Small Farm Scale Biochar Projects

We are planning our first attempts at making biochar on the farm to use to improve the soils and crop yields.

Most of the simple means of production that I have found online either produce a very small quantity per batch or require large pits, with an associated danger of a person or animal falling through the soil layer and being severely burned. Also, the fires typically seem like they have to burn for an extended period.

I have a long row of pines that I need to take down as they are starting to shade the kitchen garden near the house, and would like to make biochar from them in the spring or summer.

I read that some make biochar by taking a 55 gallon steel drum, making air inlet holes in the side up about a 1/3 of the barrel height from the bottom, then installing a grate just above the air holes. As the wood above the grate burns, the smaller pieces drop through the grate into the bottom of the barrel where there is little or no oxygen to complete combustion.

My current thoughts are to enlarge this design vertically. First have a steel barrel that has a clamp on lid sitting on the bottom (without the lid). Then stack a second barrel on top of the first. The second barrel would have no top or bottm. It would have short sections of angle iron welded on the inside at the bottom that project about 6" out the bottom to help it nest on top of the bottom barrel. It would have a ring of air holes close to the bottom and a grate of 1/2" steel rods just above the air holes.The entire top barrel would be filled with wood and ignited from the bottom through the air holes. The smaller charred pieces would drop through filling the bottom barrel. Addition wood could be added at the top until the bottom barrel was filled. Then the top barrel would be removed and the lid installed on the bottom barrel.

For utilizing leaves, plant litter, etc. we are thinking about building a device like the one at the link below:

http://www.arti-india.org/content/view/80/52/

I am also looking into Top Lit Updraft Kilns:

http://thinkingglobalactinglocal.com/biochar-workshop-may-9-2009.html

Farm scale biochar making:

http://thinkingglobalactinglocal.com/making-some-biochar/farm-scale.html

Double barrel biochar retort:

http://www.puffergas.com/historic/rules/rules.html

Mac

Purchasing Rabbits

About six months ago, I started reading into raising rabbits for meat and manure for the garden. I was intrigued by the usefulness of the droppings and the nutrition of the flesh. After researching for a few weeks, I decided on purebred New Zealand White rabbits from the best shown parents I could afford. I wanted purebred so I had a very good idea of how they were going to perform based on their parents. Purebred rabbits all have pedigrees that show three generations of lineage and the prizes and shows that each ancestor has won. Pairing that with records that the breeder has kept on litter size, litter weight, parenting ability, and feed conversion gives a good set of traits to expect from your rabbits. I chose New Zealand Whites because they are the most widely kept rabbit in America and their superior meat quality. Since so many people grow this breed, I thought it would be easy to find high quality breeding stock.


So began the search for a breeder. Phone calls to my county extension agent rang unanswered and the American Rabbit Breeders Association’s (http://www.arba.net/) list of breeders provided little help. After countless Google searches I stumbled across a very simple website with a few pictures and a phone number. I called this breeder and spent an hour allowing him to tell me about his rabbits, whom he claimed were the best in the country. Feeling pretty comfortable, I scheduled to visit his home and look at his newest litter. The drive was three hours but well worth it. When I arrived, he walked me down a rolling hill to a plain privacy fence nestled between the backyards of his two neighbors. Only after he opened the doors did I realize that this was his rabbitry. No smell, unsightly manure piles, or flies were anywhere around.

During the grand tour, he pointed out his two grand champions and told me that the litter that was for sell were descended from both and that there was no way to go wrong with these rabbits. I asked to see the best breeding pair he had for sale. After hours of looking over every feature on each one, he decided on a pair that he thought were right for me. I bought these two immediately for $50 each. In November, my pair will have reached breeding age and I’ll be ready to produce my first litter of meat rabbits. I plan to feed with all organically grown vegetables and greens. Resources are scarce for this feeding plan but a thread at http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/ provides the most tested and reliable information that I could find, including a safe food list. I’ll soon add pictures of my semi-free-range rabbit hutch and more info on breeding/feeding/caring for rabbits.

Freezing Green Beans

     I tried my luck at freezing green beans this week.  I started by picking some of the older beans from Mac's garden and carrying them home (girlfriend holding them on the handlebars of my bike down a half-mile dirt path). 
     I filled a five quart stock pot about 3/4 full and put it on a burner on high.  Elizabeth snapped the ends off then passed them to me to chop them into smaller peices, about one inch long.  I then washed them in a normal collander, picking out any pieces that had rough spots or bug bites.  About the time we had everything chopped, the water had started to boil.

     Now came the fun part, beans need to be blanched to stop the enzyme action that will ruin them, even in the freezer.  Blanching time is important- too little accelerates the enzymes, while too much makes the beans tough.  Exactly three minutes produces the best frozen beans.  I dropped all the cut bean peices in at once and blanched them for 3 minutes and 30 seconds.  The extra thirty seconds was to allow the water to return to a boil.  As soon as the threee minutes was up, I poured the beans back into the collander that they were rinsed in and ran cold water into the pot they came out of.  I added a little ice and dumped the beans back in to cool.  A good rule of time is to cool the vegetables for the same time that they were blanched, so in our case, 3 minutes.  While we waited we marked the freezer bags with the type of vegetable and the date they were frozen.  Then the only thing left to do is to put a couple handfuls into each bag, squeeze out most of the air and pop in the freezer.  I've read that one handful is two servings but my serving size is usually two handfuls.

     This task was easy enough to do several more times this year without too much stress and produces lots of beans with only a little work.  Feel free to comment and point out any errors that I made or ideas that you have.  Links will be added on the right hand side of the home page.  Each has great info and easy links to instructions for freezing other vegetables.