How well does it work with astroturf?

On 06/09/14 18:15, Bigal wrote:

About 5 years ago I read an item on the American site of garden banter
giving some of the history of biochar and its uses. The claims made
intrigued me and I spend long hours googling it, finding out how to use
it and, more importantly, how to make it in relatively small quantities.
The most difficult part for me was that I couldn't find anyone to
discuss my findings. I needed to make relatively small quantities, up
to about 20 litres, getting to be a little bit on the ancient side and
unable to handle anything very heavy. I also needed to be able to use
wood shavings as these were fairly easy to obtain. At that time I grew
very little in the garden, anything I tried my wife would never use. I
now think it was probably due to the slugs etc that she would find in
the veg. I now like to grow things that will store, freeze or pickle
and to that end I have made raised beds totalling 16 sq.m. My first
batch of biochar went into a 5 sq.m bed, and was relatively successful
in the first year, but failed in the second year. Biochar absorbs a
large amount of liquid, but in the first year it also absorbed a lot of
nutrient from the soil. I overcame that by soaking it in liquid
nutrients for a few days . I now use whatever I have available in the
beds, and that is probably about 300 litres. The manure l use is alpaca
which goes directly on to the beds and l put some to soak to use for
priming the biochar. My crops are good. and whilst I normally trench
out my runner beans, this year l just added a couple of buckets of
biochar to the row. Fewer plants, and an even better crop than last
year. Initially, I must have spent about £250 perfecting a technique
for making the biochar. The drawback with the method I used was a small
amount of smoke produced, but enough to upset my neighbours if the had
washing out. The new method I use costs about £60, produces no smoke
(virtually none), has double the output, and should produce about 200
litres before parts need replacing (£20 to £25). I think the Mayan
Indians of Brazil got it right when they just kept adding it to their
soil making Terra Preta. Believed to have been used for 2,000 years in
the Amazon valley. Nothing added to it for 500 years and farmers still
using it without adding any fertilisers. A lot of research is being
done by universities. A couple of companies producing it and charging a
small fortune for it. I get my shavings free so I calculate that it is
costing me about 10 pence a litre. I think the time l spent looking it
up and working on it has been really worthwhile . And l would recommend
giving it a try.