Planting after a fire

[Sertaiz]

i love biochar, i have a bucket of imo infused water to drop shovels of it into right out of the fire. not the best method but it makes some char.
the chunks hold the bacterial goodness alive. giving it a place to hole up within the wetness of the dirt.. also it gives the soil better drainage while giving the acid soil a buffer.

regular burn is good, but if can stop it a little early you get some biochar. how you stop it early is up to you.

 

[Hookahhead]

In order to make char its best to do it in an oxygen deprived environment. This is usually accomplished by putting material in a metal box then heating that in a fire. You can substitute woody material with bones and make bone char too.

I just posted this image in another unrelated thread, but it's too good not to share here too.

 

[Cvh]

Well I put my last 3 plants in it. Strawberry Cough, Trainwreck and a GG4xNL auto.

I have 6 back there now. Only supposed to have 4 at home.

Please keep us posted how it goes.

 

[TychoMonolyth]

Will do.

 

[TychoMonolyth]

Result of the burn pile plants.

Result of the burn pile plants.

As promised.

Confirmed. Soil is rocking it!

Biochar on the menu for next year.

 

[mr.brunch]

Very nice

 

[therevverend]

Probably told this story somewhere else but in the late 70s my old man was growing in Eastern Washington, Royal City. He planted out in 1980, got his plants a foot or two tall by May when Mt St Helens decided to blow up. Buried his plants in hot ash.

He wasn't too pleased but a week later the plants had shot up out of the ash. He says they got huge, grew like he'd never seen before. Had a huge crop that year, his best ever. I'll bet that ash had everything a plant could want.

 

[TychoMonolyth]

Probably told this story somewhere else but in the late 70s my old man was growing in Eastern Washington, Royal City. He planted out in 1980, got his plants a foot or two tall by May when Mt St Helens decided to blow up. Buried his plants in hot ash.

He wasn't too pleased but a week later the plants had shot up out of the ash. He says they got huge, grew like he'd never seen before. Had a huge crop that year, his best ever. I'll bet that ash had everything a plant could want.

That's amazing Rev.

 

[PDX Dopesmoker]

That's amazing Rev.

I heard about the phenomenon he described on a PBS nature show in the 80s and decided to amend the soil for my pot plants and tomatoes with fireplace ash the next spring. Those plants all grew really really vigorously. When you burn plant material, the ash content is everything that didn't burn or evaporate, the ash is a large fraction minerals, whatever minerals the plant your burning took up from the soil will probably be in the ash after you burn it.