a great pick me up for the garden and everything is starting to fire up again. I've turned a bit of ground for the winter veg and planted swedes, turnip and parsnip seed. I've also started some cauliflower and cabbage in pots that I will plant out as seedlings when they are ready. I've also been making a bit more biochar.

I started playing around with this stuff about five years ago after watching a documentary on Amazonian black earth ("Terra Preta de Indio") and doing a bit of internet research on the work of Johannes Lehmann. While I did start out being all scientific and working with little test plots I soon got sick of that and now just use it everywhere as I make it. Whether it makes that much difference it's hard to tell, although my veg always do a bit better than my neighbours and the ground does seem to hold the moisture better where I have used it.

I make this char out of all the fruit tree prunings that are too big to compost. I just let them dry for a while and burn them in a big wood gas burner I made out of some old paint cans. The residue is charcoal that is broken up and spread on the garden. While doing the burn I can do a stir-fry, cook up a bit of rice or even a BBQ, saves wasting the heat that is generated with this stove.

There is a fair bit of research going on into the sequestration and land improvement benefits of biochar at the moment and also a bit of amateur interest as well. Who knows, it may have a lot of benefits in the future but in the meantime it's a way of getting rid of my prunings and seems to help my veg grow a bit better.