Powers Family Update
WE MADE BIOCHAR AS A FAMILY!!
It was easier and harder than expected in different ways. We didn’t spend money aside from the burn permit (it was the LAST DAY of the Burn Season), and it was QUICK… even a bit unnerving with how FAST IT BURNED!! It really is a potent lesson for anyone in California - this stuff burns faster than can be believed unless you’re doing it yourself seasonally. The power of the FIRE is humbling and the transformation is awe inspiring. I’m grateful for fire, for biochar, and for correct practices that keep us all safe!!
So, HOW did we do it?
1st - we used the Conservation Burn Method, so no pit and no sealed giant metal containers. This was taught to me by my good friend and Biochar/Em/Bokashi mentor Cuauhtemoc Villa (who is working on his first book right now!)
2nd - we put out the first two fires based on the smaller pieces status rather than the larger - only in the final fire did we let it go longer and focus on bigger sections of wood. I didn’t want to lose anything to the air that I didn’t have to - I wanted the cleanest burn, the least loss, and the best biochar, so we babied it a bit ;)
3rd - we DIDN’T put it out with EM though I would have liked to: I wasn’t expecting to do the biochar until the day it came to me like a lightening strike that I needed to do it, and then I applied for the permit and the next day was the last day, so I have EM brewing and I have some in reserve as the mother for next batches - the incredible mother culture is from Cuauhtemoc Villa!
How will it be USED?
We are planning on using it strategically because it’s a finite amount. Those 3 big piles made about 2.5 wheelbarrows worth of char. Our first step is to inoculate it with compost/compost tea/EM. I can wait and let it dry out and then inoculate it with my freshly brewed EM or I can use it in compost heaps I’m building since the grasses are just beginning to brown, so scything them up into piles with some comfrey in the centers makes for easy composting - especially if I can spray them down with diluted EM a couple days into their thermophilic reaction. It’s going to be fun: SO MUCH COMPOST!! And we’re going to be using it in the Cold Hardy Avocado Food Forest - now you may ask yourself WHY Avocado - seems monocultural perhaps? Avocados are going to be the canopy in this small food forest section with a great diversity of other plants with them like Desert King Fig will go in with a variety of herbs and cover crops at the same time so there’ll be diversity. We are spacing it out in a net and pan variation in anticipation of the full tree size and having to capture as much rain as possible. We are also planning on working with cold hardy MACADAMIA NUT TREES - yes they exist too!! The idea is very few food forests focus on FATS - almost all are focused on sugars aka fruit, which I love too but I need the fats for my brain lol!!
Without further ado, here’s the DIY Biochar video I made with my family:
It’s my #2 all-time most popular video in the 1st 48 hrs, so I think you’re going to like it ;)
Btw, did you know that I’ve been making huge progress on the artwork for The Regenerative Soil Science & Solutions Manual? I’m polishing up a bunch of things and I’m actually quite close to “filling in the blanks” of the book - I tend to create an outline and flesh it out, filling in the blanks as it were, and I’m currently at 150 pages with dozens of diagrams completed. I’m likely more than half finished with the artwork, and the best news is I’m getting really FAST at it, so the 2nd half will take a fraction of the time to complete, and from now on I can do a LOT of the diagrams THOUGH I will also be working more with the incredibly talented Janice Asayo Kubo, an artist who has worked with Disney, Warner Brothers, and Netflix for years and who took her PDC with me and met me at Permaculture Voices 2 where we planned out a book… the next Kickstarter is for that book which is finished and waiting on me to finish this soil book. I hope to share the soil book with my Kickstarter backers while it’s being peer-reviewed by our team of soil experts, and in that timeframe launch the Kickstarter for The Forgotten Food Forest, so I can print both at the same time and save money on shipping. What do you think of that? OR do you think I should keep it fully separate and hold off longer… I feel like FFF is so perfect for RIGHT NOW with families at home teaching their children themselves. Either way, I’m pushing HARD to finish while also going full out on this 90+ acres we are on in Guerneville, CA.
Here are some new diagrams I’m working on - I’ll likely still tinker with them ALL, so if you see something I miss or could do better: TELL ME!! <3 <3 <3 I am a solopreneur and rely upon all of you immensely to help me create the level content I do: I couldn’t do it without you and hundreds of peer-reviewers and volunteer editors over the years. Thank you!!
WE ARE NOT MOVING ANY LONGER THIS SPRING!!!
We’ve wanted to share that for a while - our family is staying on this enormous and amazing site in California, and we are developing it into a PARADISE. In the year we’ve been here, life has exponentially shifted into an abundance. We now have clouds of butterflies hovering around the gardens, armies of bees, and dark, rich soil where we have silt over hard clay the year before. We are staying here indefinitely - we are working with neighbors, the land owner, and new neighbors all across our little valley and ridge, and it’s AMAZING!! Though we are all in a crisis, we are seeing a regenerative reaction within ourselves, with each other, and with the land. It’s both humbling and stirring in the heart in ways that are hard to communicate, but the abundance, the syntropic cycling, and the joy that comes from being part of it all is very real and fills us with peace.
DO YOU HAVE SEEDS THIS SPRING?
If not, message me, and I’ll send you a care package of Baker Creek Heirloom seeds - our gift to you at this time of crisis. They actually were meant for the R-Future.world event but that’s indefinitely postponed for now - I’ll likely relent and make it an online experience (and free), but for now I can’t address it and I don’t want to let go of the vision that that event holds.
Grow Abundantly, Learn Daily, & Live Regeneratively,
Matt Powers
PS: Signup for the Advanced Permaculture Student Online (APSO) for only $50 a month with a 60% discount on the standard price RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW & see Why 730+ APSO Members are EXCITED, INSPIRED, & TAKING ACTION!!
