permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 9:02 PM, Toby Hemenway 
<toby@patternliteracy.com>wrote:

>
> I'd love to get Elaine Ingham's take on the contrast between:
>
> > If the material is 70% cocoa color, rich earthy, old-growth forest
> > smell, wide diameter, colored filamentous fungi present, good numbers of
> > flagellates and amoebae (aerobic protozoa) and beneficial
> > nematodes present, then it can be called compost.
>

Biochar: there's no doubt about its value as an amendment that helps
increase beneficial microorganisms
in soil and provides long term storage of plant-available nutrients. It
also sounds like one of the most expensive amendments to
have and use. Albert Bates and others' information may lead the way for
some to make it safely while using the heat generated for other purposes.
Biochar, farm or homestead produced (industrial biochar is another matter)
1) you have to buy or build the proper equipment
2) you have to have biomass (weeds to trees) as a raw material to make the
biochar
3) you have to use the equipment properly (not generate a lot of polluting
smoke or breathe it) and if you don't use the heat generated during each
session
for something useful (space heat, water heating, cooking, drying laundry,
lumber or fuel) you merely raise the cost of
your biochar
4) it sounds like home biochar making is not a trivial matter and intended
only for the experienced who have a real need for it in agriculture.
5) wood fuel can be most efficiently utilized in a rocket stove if what you
need is heat; is there a biochar cooker design that allows heat to be
easily and efficiently extracted and used?
can a biochar cooker be used daily, in place of a rocket or conventional
wood fired stove,  to make biochar, heat water, provide space heat (in
summer dry fuel, lumber or laundry [if you live where it rains all the
time] with that heat) and cook, in other words a universal wood fired
device. Otherwise one will need to allocate precious wood fuel for either
biochar or cook/heat/dhw needs.

Same with Compost....people need to learn how to make it correctly and
follow through.

Some important activities for permaculturists:

1) Learn to make good, biologically robust compost
2) Obtain and use locally available rock dusts (siltation pond fines)
available free from rock quarries
3) Learn about, obtain and use other mineral soil amendments: granular
(kelp meal) and liquid seaweed, aragonite, hi calcium limes, dolomitic
lime, shell meal, azomite, greensand, colloidal phosphate, rock phosphate,
humates
4) Learn how to build, use and maintain garden systems that provide water
conservation and recycling, nutrient recycling, nutrient sharing between
gardens through carefully built drainage systems, Hugelculture mounds,
raised beds, spiral gardens, natural ornamental permaculture landscapes,
forest gardens, orchards, wood lots (including coppiced groves), integrated
aquaculture systems, water impoundments, swales, berms, dams and terraces.
Do all this so as to make the most of external inputs: biochar, mineral
soil amendments, compost, manures and other nitrogenous natural materials
and commercial products