Pappy

10 hours ago, Petee said:

When he said charcoal, he meant the stuff that is made into briquettes, not regular natural charcoal. Humphrey Charcoal is plain old charcoal, nothing added, nothing changed which is why we're so lucky to have it close to us.  Making your own isn't that hard, but breaking it down to soil sized pieces is terrible.  Trust me, we've tried to smash it, and my husband's tamper didn't make it through the process in one piece.  Just ask for the small particles, not the stuff you would put in a BBQ.  You have to go to Brookville to get it at the plant.  Stop at the pretty little building right where you turn in and pay for it there.  Then you go back to the plant and give them your receipt.  They will even load it for you.  I think it comes in a 50 pound bag.  That will make enough BioChar (that's the proper name AFTER it's been charged properly) for your gardens.  It goes a long way, and remember it is not a soil nutrient, it is what allows you to inoculate your garden soil with the bacteria every plant needs in abundance to use the nutrients already in the soil.

yes the briquettes.

I have an old chipper that I use on my mushroom compost to break it down so if I made some bio-char I would use that also. I may try Humphreys also. I i have been there dozens of times in the past. I also bought a Harbor Freight cement mixer last year to help me mix to Black Cow Manure(awesome product),Mushroom compost, peat moss etc.

As i get older I look for ways I can make it easier for me. Hence the raised beds I hate weeding. Although I did buy one of those garden weasels thinking it would help. Nope I hate it and would not recommend it.

Now the Garden weed hoe that thing is awesome and would recommend that hands down. As someone with arthritis it is great and I can do a 20x50 garden in about a half an hour to an hour depending on the day and how much I hurt.

I got that picture off the net so the brand is not what I have but they have them everywhere.

I may have make a youtube page and do some videos (gators picks) actually on here is the only place I use that handle anymore.  I used to be able to Navigate the web in its heyday very well and I used Netscape navigator as my browser. So navigator got shortened to Gator. So it would have to be Pappy's picks. j/k

Humphrey Charcoal

On 7/4/2023 at 12:34 AM, Petee said:

Charcoal does not absorb the nutrients from your garden.  It helps multiply the bacteria that break down the minerals and nutrients already present in your garden which then get fed to the plant.  Without sufficient mycorrhiza in your soil, the organic macro and micro nutrients in the soil can't be broken down to be used by the plants.  The microorganisms are the only way to break down minerals into a liquid that can be absorbed into the roots.

I get bags of fine charcoal from Humphrey Charcoal in Brookville.  It gets dumped into a child's swimming pool along with a bag of composted manure, some yard and kitchen compost, and a bale of Pro Mix which also contains Mycorrhiza.  It gets very well mixed, then covered with water which will eventually soak into the pores of charcoal, inoculating the pores of the charcoal with the bacteria which will fill every pore, ready to multiply and move out into the soil of the garden, almost forever.  It improves the tilth of the soil, which in turn allows more oxygen down into the soil, and makes weeds much easier to pull.  Your plants will be healthier, the watering should balance out with fewer very wet or very dry spells, and you should need less fertilizer as the bacteria will be creating more usable minerals for the plants.

Mushroom compost has little to add nutrient wise to the garden.  It is being sold because it is no longer rich enough for growing mushrooms, but it still has enough body to provide oxygen to the garden soil and prevent compaction.  Together with the Bio Char, it is even better.

I did a little research on bio-char. When we did all those years ago we were going by what an old farmer had told us. When we added the water and compost to it this is what they call charging or activating the bio-char. I didn't know what it was called back then we were just going by his recommendations.

In my thirst for knowledge on this subject the last few days I did come across this.

"Biochar is like a battery, and to get the best out of it it should be mixed with nutrients and microbes - a process known as charging (or inoculating / activating). If you were to add it ‘raw’ then it would steal nutrients from your plants for the first few months and then once it is charged it will start to give it back."

He also said not to use charcoal and so I thought I would  look that up also.

"On the other hand, charcoal briquettes contain wood ash and harmful chemicals. These additives can reduce soil pH and negatively impact microbes and soil productivity."

Now Humphrey Charcoal in Brookville I do not know how they make it. Others may added chemicals to it etc but I would much rather just make my own bio-char if I were to use it.

We just added the mushroom compost to it because I had it and figured it wouldn't hurt. We used the pond water to actually add the nutrients to the char well mostly because that is what he told us to use haha. Now I know why.

Once I get my raised garden beds all set up I will start to make some bio-char just to try it out. I did find a greenhouse and will use it in there as well when I get it setup next year. It is a big one 20'x96'. I have to go and tear it down and then set it up. well I will help as much as i can but I am going to try and find a few people to help me tear it down etc. I guess I could use some friends now

Sheetz gas is always cheap. Inmho cheap as in quality. I didn't get any.

On 6/12/2023 at 3:26 PM, Petee said:

That's one of the best things you can do besides making a close friend with your garden plants so you can see when they are not right and do something about it before there is permanent damage.

Want to do a Bio Char workshop at your house?  I'd be happy to present it for you and any friends.

I don't have any friends I have made biochar in the past(decades ago) the easy way. Basically we just made a campfire with different sizes of wood. Then when it burned down quite a bit we then just sprayed water on it to put it out and then pulled out the pieces we could use. We tamped it down a bit to break it down and then we added a little mushroom compost I had and also some fish pond water. I didn't want the char to absorb the nutrients out of the garden. I should try it again. What do you add to the biochar?

13 hours ago, Illiterate said:

Few years ago, I built elevated beds.  I call them troughs. The tops are about 3 ft in height.  Soil depth is about 2ft.   Thet are either 6, 8, or 10 ft long and  18 or 24 inches wide.  At that height there is no bending over at all.  They are screwed to each other, so no chance of tilting over.  No moving them once filled.  A trough can easily weigh over a ton, especially when wet.

I built one a few years ago and I have a few that are in my yard now for next year. I do not have to bend for them either. If you go to the garden section you can see my posts about them in my garden pics and my moms. The ones I have at my house now are heavy even without the soil in them. It takes three or four people to move them empty. They are 4'x8'

On 6/29/2023 at 5:33 AM, DLE1950 said:

I seen that Bennett farms above Bigrun has their high tunnels for sale.

thank you

On 6/28/2023 at 8:59 PM, Harvey Mungaknuts said:

Not to hijack the thread

 

But is there a way to get a small branch that got ripped of a dogwood to reroot?

never hurts to try. Add some root compound to the end and plant in a sandy soil and see if roots sprout. I doubt it but you never know. It never hurts to try

On 6/26/2023 at 10:46 PM, Petee said:

I have a book of really unusual solar greenhouses that you could borrow.  It's older but very ingenious.

I may take you up on that just look through it. I have many ideas of my own and have looked over the years at many designs but cannot hurt to look at others  too.

12 minutes ago, Petee said:

You can make your own hoops if you can't find them on here or elsewhere.  Since I don't heat my greenhouses over the coldest part of the winter, I have two of the 6 x 8 from Harbor Freight.  We've had one of them for 20 years.  The only thing that happened to them was the huge summer hailstorm about 5 years or so ago.  New panels are a fortune, but I just changed the thinner ones out for thicker and made some alterations.  I raise between 1000 and 1500 plants for two different plant sales every year.

One Milkhouse heater will do fine for the late spring nights when it drops to 20-30.

a friend of mine has the same from harbor freight also but I would like to go a bit larger. I thought about building my own out of 1 1/2" pvc or just regular metal conduit and bending them myself  and may do that if I don't find any used ones around. Limited funds make it difficult to buy new or even using conduit etc and I have a couple Amish friends who said they can build me one also so we will see. They are building me raised garden beds already and a chicken coop. I do not know how I will be next year and it is so much easier planting in a raised bed with my arthritis and my plants seem to do better in a raised bed as you see from my other threads.

I am thinking of putting a greenhouse in my yard. If you know anyone who has an old greenhouse that they are not using and want to get rid of message me. I just need the hoops and then will buy the covering for it. Figured I would try here first.

All dogs need to have rabies shots

The overgrown bank of weeds etc. It also has those darn burrs that stick to everything.

Replanted cantaloupe and watermelon. I have them in the planters because I am having the bank redone behind them. It so overgrown I need someone to come in and redo it is to much for my arthritic body to handle. So hopefully they will be over in the next couple weeks to do it for me and I will post pics of the progress.

Cabbage is coming along nicely and the celery is doing well. Actually all the plants have done well except the cantaloupe, watermelon and cucumbers. I replanted some today.

As you can see it does not take much space. This a 4'x8' raised bed and there is three tomato plants, 6 head lettuce, 6 celery, 6 cabbage, 4 pepper and numerous onions spread throughout the bed.

This is plenty for my mother and she will give some of them away. The tomato's are small cherry tomato's for salads and I have one slicing tomato plant in a bucket on the picnic table.

She literally get hundreds of cherry tomato's. I only planted two but another one sprouted up in the bed. I do not know if it is a cherry or slicing one we will see.

The roses blossomed out well I think.

Demoncrats are the most corrupt people alive well most politicians are

Finally got a little bit of rain. I hope this helps the garden. I am working on putting in an outside garden spigot so I can water the garden.

Nope no Kohlrabi. I don't eat it and I don't have the room. haha I havve thought about growing it again. I did one year but that was it

Greater Swiss Mountain dog shorter haired version of the Bernese Mountain dog. She was a 100 lbs about 6 months ago. I am sure she weighs a bit more now

Figured I might as well throw these in as well. True dimensional lumber used 2x4, 2x6 and 2x8 and they were kiln dried and then I stained them. I know the deck is hideous but hopefully someday it will be replaced.

These are four of the raised beds I am going to use next year I have more that are going to be made these are 4' x 8'

They are made of Larch wood a little more hardy lumber like the posts Amish use for fencing and also  a bit different than the one I made for my mother.

This is the upper garden my wifes.

Now mine I just finished planting last week. My mothers I had planted sometime the last week of May. It took all of 5 to ten minutes to plant hers in the raised garden. Mine it took weeks of weeding and two weeks of planting. Next year I will raised garden in mine as my Arthritis makes it difficult to weed/plant.

I resized these so they were not that big when uploading them to the forum.  Looks like I am going to have to check the settings on the next batch and make them look crisper and better.