My recent post on the quest for Terra Preta has gotten some good comments so far.
Reid Moon writes three comments:
Comment 1:
“This was a good article that really got my mind working. I started thinking about what animals the ancient Amazon people had around at the time. Goats chickens pigs and fish were what came to mind. Maybe Those should be the sources of the bones and the manure that you should use in trying to re-create the Amazon soil. Those resources might also be Easier to locate and you’re Area. Just a thought.”
Comment 2:
“Also fish bones in chicken bones are hollow. They could sit in the soil and absorb and hold nutrients just like bio char. Like I said this was a really good article it got my mind working.”
Comment 3:
“Good job David now I can’t stop thinking about this. Something also tells me being in the rain forest there’s probably a lot of moss growing Everywhere. Pretty sure if we use moss in our gardens today for filler and mulch why wouldn’t ancient people be using it back then to do the same thing..
I cannot promise that this will be my last comment.”
By all means, keep commenting. I feel the same way you do – my mind has been turning on it for some time and I finally have a good place to conduct my experiments.
I may be able to get a bunch of deer bones, and we have some chicken, pig and duck bones come through the house from meals right now.
In Florida I used Spanish moss for layers in my compost pile. I have not found it on my land here, however.
Aunteater comments:
“I have often considered keeping rabbits for the manure. As far as we know, Amazonians did not keep any kind of large livestock. Some theories hold that the simplest way to duplicate their results would be to make a bunch of large clay pots and use them as latrines, layering them up with charcoal as you go (this would do a lot to keep them from stinking). When they’re full, cap them with clay, and maybe once a year haul them out to the fields and smash them.”
I was thinking about this, too. We used composting toilet system I built in Grenada which I sometimes layered with charcoal and soil. The problem with doing this here in the states are the various regulations. I could do it, but I certainly wouldn’t want to write about it or sell the resulting produce we grew later. We have an opportunity to grow and sell our vegetables and having someone run across a post on how we use clay pots for toilets and then smash them in pits and plant tomatoes over the top would be awkward at least. Rabbit manure is more acceptable for sure. We’ll have chicken manure soon, too. Perhaps a mix of animal manures could be close. Maybe even stored in terra cotta with char to rot down.
And Gimpgirl writes:
“What about using comfrey as a green manure….just a thought. my father was an organic gardener and as a kid he’d use this, fish heads and seaweed”
Comfrey is certainly a good green manure. I have a few small plants right now but probably won’t get enough comfrey to do much with it this year. It makes a great liquid fertilizer when rotted down in water and could be a soak for charging biochar.
Fish heads and seaweed are excellent. I bet a lot of fish remains made their way into Terra Preta. I am currently using fish emulsion as part of the mix in my 55-gallon biochar-soaking barrels.
An interesting additional fact about Terra Preta is how deep it goes. Often as tall as a man stands, down into the soil. Surface application may not be enough. Instead I might have to dig trenches, then dump materials into them, layering clay, manure, char, food scraps and bones, mixing and covering with the native grit.
It’s a marvelous experiment. Keep the comments coming!
On a personal note, today I am heading to a friend’s house to graft a few different varieties of apples onto his Granny Smith, which should make it pollinate better. I’m working to rejuvenate this tree and get it fruiting for him, as it isn’t doing much now. I should probably film what we’re doing – it’s pretty interesting.
You can have greener thumbs by this weekend!
5 comments
My to-date most successful charcoal-related gardening experiment did involve chickens. I had a coop on wheels, and built a lightweight, garden-bed-sized run to attach to it, then built three garden beds the same size out of cinderblocks. Started each bed with a layer of newspaper and cardboard, a couple inches of charcoal (no inoculation) on top of that, then a layer of whatever bedding was available: dry grass, weeds, and wood shavings mostly. Pulled up the coop to the end of the bed, popped the run on top, and that was the poultry yard as soon as the chicks were big enough to be out of the brooder. Each day, I’d go out to feed and water them, lay down fresh bedding, toss in whatever kitchen compost we’d accumulated, and give them a chunk of turf to amuse themselves with.
The plan was to fill the bed, and then scoot them down to the next one , but the run turned out to be too small, once the birds reached full size. So we filled that bed, and then the flock became free-rangers. Thereafter, whenever I cleaned the coop, the soiled bedding would go into the other beds (so those took longer). Once they were full, I cardboard-mulched the beds, and planted tomatoes and stuff in them. They were insanely productive, though beds 2 and 3 never quite reached the wondrous growth of bed #1. Soil level was lower in those as well, so I think they just didn’t get as much of anything as the first bed got. I remember being worried about the chicken manure being too “hot” for the plants and all, so I think what I did to try to mitigate that (the first bed got planted almost immediately after the chicks had been there) was make a bigger hole than the plant needed, and fill it with a potting-soil buffer. It seemed to work, but I don’t know if that was because the bird manure wasn’t a problem after all, or the buffer did the job (shrugs). I grew vegetables in those beds successfully for two years without soil amendments, and then we moved away. When we visited the following winter, there was still a magnificent crop of chard going in bed #1 (that I had planted in the spring), though nobody had touched the bed in six months.
Note: this was in the mid-Atlantic, not FL. And it did have the classic raised-bed problem where it was a pain to keep it watered during spells of hot dry weather. I’d love to try it here, just haven’t had the opportunity to get chickens since then.
I’ve made this comment on livestreams already, but the use of biochar by indigenous North Americans from the same time period to amend farmland is well documented as well.
Researchers have found these amended soils in fields all around Cahokia in Illinois, and around all the major cities along the rivers that served as highways back then. The “moundbuilders”, who made massive pyramids out of earth instead of stone from at least 2000BC to 1200AD are never acknowledged in biochar discussions.
Similarly, these fields remain more productive to this day, and likewise include pottery and bone.
Unless things have changed, the existence of these pre colombian civilizations isn’t taught in US schools despite the fact that Cahokia was more developed and had a larger population than any European city at the time, and had extensive trade links from the Rockies to the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico.
We have 4 manures here: donkey, chicken, rabbit, and goat. I let the chicken age the longest, but they all work GREAT. Looked up the N-P-K on each and then apply them according to what I am growing…..well, by the time the very hot summer gets here pretty much anything goes.
I have found the goat seems to have more weed seeds sprout than the donkey. My rabbits though!!! Great stuff!
I love reusing what God has provided.
It only take a couple of goats and rabbits( oh my word, they make a ton), but my garden is smaller than yours.
And coffee and eggsgells. I tried fish years ago and raccoons dug them up.
I think that TP was created “In situ”
Trenches dug and all waste was discarded in the trenches which were then burnt, perhaps in a similar way that charcoal is made. Covered and left to smoulder thus “cleaning up” any disease causing vectors.
Quite possible.
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