Christopher Clide

Yes it does it acts as a sponge.  Therefor you need to charge it before  applying it into your garden! By soaking it it your nutrients of choice , the longer the better

Kaarina Kreus wrote:I was busy earning money for the farm, so I had no time to make my own biochar for the delivery of my fruit trees. So I bought it from a wholesaler.

I am at the farm now, been working hard to clear the future fruit orchard of twigs and cuttings. The delivery is tomorrow.

So I took the bags of biochar from the shed to pile them where I will need them tomorrow. And read the label.

"Biochar aggressively sucks all nutrients from the soil and thus shoul never be used before infusing it with a nutrient solution". They sell the required nutrien solution.

The biochar is made of birch.

Can this be true?

What do you char your bio with?  Going to try to break to an even 1inch chuck  material and then soak in a high nitrogen rich liquid  nutrient for about 5 months or so.
Ive Be gathering large stacks! from a previous wildfire, along with organic  materials such as leaves and soft brush like matter to amend the  sands loamy soil to try to hold more nutrients and water..

Any suggestions?!

Northern California! With 76 acres trying to get it going let's talk

Susan Baka wrote:Hi. My name is Susan. I watch a lot of YT videos by homesteaders. I would like to leave this part of the country and live on a small homestead to farm and raise chickens.

No,  very warm summers. I'll contact you soon

Fred Vedder wrote:Hey Christopher.  Are you at an elevation that brings on the cooler summers? I am curious as to which town you are close to? I am an older carpenter interested in the permaculture nascent movement. I have some ideas, energy, tools to build. Would be good to talk on the phone to get more of a description. My #619-626-9531, Fred  nowknow316@gmail.com thanks

Hello, I am the owner of 76 acres in a mountainous rural  location with a spring behind locked gates with access. We have good elevation, freshwater, privacy Right to Farm Act. I have just cleared a large flat that I am looking to plant a garden into there are many areas to build a area for living. I do have some money and am looking to build some sustainability. The property currently has a generator, stove propane tanks, tents. I am working on building an outhouse right now.
Looking for somebody who may be interested in coming through to caretak and to help build up the area while enjoying Serenity and hopefully planting a vegetable garden and some fruit trees as well.
 I have many ideas that are actually feasible , and the area is nice there is a 2-mile dirt road into the location with a locked gate about 1mile inn.
There is lots of sun, while also providing Shady locations. I think a couple would do the best here a man and a woman. Company is key to a fun peaceful life here. Town is not too far it's only about 35-40 minutes away. There isn't a house within sight,
 the closest house is about 3 Mi away on their own 50 acre parcel. Stargazing here is very nice. I have been collecting reusable and recycled materials to build earthships or some kind of hunting cabin dwelling Etc for shelter.
I could go on and on maybe we can talk? The season is here the weather's nice
My name is Christopher I'm 32 years old married and have other farms and homes in the general area

Nic Trib wrote:Im not sure if this has been talked about much before, but I have an interest in homesteading in the NW. Specifically the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. Does anyone have any experience here? If so what are some things I would need to take into account when in comes to gardening or raising animals if I decide to move out there from the east coast?

Elevation!!

Michaela Farris wrote:My name is Michaela Farris and I am married to my husband, Hollis. We also have two children, both girls, ages 3 and 1 and a half. We also have an 11 month old dog named Sam. We are on a traveling permaculture journey and are actively looking for a work exchange permaculture farm to start our dreams of learning how to live life sustainably from mother Earth and to help others in need like us. We started this adventure and successfully found a farm that was willing to take a such a large group but only for a month which sparked our adventure. We are determined and committed to continue our mission in finding a program that is wanting real help from very hard working loving souls. We all have multiple skills we bring along with us. My husband is a general contractor and has multiple other tree work skills as well. My skill would include housekeeping, caretaker, and homemaker. My dream is to establish a homeschooling school so the kids of the community can learn in a degree they understand at their own paces, freely. Our children will be all homeschooled and are already very hands on, so there is plenty of little hands to help all around. We are a very spiritual/naturalist down to earth family. We also carry everything with us we own, and travel by car. We have a yurt for our home arrangements as stated before. We are very hopeful that the right program will contact us and help us start! We are located in Arizona but are willing to travel some to see where the Universe takes us. Sincerely, Michaela Farris

I've got a 80 acre plot in northern California I've been working on. Large flats mountains,  spring, working on getting it going,

David Baillie wrote:

Christopher Clide wrote:

David Baillie wrote:

Christopher Clide wrote:

David Baillie wrote:

Christopher Clide wrote:has anyone Tried this?  
I have my   6 foot deep by 10 wide Trech, covered By  Hoops  catching the geothermal heat!
 now i am trying to Run my 2000Watt Generator Of  Wood gasification to run 100 10Watt Led bulbs to give it that extra few hours of lumens to push an earlier generation ..
Using  2 rocket stoves In the Winter and early early season to bump the Temp for faster germination.

For a 1 kW growlight setup you would be best to incorporate a battery element that gets charged up by the gasification generator. You would probably go the charcoal route for a small system not raw wood. You could make the charcoal in your stove to feed the gasifier. Check out www.driveonwood.com in the small engine section for lots of builds doing something similar.
Cheers,  

battery? For 1k watts?!? Bro you would have to have insane battery's to even power for 1 hour off a battery...

Well... As you will figure out if you go the gasifier route it's a lot easier to charge a battery and run a load off of it then to just power it from the gasifier. There is a lot of fluctuation when you gasify so the battery acts as a buffer for you. It's a fun endeavour worth investigating. I've moved on myself to concentrate more on solar. And no a 1 kW load on a battery is not that much. Easier to charge  a larger battery over a few hours and discharge it then trying to run a generator continuously. Just my experience.

 what kinda battery are we talking?  Running 1k watts on a battery is gonna deplete even the largest battery  real quick!  Even a 200 amp hour lithium battery gonna deplete just a few hours, but yes I always have the generac  charging batteries  while running.

It really depends on how long you would be running the lights for. Usually you would be boosting light levels for a few hours pre sunrise to a few hours post sunset. With a setup like that you could choose say 4, 6V L16 sized battery for a rough storage of 9-10 kwHrs total, with a  useable of say 4-5 kWhrs at a 50 percent discharge rate. You might want to do a gasifier run say only once a day I would choose at night to add heat to the greenhouse before it gets cold. If you were charging at 2kw and using 1 kWHr for your lights you could do a gasifier run and end up recharged for the morning. Having played that game I can tell you its not as easy as you think. When the price of solar panels went from $5 per watt to $0.50 per watt a lot of the energy alternatives started to not be worth it anymore financially speaking. They still make a lot of sense if its about more than money for you so don't take it as a knocking your idea. Eventually I ran out of free time for projects.

Cheers,

Yes solar is probably the best way to go for sure, I run solar now. I would not be considering gasification if I did not have an excessive amount of wood to be burned with over 100 acres of trees I'm in the right situation to build some kind of gasification to add to the geothermal  greenhouse . 10kw storage is quiet expensive.. not to mention you need  a significant  solar array.  
I think you would need something even larger than a 12 volt system, as most 12 volt controllers only accept about a thousand Watts incoming solar.
And I know what you're saying about taking it as knocking my idea because gasification sounds like you'd need a huge abundance of fuel.

Christopher Clide wrote:

David Baillie wrote:

Christopher Clide wrote:

David Baillie wrote:

Christopher Clide wrote:has anyone Tried this?  
I have my   6 foot deep by 10 wide Trech, covered By  Hoops  catching the geothermal heat!
 now i am trying to Run my 2000Watt Generator Of  Wood gasification to run 100 10Watt Led bulbs to give it that extra few hours of lumens to push an earlier generation ..
Using  2 rocket stoves In the Winter and early early season to bump the Temp for faster germination.

For a 1 kW growlight setup you would be best to incorporate a battery element that gets charged up by the gasification generator. You would probably go the charcoal route for a small system not raw wood. You could make the charcoal in your stove to feed the gasifier. Check out www.driveonwood.com in the small engine section for lots of builds doing something similar.
Cheers,  

battery? For 1k watts?!? Bro you would have to have insane battery's to even power for 1 hour off a battery...

Well... As you will figure out if you go the gasifier route it's a lot easier to charge a battery and run a load off of it then to just power it from the gasifier. There is a lot of fluctuation when you gasify so the battery acts as a buffer for you. It's a fun endeavour worth investigating. I've moved on myself to concentrate more on solar. And no a 1 kW load on a battery is not that much. Easier to charge  a larger battery over a few hours and discharge it then trying to run a generator continuously. Just my experience.

 what kinda battery are we talking?  Running 1k watts on a battery is gonna deplete even the largest battery  real quick!  Even a 200 amp hour lithium battery gonna deplete just a few hours, but yes I always have the generac  charging batteries  while running.

I get your perspective though the battery acts as the charge controller to stop any kind of fluctuations  =)

David Baillie wrote:

Christopher Clide wrote:

David Baillie wrote:

Christopher Clide wrote:has anyone Tried this?  
I have my   6 foot deep by 10 wide Trech, covered By  Hoops  catching the geothermal heat!
 now i am trying to Run my 2000Watt Generator Of  Wood gasification to run 100 10Watt Led bulbs to give it that extra few hours of lumens to push an earlier generation ..
Using  2 rocket stoves In the Winter and early early season to bump the Temp for faster germination.

For a 1 kW growlight setup you would be best to incorporate a battery element that gets charged up by the gasification generator. You would probably go the charcoal route for a small system not raw wood. You could make the charcoal in your stove to feed the gasifier. Check out www.driveonwood.com in the small engine section for lots of builds doing something similar.
Cheers,  

battery? For 1k watts?!? Bro you would have to have insane battery's to even power for 1 hour off a battery...

Well... As you will figure out if you go the gasifier route it's a lot easier to charge a battery and run a load off of it then to just power it from the gasifier. There is a lot of fluctuation when you gasify so the battery acts as a buffer for you. It's a fun endeavour worth investigating. I've moved on myself to concentrate more on solar. And no a 1 kW load on a battery is not that much. Easier to charge  a larger battery over a few hours and discharge it then trying to run a generator continuously. Just my experience.

 what kinda battery are we talking?  Running 1k watts on a battery is gonna deplete even the largest battery  real quick!  Even a 200 amp hour lithium battery gonna deplete just a few hours, but yes I always have the generac  charging batteries  while running.