Seriously. A breezy 45 at midmorning and I’m whining. The freakishly warm weather has moderated to something only quite a bit warmer than normal for mid-February. Last night it got down to 24, which is pleasantly not-very-cold, and I’m all “but it’s coooold!”
So I chased down an elk and tore out its throat with my teeth. Me no girlyman.
Well, maybe it was Brian Williams who really did that, but I did go haul wood.
This is almost dishonest: I’m actually getting paid to collect firewood on somebody else’s property. In fairness to me, I’ve hauled several trailer-loads of useless brush and this is the first time there was usable wood, but still. Normally I haul the brush out and dump it somewhere in the boonies, but this time I brought it all home.
Fired up both burn barrels to do my part to promote Global Climate Changetm as I separated out the brush from what will, er, one day get burned up somewhere else.
But it’s not the meaningful exercise it would normally be at this point of the winter. After such a chilly start, for the past few weeks the winter has been so warm that my firewood use is way down. I’ve barely scratched the ‘to be processed’ stack, and so adding to it is really just clutter. But at some point I will have to replenish the woodshed, so whatever.
That charcoal/burnt wood is a good soil amendment for your garden beds, Ian’s fruit trees, and whoever else is growing whatever. Charcoal increases the nutrient and water holding capacity of your soil, one pound of charcoal to about 2 square feet of garden space. Just dig it in the top 6 inches or so of soil. When gardeners buy it by the bag in garden shops and online or deliberately make it for gardens it’s called biochar. Another source of income for you…
This is not a use for leftover grill charcoal cubes. They would be more likely to kill your plants and don’t function the same as biochar.
If you decide to sell it, I’ll take 6 pounds to start. Could you deliver it with Ian’s quadcopter? I have a large clear landing space.
Unfortunately, Zelda, charcoal won’t help Joel’s garden because it has a high pH. Charcoal is a great amendment when the soil is too acid… Charcoal from any wood is alkaline. Different wood produces different levels, of course, but none would be a good addition to an already heavily alkaline soil. I heat a lot with my wood stove, and getting rid of the ashes and charcoal is a major chore because it must be spread out thinly over the pasture, rather than dug into the garden.
Yeah, every place I’ve tried to spread wood ash becomes pretty much sterile.
The sad thing is that it doesn’t usually kill WEEDS, darn it. I’ve spread the ash and charcoal on areas in my pasture that has weeds the horse won’t eat… and the weeds come up just the same. So the only thing I can do is broadcast the ash and stuff as thinly as possible. Next year I may get a metal can on wheels and dump it all in there. Then, in the spring, I could roll the can down and dump it in the ditch in front of the house. The grass growing there is a nuisance. Wanna bet it won’t kill THAT grass? LOL
Why spread the ash at all if it’s not useful to do so? Wouldn’t it be easier to just pile it up somewhere, or dig a single hole for it all?
That’s what I do, now. But at first I thought it might be helpful. Made a desert in the desert, you might say.
jabrwok, it does conteain nutrients, so it can’t hurt to spread it over this five acres – or attempt to deweed the ditch. It is not possible for me to dig any holes in this place because there are too many rocks. 🙂 We just have to live with what we’ve got. 🙂
Just dropped in to quickly comment on the comments – there’s a difference in soil action between charcoal and wood ash. Fly ash is a very different story. It’s too long and boring to write out here, but I think you’ll find that what I said is correct. You can research it for yourselves on the Internet. Joel can use the charcoal to amend his soil and it will improve the soil. So can MamaLiberty. Anyone concerned about wood ash impacting their soil pH can wash the charcoal before incorporating it. Charcoal (except the BBQ kind) is a valuable soil amendment whatever your soil pH is and if you are discarding it you are wasting a valuable and expensive soil amendment. You can pulverize any large chunks before incorporating it. Wood ash from burning hardwoods seems to have (emphasis on the seems) a different effect from burning softwoods, but again, it isn’t the ash that you necessarily want in your garden although some people do, it’s the charcoal.
And I will still take 6 pounds of charcoal to start and hope to have it delivered by quadcopter. I can put out orange color stakes to mark a landing area if it helps. Pile up that charcoal Joel!! $$$$ Money making opportunity $$$$$$$$$ Watching the skies here.
Oh and BTW yes I know that technically what Joel is producing probably isn’t true biochar or charcoal, but it’s close enough I think to provide the same soil effects.
All I know is that in my first Spring at the Lair I worked wood ash and composted horse manure into the sand and clay in an effort to create “soil” in the first space where I tried to start a garden. That was 3 or 4 years ago and not so much as a weed has ever grown there since.
MamaLiberty, you have some of the best and most productive food growing conditions in the US in your rocky soil, especially if you have large rocks that have soil pockets. You can scoop out little places in the rocks wherever there is soil to put seeds and vegetable plants. Those little pockets will be high in organic matter and nutrients, collect water, and provide free supplemental heat to your vegetables. Lawsy I wish I had those conditions for my plants! There are more ways to grow food than having vast expanses of flat monocultures. But you’ll need a way to keep animals from eating your food. Or when the animals come, shoot them for food or pelts. lol
I have to laugh at all of that, Zelda. You really need to come here and take a look at my reality. I don’t just have a few rocks. There are layers and layers of sandstone chunks in clay that becomes cement when water is added. There is little or no “organic matter” in this “soil” – at least not where I live on top of a rocky hill. Native grass and weeds struggle in many places here.
I also have herds of deer, large numbers of rabbits, hail, wind, -30 winter temperatures, about 110 days frost free in exceptional years. Low rainfall, serious alkaline water/soil… and we are not “allowed” to shoot the deer. I don’t have money to put up fences, let alone the 6 to 8 foot fence required to keep out deer.
I grow a limited amount of fruit and vegetables in large cattle tubs with holes in the bottom. These are inside the small fenced area around my house. I brought in bagged garden soil to start, and work hard to add compost, worms, other things for nutrients as time goes by.
God, I wish it was as easy as moving a rock and putting in a few seeds….
There are good reasons not much besides hay and cattle are grown in Wyoming.
Joel manures as soil amendments are the most difficult. Horse/cow/donkey manure is probably the most challenging. They have to be really really really well composted at high temperatures. The combination of horse manure and wood ash you used is about as bad as it gets. The hay or straw from your chicken bedding would be better than horse manure. Wood charcoal will work for you, wood ash probably not until you get your soil built up. What I wrote about was “charcoal” and what everyone seems to have read and commented on is “wood ash”. They are not at all the same. After you add whatever to your garden beds and dig it in it would help if you could cover them with plastic or heavy canvas for a few months. Or a year. Or something. You can make good soil. Please try again. Don’t give up on gardening.
MamaLiberty I know Wyoming sandstones although I have not gardened in them. I didn’t suggest moving rocks, just digging pockets among the rocks. Deer and rabbits are so incredibly destructive. Wyoming has a wonderful solution for critter damage called the 3 Ss, not that I would advocate that of course, but there it is. My soil is such extreme clay that you can make pots on the spot and under the clay is thick gravel. I garden in a growing season of 82-90 frost free days a year, and as we like to say they don’t all come at one time. The wind is extreme. I share many of your food producing challenges and like you work with what I have. It’s difficult on the best days. Extreme gardening is an interest of mine so I study and learn about how people all over the world produce food in extreme conditions and with limited water.
Joel, you’d be better off making charcoal with that brash. Then take the charcoal put it into onion sacks, mesh bags. Fill a drum with water chuck in some part composted horse manure, chicken manure. Anything basically that is not human or predator poo. A couple of large shovel fulls per 55 gal drum. Chuck in the mesh sacks of charcoal. Cover, believe me covering IS important, and leave for three weeks stirring occasionally but vigorously. Fish out the sacks, important use a stick that smell will not come off! Leave it to drain. You have now made one off the best possible slow release soil additives available. Smash up the large lumps and scatter on your veg garden, there’s no need to dig inunless you have zero worm activity.
We have been teaching this method of improving soil as part of an ongoing charity project in Africa. It works wonders for them and untilises a lot of waste products.
If you then leave the barrel to stew for a few months, again stirring occasionally, you will have an excellent liquid fertiliser. Dilute at about 1part to 10 water.
Make sure though its done well away from the house and downwind of you other wise you’ll rapidly become known as the smelly old dude that drives the yellow jeep 🙂