Ben Zumeta

This winter, we worked with our county FireSafe Council to create about 2000gal of biochar while creating 3 acres of shaded fuel breaks and doing 2 permaculture design workshops tying into this work. The largest, oldest trees and shrubs (our manzanitas can be 200yrs+) were prioritized to protect while trying to leave a mosaic with as much biodiversity as possible wherever it would not be ladder fuel for an old, fire resistant tree. Doing so we hope to keep the beneficial effects of a diverse understory. These include catching dew and fog, shading soil, and stirring gentle breezes with the temperature differentials shade and vegetation induced orographic uplift creates.

During the shaded fuel break clearing, I set up our Wild Permaculture Guild’s Ring of Fire biochar kiln to char anything thinner than 3”, or about wrist sized. Our last day with the wonderful crew was a May workshop with over 30 participants. Participants learned how to make biochar, hot to do and get help with wildfire prep, and use larger woody debris for hugelkulture and watershed restoration structures. It went as well as I could have hoped.

The next week, we had a watershed restoration workshop using the larger wood. We left snags over 10” standing for habitat wherever it was not too risky for live older trees or structures. We used the largest wood for incised gully restoration structures that induce sedimentation to slow, spread and sink water.

We were able to stack many functions into the shaded fuel breaks that I think will help others do likewise for all our benefit.

Jay Colli wrote:Thanks for all the great replies folks! The 2” rubber couplings are surprisingly costly at $18 each, but the local availability and ease of use makes them pretty attractive. I do wonder how well they’d hold up under pressure when the tanker truck hooks up to fill the totes…

Do you plan to hook them up to roof catchment? This would require an overflow but would probably be worth it given the cost of a water truck delivery. I used flexible couplings when I built an auxiliary water storage with two IBCs on a gravel pad next to my main tanks. We use this for fire protection of the main tanks, watering trees, and supplying an flush toilet outhouse, and it overflows into a small pond at the highest point I could build one.

Depends on context, but if it was deforested or otherwise degraded land around here I would plant a mix of:

- Red Alder, with one to accompany every other tree for nitrogen fixation and quick growth of wood that is pretty good for heating and excellent for cooking.
- Madrone for heating fuel, as it is the best PNW native for btu’s per cord.
- Doug fir for prolific growth of one of the better softwoods for heating, especially if measured by years of growth. It is one of the fastest growing trees.
- Fruit (pome and stone) and nut (chestnut, walnut, white oak) trees for food for people and nutrient cycling wildlife while they produced biomass.

I am trying to get my wife on board with having only succulents up near the house and on the deck. We have no gutters for fore safety, but where rain runs off the roof I dug a swale with an excavator into the bedrock the house is on. That is filled with gravel and sloped towards garden terraces or our pond. Succulents grow well in this gravel and are quite  fire resistant.

Seems like you have an idea, but I’d still check for mold and carbon monoxide vectors with those symptoms.

I have made some very good, glassy low soot biochar in my home woodstove inside a dutch oven, with the heat warming my house and boiling water or making soup. I used end pieces from firewood cuts that fit into dutch oven. It was a very low volume (2gal) to work ratio though, and had inherent risks of burning myself moving the red hot dutch oven out of the stove. Compared to the B+ biochar I can make with the 6ft diameter Ring of Fire with green brush, by the hundreds of gallons per batch while doing wildfire prep shaded fuel breaks, doing it the former way seems unwarranted to me now. If you manage your wood stove carefully and forego the heat of the charcoal left after volatile gasses burn off, it can produce decent char on its own too.

This seems like a great opportunity, and I have learned a lot about passive food production from Paul. If demand becomes high enough, I might consider expanding to 12. 8-12 being the ideal educational group size has a lot of research behind it in the Adventure ed field, where I got my masters with a focus on Wilderness Service Learning. I found it to be the ideal group size with the hundreds of groups I have led in adventure ed, restoration, and trail crew settings. It was also the group size anthropologists found indigenous people sort themselves into for hunting and gathering parties. Generally, 8-12 helps ensure everyone has a couple people they jive with while staying manageable for the teacher. You may have your own good reasons for keeping it to 8 though.

I just inoculate with compost extract supplemented with kelp and rock dust. By my understanding, the microbes in the compost extract will then tilt towards nitrogen fixators if no N is added, and air is 79% N so plenty is available. My wife barely tolerates carboys of homemade cider and wine, and if I started filling one with pee I’d likely come home to an intervention.

Hi Monica, welcome to permies! I’d recommend looking into the Johnson-Su method of composting. It originated in New Mexico, and I have adapted it for my northern California climate and materials available. It ends up being a giant passive worm compost bin with the highest biodiversity I know of. For brown, carbon rich materials, ideally leafy woodchips, I would look into chipdrop.com and contact local arborists, road departments, powerline maintenance people, and the local dump, which likely diverts green waste. If going with straw, dig into the source and even do your own testing for biocides, which often do not break down in the composting process.