Biochar in the composting toilet
"I was wondering if you used your biochar to help grow your seedlings
and/or put any into your garden. I have made a lot over the winter and
put it in my beds, I am hoping for a great harvest this year.
Also, what is your preferred method for getting your biochar?" --- John
I haven't posted about our biochar in a while because it's become one of those things we just do as a matter of course. You can read my last big post on the topic here, which answers your question about how we harvest biochar and how we put biochar on the garden up until 2014.
This year, we're trying
something different. Since I haven't seen much impact from the
urine-soaked biochar in the vegetable garden, I decided to use this
year's charcoal in the composting toilet,
tossing a few quarts down the hole every few weeks (or whenever I think
about it). I'm hoping that by putting the biochar in an active
compost pile, it will become better inoculated with good microorganisms
and will result in more of the kind of boost you read about. Plus,
this way our biochar will be much closer to the terra preta
that started the biochar craze, since the charcoal will be combined
with human wastes. The composted biochar and humanure will go
under fruit trees in fall 2015, and I might have some data for you in
2016.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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