Charcoal vs Ashes In the Garden, Very Useful, but Very Different

Burning wood creates some incredibly useful things. This video and blog post are about two of those products used in agriculture, charcoal and Ashes. They are both very useful, but very different, and have very different uses. I’ve perceived some confusion about these substances and their place in agriculture, so I hope I can clarify some of that.

If you apply enough heat to wood, it begins to break down and release gasses. If those gasses flare off, you get flames. If not, you get smoke. In the presence of oxygen, you are eventually left with a pile of white or grey stuff, which is the mineral content of the wood. If you stop the process, you have a chunk of light weight, easily broken, porous jet black carbon with no brown areas and no parts recognizable as wood. So charcoal is a shell of carbon left over once much of the substance and components of wood are destroyed by heat. Of course the charcoal still contains the minerals that are in ashes, but they are locked in this carbon matrix and not readily available.

Charcoal is stable and durable. It is capable of persisting in the soil for a very long time. Of course how long may depend on the type of charcoal, conditions, soil etc. but it is no doubt capable at times of persisting for millennia. While some of the minerals in ashes may be persistent, ash is essentially a very short term fertilizer.

CHARCOAL

First off, there is some debate about whether it is appropriate to call black cinders from the fire charcoal, or “biochar”. In video comments I’ve had people argue forcefully that any char produced in the presence of oxygen, the way I usually make it in open piles or pits, is not biochar, but just charcoal. Others argue forcefully that it is not charcoal, yet when asked what it is, they have no appropriate simple term. If I handed a chunk of that half burnt shell of carbon to most people, they would say it is charcoal. Words are not things and language is a product of living, changing culture.

If wood is heated under a very low to zero oxygen environment, it undergoes destruction, similar to an open burning fire, but more of the carbon structure is retained. It will be denser, harder and have a higher fuel value than wood that is burned with more available oxygen. At some point, all the gasses will be driven off and it will just stay red hot, without burning up, because there is no oxygen to finish the process. Once I was part of an iron smelting experiment. When we dug the kiln out the next day, I found pieces of charcoal embedded in slag. That slag, which is a collection of melted unwanted minerals melted from the iron ore, had been white hot, molten goo the night before, yet the charcoal survived it. It survived because there was no oxygen in that part of the kiln to finish turning that charcoal to ashes.

If I start a fire, then quench the coals at a certain point before they burn to ash, I end up with a softer and less dense product. This is closer to the way I usually produce char. The difference is quite real. I actually need to burn some of that low oxygen hard charcoal soon for my forge, because it burns longer. I can get away with using the softer stuff I usually produce, and it gets plenty hot, but I have to use more of it. The common argument is that char made by pyrolysis is better for agricultural use as well. That may be. The question that interests me more is whether less carefully prepared open burn char works and is it a viable option in some contexts. In my experience, it is. So grammarists and fundamentalists can argue the finer points or masturdebate over the terminology all they want. I’m going to call it all charcoal or biochar, alternately, because that is what most people will understand. I think if the term biochar persists, it will come to mean all charred plants used for soil improvement and potting mixes. I am not particularly attached to what it’s called, I just use the language that is common. I would prefer to live in a society that has a more sophisticated nomenclature for chars, but I’m not sure I’m interested in trying to bring it about.

Charcoal has some interesting properties that make it potentially very useful in soil improvement. One is that it is a magnet for all kinds of substances. It works by grabbing onto them. This is called aDsorption. So, it can hold soil nutrients strongly, but plants can still use them. I grow a lot of my cactus in char and when you dig one up, the roots are covered with pieces of charcoal firmly attached by root hairs. If I fertilize a potted cactus with a high char content, I’m basically pouring my nutrients through a very effective nutrient filter. One would think that much less nutrient escapes out of the bottom of the pot when watered or fertilized.

Char is also aBsorbent, meaning it can soak up liquid like a sponge. In my experience, it seems to be capable of holding a lot of water, but probably dries out faster than either organic matter or clay. In some soils, at some percentages, it probably helps with water retention or reduces it. My jury is still out on that, but suspect that high percentages can cause some soils and potting mixes to actually dry out faster.

It also acts as an aggregate if you need that. My cactus mix is 50% charcoal, it is ground up to any where from powder to 3/8 inch chunks, so the mix is very well drained. I don’t need to add any other of the usual drainage stuff like red lava, pearlite or sand. For many plants, this might be too much and I would probably go with more like 20% and down. But it’s great for cactus. But there is no soil in potting mix, the rest is mostly peat moss, coconut fiber or shredded bark. In actual soil it can increase friability a great deal. I have loam here, which is not at all bad to work with. But with 10% char, it’s lovely to work with. I have not personally tested it on clay soils, but I definitely would post haste if I had to deal with that unfortunate circumstance.

In sandy and silty soils, char can serve some of the purposes of organic matter, plus some more, but it is persistent. Sandy, airy soils need organic matter badly, but they also lose it super fast as it is oxidized quickly due to the very high porosity of the soil. Sandy or silty soil also sucks at holding nutrients. Clay is quite good at holding nutrients. I you can get it, add some and make loam. But charcoal is a partial substitute in that department and should increase water holding, nutrient retention and probably soil life.

One of the common theories about why char can improve soil performance, is the microbe theory. Charcoal contains all the pore space naturally found in wood from the capillary system that moves liquid around the tree. I imagine it contains even more from the charring process, but either way there is a lot of pore space in a piece of charcoal. The important bit is that lots of pore space also means a whole lot of surface area. There is some statistic floating around out there that references football fields to describe how much surface area a small piece of charcoal may contain. So that means a small piece of char is a huge habitat for microscopic organisms.

I imagine that both the microorganisms and the nutrient grabbing capacity are important, but what we really care about is whether it works. And it seems to work. There is a lot of research you can avail yourself of (cautiously I would advise) and lots of personal accounts. The stuff that got me most excited was research I did on charcoal used for soil amending in Europe and North America in the 19th century.

But the idea that knowledge is transferable is somewhat dubious, and no matter how much information we consume, we know very little for sure and even less about how things will actually work for us in the ground war of farming and gardening. So I always advise people to do their own small, simple science experiments on using char to figure out what percentage to use and how it performs or doesn’t in your soils, and with your gardening style and crops.

So charcoal is awesome, but it’s not fertilizer. In fact, if you bury raw char, it will sap nutrients out of your soil and stunt most plants for about a year. Remember, it’s a nutrient trap, so it has to charge itself up and reach some kind of equilibrium before benefits start. Ashes on the other hand, are definitely fertilizer. In either case neither is necessarily a substitute for adding other things to your soil to make things grow. Don’t expect miracles. My observation of char beds is that the char seems to make better use of the amendments I do add, not that it replaces the need for them.

ASHES

Everyone has heard of slash and burn agriculture. You go to an area of forest, cut and burn everything down, spread the ashes around and plant your crops. People have done it forever in some parts of the world, and not just in the tropics. It works great, but only for a short time. It doesn’t last. Who got the warm fuzzies when I said slash and burn? Probably no one. Even the name sounds bad lol. The reason slash and burn has such negative connotations is that it is very temporary and you have to move in a few years when all the nutrients released from the ashes are used up. So, to an outside observer, it looks horrible. This great video shows how that can be a misinterpretation.

Slash and burn agriculturists that not only are not destroying the forests, but building them in barren grasslands. I’m sure in some situations that slash and burn is a bad idea. One would be in high population densities. The forest needs time to recover, decades sometimes. Or doing it on a very large scale as in the exploitation of the Amazon basin. Anything applied mindlessly or without principal has the potential to go wrong.

A good way to think of wood and other biomass is that plants have done a lot of work to slowly gather all of the stuff that a tree or plant is made of. That is a valuable thing. The bulk is of course carbon gathered from the air as CO2, which you can retain much of as charcoal. However, the minerals, a much smaller portion, are quite valuable and harder to come by. If you compost wood or burn it to ash, the minerals can be reused in other plants. So ash really is a fertilizer. It contains all those many trace minerals that the plant gathers in smaller or greater amounts and some important ones in significant amounts.

Most commonly ashes are thought of as a source of potassium, which is one of the 3 plant macronutrients. They also contain a significant, if lesser, amount of anothe macronutrient, phosphorous. The other thing they contain in abundance is calcium as calcium oxide or hydroxide and if they’re old or get wet, it will be more as calcium carbonate. One source I just read said that wood ash averages about 20% lime, but it can be higher. Most soils benefit from liming, so that portion is very valuable, and being finely divided into powder, is it also very easy to use and very quickly available.

I use ashes in my garden frequently. Garden beds get a sprinkling each time they are prepared, or at least once a year. Occasionally I’ll dump a load on some favored fruit tree as well. But I’ve been doing this for decades and have observed, as slash and burn cultures show us, that it is a very temporary effect. So an important difference between ashes and charcoal is lasting power.

What the world needs now is to move toward more stable, sustainable agriculture. Charcoal seems to have the ability to create lasting fertility. If you have ashes, use them. I make plenty in my woodstoves. The most of my brush gets charred, because it is more compelling and potentially much longer lasting. There are few things we can do to our garden soils that have a truly profound lasting effect. If I had to move to somewhere in the woods to start over, would I make charcoal? or ashes? If I had no external inputs, I would do what people have always done, clear a patch of forest, and burn everything to ash to get good crops the first few years. But then I would start importing more wood from around and gradually start amending that soil with charcoal. All other stuff that makes good soil, bones, kitchen and crop wastes, dead animals, urine and feces would go back into the cycle to charge that char and build lasting fertility to the extent possible.

I hope this is helpful to understand the differences between these two very useful, but very different substances.

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BIOCHAR PLAYLIST

What is This Apple Breeding Project Really About? & New Varieties Video

Black Strawberry, what it looks like in person on the tree is pretty much like this. You can see why apples like this have names like Black Oxford. Even the calyx is super dark.

Here is a video I shot about the four apples that I’m sending out this year to be grafted by orchardists. With any luck, other’s will be equally impressed with them and they will be propagated and proliferate. The real measures of success are if they are found worthy of propagation and multiply and/or if they are used to breed other new interesting, improved varieties.

On the surface, this project to breed new apples might be viewed as simply just that, an effort to make some good new apple varieties. But it’s really about much more than that as I discuss in the first part of this rather long apple rant/nerd out session.

Pear Tree Training, Year Two, Spring Cuts, Smart Fruit Tree Training For the Win!

I grafted and planted this pear tree over 10 years ago that never would grow. but it also didn’t die. One year the top died and the rootstock was growing back with some signs of enthusiasm. I pruned it back to one shoot, watered, fertilized and mulched it, and it grew like mad. It ended up growing into a tall whip, which is s single shoot with buds and no branches. I determined to make an example of it regarding how to train a whip into a tree of a desired form. I made a video, and then a follow up video, of training that tree last year, which are linked in a playlist at the end of this post.

This spring, it was time to revisit this tree, see how my interventions worked and set it up for the next stage of growth. It’s a quick recap of the process so far, a look at the results, some snipping and then showing what I would do with it next year. Instead of repeating that information here, I’ll make this post complimentary by discussing some important principals in tree training.

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Some Important Principals in Training Fruit Trees

If fewer growing points are left on a tree, those remaining will tend to grow more. This is how coppicing (cutting completely down to stimulate regrowth) and natural regrowth after floods and fires all work. A coppiced tree will have X number of growing points, far fewer than a mature tree. Therefore those few growing points grow faster. As the tree grows, those tall new shoots branch and suddenly there are more than double the amount of shoots, so the tree cannot grow them all like it did the initial regrowth. And the process will continue until the tree is clogged with small growth that extends very little each season. Small less vigorous growth now serves the wood that supports it further down the branches and trunk. This process is not predictable in a linear way however. In actual practice, this tendency can be taken advantage of by removing whole shoots, pinching off unwanted growth, or just removing buds before the tree even has a chance to grow them as I did with this tree. the 12 buds I left on the trunk all grew, so this year I took off all I didn’t want, leaving 4, which will not grow longer and thicker in light of that reduced competition.

Resources coming up the trunk from the roots can be diverted into branches, resulting in fewer resources reaching parts of the tree further up: This is not as simple as there being a large branch and therefore that branch will siphon off X amount of resources, but it is true nonetheless. Other factors would be the amount of leaf area that part of the tree has to drive it’s own growth and “draw” in resources from the trunk flow, how much sun it gets, and it’s hormone situation. By creating it’s own self feeding ability to grow, or not, a branch may limit or increase it’s own use of and access to those resources coming up the trunk. There seems to be both a global tree-wide system of growth drive and allocation of resources, and a phenomenon that presents like the tree is competing with itself.

Leaf area is required to grow trees: Trees need leaves in order to do things like extend shoots, grow thick & robust trunks and branches, stock carbohydrates for growth and storage, and to grow more shoots and leaves to gather yet more food. Principal one, (fewer shoots means more growth into those shoots), may translate into less energy gathered, stored and used by the tree because it can reduce leaf area by reducing the number of shoots allowed to grow. If carried to an extreme, the trunk and branches may end up too spindly and weak. That does not however necessarily mean that we have to leave as much growth as the tree wants to grow. We can find a balance where we utilize the above principals to drive growth where we want it and into fewer points, while still leaving some extra growth to collect food. I don’t think there is a complete functional alternative to removal of some growing points to drive growth into others in order to establish large, dominant scaffold branches. Not to say that there are no other tools for prioritizing growth potential of certain growing points, but that reduction of growing points is an essential tool to that end. Just keep in mind that leaf area is required and note both how leaving extra growth may feed the tree with it’s leaf area, and also how it may hold back growth of the wood that you want to grow the most.

Hormones have a major role in controlling tree growth. This is why notching above buds will drive their growth. In the future, as I have more trees to experiment on and sketch out what I think are the most telling, achievable experiments, I’ll be experimenting more with notching both above and below buds and branches as well as ringing trees completely at times to observe how those practices might be turned to practical effect in various situations.

Training Trees and Pruning Are More Art than Science: If you want consistent results, get a different hobby lol. While there is a lot of predictability, challenges will present themselves and plants will assert their priorities or tendencies over yours at times. These situations require adaptation by the artist. Think in terms of principals and actual goals. The. goal is not narrowly to grow branch x exactly at this point, but to fill a vertical and horizontal space in a certain way to grow fruit on. That may involve, bending or guidance pruning to get the branch to fill in that area. But as long as it fills it in and does the job, that’s the real goal. I’m trying to collect, innovate and test tools we can use to meet the challenges that sometimes present themselves.

I had planned to plant some test trees this year and bought a bunch of rootstocks, but it’s looking like that won’t happen this year. I’m trying to decide today whether to ditch that project completely, or try to find a spot to grow them out into whips this year. But it’s just as likely that if I bother to do that, I may not want to put them in next year either. My position on the homestead is uncertain right now, and I’m hesitant to put in anything long term until that is more clear, which probably won’t happen soon. I’m also putting in as much food as possible this year, and that is a competing priority for dirt, water and attention.

Whatever the future holds, I know I’m not going to get a fraction of what I want to do done if I don’t come up with a crap ton of money and pretty fast. Whether it’s to better secure or negotiate my place here or move somewhere else, a lot of money will be involved. Nothing is cheap here in the land of snooty wineries and black market cannabis culture. I’ll be switching my priorities to revolve around income for a while to see if I can make something work, which would essentially involve doing a bunch of stuff I want to do anyway, just in a very strategic way. My bare minimum goal is to be making 100% of the land and tax payments here by the end of a year from now and hopefully by then, or soon after, a lot more than that.

While the direct action part of tree training research has become a luxury that I probably can’t afford to engage in on any scale right now. It does remain a strong long term priority, because I think it has the potential to broadly update home fruit tree training to version 2.0 That solution probably won’t involve techniques and ideas that don’t already exist (nothing new under the sun eh?) but rather collecting those tools, vetting them for practical application, encouraging citizen testing and then packaging that effectively into a system or approach, that is both simple and effective for people that are not level 10 fruit nerds like me. I’m still super stoked about this project and have gotten a lot of positive feedback from people that are trying this type of approach. It’s just going to have to be put on the back burner to simmer for now.

In the meantime, I love hearing back from people how this approach works for them, good or bad.

Recent Gardening Videos, Vlog Style, FPG, First Person Gardening

Here are a couple of recent videos I did vlogging style, just working on stuff and touring the garden. I want to do more gardening content, since the recent events around COVID 19 virus pandemic should have people thinking about vulnerabilities in our material needs related to the supply stream of industrial goods that keep most of us going. in particular, I think that Self Reliant Gardening (SRG), is an important skill.

It is very different to garden as much as possible with what is free and easily available in your immediate environment than it is to purchase a lot of stuff in. Gardening can not only get expensive when purchasing a lot of fertilizers, starts, seeds, soil mixes and amendments, but if those become expensive, hard to get or just unavailable, it will put a real wrench in the gears of a dependent gardener. Self Reliant Gardeners can take advantage of those resources when needed and available, but we don’t need them.

When I first moved here, I decided to use very little from the outside. I bought oystershell for the acid soil, and the very first year of each bed I used steer manure because it was cheap and I needed something to get beds started right away since I had not even made any compost. After that, for the following 10 years I brought in minimal stuff; just oyster shell and waste coffee grounds from my neighbors and some places in town. For me to switch back now to using no imports is very easy. I have some holes in my game, but mostly related to more advanced seed saving.

Look forward to more gardening content and consider learning to grow some food if you don’t already. You can start small, even a few plants in pots, but the time to learn self reliance skills is definitely not when you suddenly need them. Our communities are ridiculously vulnerable to interruptions in the supply lines. Even in rural areas like mine, the agriculture is not at all geared toward being able to feed the local populace. In case of emergency, we’d have a lot of pot and a lot of wine, but not a lot else! As I’ve said for so long, FOOD NOT BONGS! This is a a very, very bad situation, and we should start living in a direction that begins to remedy it, or it will eventually be a serious problem. It’s not a matter of if, just when. The party is winding down folks. It’s time to invest in our own abilities and resilience, as well as that of our communities.

Stay safe and healthy out there, and plant something in the ground.

Tasting New Red Fleshed Seedling Apples, From Apple Breeding Trials

I have over 50 seedling apples fruiting this year, most for the first time. The best way for me to do content on tasting these is to do it how I normally do it, which is go out there and taste my way through the rows.

There are some interesting and potentially promising ones and certainly some stuff to use in making a next generation of crosses. I’ve also observed though that I have probably been right all along that there is a group of undesirable traits for a dessert apple, which follow the red fleshed trait around. I am assuming that some of these traits can be teased out and eliminated while retaining a deep red flesh. The classic red fleshed apple is acidic, soft, and low-ish in sugar. I’m pretty sure there is a trend where the redder the flesh, the more those are likely to be present.

The only thing to do is take these new fruits and make second generation crosses. some will be with other red fleshed apples or crosses and some possibly with other dessert apples. I’ll be thinking about which crosses to make once I taste these all and get an idea of what they are like.

As for the average apple in the row, they are generally edible, if not always good. Spitters are uncommon, but there are a few. Many are as good or better than the average apple I have growing here, about 80% of which I will probably end up culling out for low quality. A lot of them have just a hint of pink in the flesh and others have none, even though the great majority have one red fleshed parent. I’m hoping that when crossing apples that both have red flesh, I can increase the percentage of seedlings that show the trait. Many are very sweet, but the more red flesh, the less sweet they tend to be I think.

Scab is very bad on some and common in general, but I have some nice apples that look scab resistant if not practically immune. Even apples with two very scab prone parents can turn out scab free I learned. That is encouraging. I have not made crosses with two scab free parents yet, but I’m suspecting that they won’t always be scab free. But I’ve really been trying to use more scab resistant genes, because it is a problem for me and others, and it must help to add it to the mix more. Also, many red fleshed apples, including I believe all the Albert Etter red fleshed apples I have grown, seem very scab prone on a scale of 1 to 5 I’d a say

Pink Parftait 4 to 5

Rubaiyat 5

Grenadine 3 to 4

I do have some not very scabby or scab immune seedlings that are quite red inside, so I don’t think scab susceptibility travels with the rest of that package of undesirable traits I mentioned earlier. If I’m even right about that trend but I think I probably am.

As the season progresses. I’ve been very busy with winter preparations and homestead life in general. I’ve also had to take some time to do other stuff for money, so that takes time away from making content and working on real stuff that matters.

Earliest of the Early Summer Apples, 5 Varieties in July

It is the last third of July and I have 5 apple varieties ripe here. Typically early apples are thinly flavored, not overly sweet, decline rapidly once picked and best for cooking. Before grocery stores and regular international shipping, early apples were probably a big deal. By summertime, old apples in storage, if any remain, are pretty sad by comparison. Early summer fruits would mean truly fresh fruit gracing the kitchen again. A couple of these stand out as worth eating out of hand too. Apples will ripen in June in some climates, but not mine. As much as people may think we have a salubrious, warm climate, it cools off at night, which typically stops things from developing as rapidly as they might in uniformly warm summer areas.

July Red: July Red is the first to ripen here, but it also has a very long ripening season, of probably 2 to 3 weeks. The quality has improved as the season progresses. The flavor is very nice. Even in the past few days since shooting the video on tasting these apples, I’ve had some specimens that are the best I’ve tasted, and which I would rate as very good. They have also gotten sweeter. Others are not good at all, so it is highly variable and fragile. The ripeness window is short before it softens and goes off. It is variable in size but ranging to large. The flesh is tender and coarse, without much crunch or crispiness, but in no way offensive. It is pretty juicy too. I suspect the juice would be very good, but the texture would make it hard to squeeze in a press. July Red was developed by a breeding program in New Jersey and released in 1962. It is also in the ancestry of Williams’ Pride, an excellent summer apple. The tree is a tip bearer with some spurs, but should definitely be pruned as a tip bearer.

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Early Harvest: Early drop is more like it. This one caught up to July Red and dropped all the fruit at once. It is not flavorful, soft and really just not worth eating out of hand. It is listed commonly as dessert and cooking, but here it is not worth eating. It is always possible that mine is mislabeled, but fruit descriptions and results can sometimes be radically different depending on zone and culture. This is a very scabby apple.

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Summer Rose: Very similar in appearance to Early Harvest, to the point that I would suspect they might be related. I found several watercolors, one of which is a dead ringer for my fruits as you can see, and the others are a striped apple that is very different. It seems to ripen a bit later though. Very similar in character to early harvest as well. it also gets scab badly, though maybe not at the very worst level.

This Summer Rose looks remarkably like the one I have.

Clearly another apple altogether.

Summer rose. Very scab susceptible.

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Red Astrachan: Does not live up to it’s reputation here and never has in around 10 years of fruiting. It is thinly flavored, soft and unremarkable in every way. Tim Bates of the apple farm says it makes great apple sauce. I made some this week and it’s good for sure, but not the best I’ve had or anything. It is the best thing I’ve found to do with them so far. It is not sweet, so lots of sugar required.

Red Astrachan

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A watercolor painting of this apple from Early August 1914 under the name Red June. It has the same red flesh staining in the same location right around the calyx tube on the bottom end. The shape is very similar to those growing here.

Carolina Red June: An old heirloom from the south alleged to date from before 1800. This apple has some nice flavor going. Again tender fleshed. It is worth eating out of hand and the flavor is pleasant if polite in mine. I’m hoping this year it will improve over the season as it is a gradual ripener with a long season. The apples are quite small and very red. The red pigment extends into the stem and into the flesh a little bit. That could make it a candidate for breeding early red fleshed apples, along with Williams’ Pride. This one is scabby, but not horrible. I don’t have a full sized tree, so it’s hard to tell what it’s nature is, but it seems to tend to bear on the ends of short shoots. It’s like a short tip bearer. Don’t prune off shoots that terminate in fat tips.

Carolina Red June

Carolina Red June seems to bear a lot on tips of short twigs, or spur-like structures on the ends of twigs, but also spurs along branches too. Be careful about not pruning off short shoots that terminate in fat tips.

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Without cooking all of these apples in various ways to test that aspect, the ones I’m most interested in keeping are July Red and Carolina Red June, because of flavor. I think both perform slightly better in the scab department as well.

The next group of apples to ripen will generally be a significant improvement in richness, flavor and texture. Trailman Crab will probably be next, then Kerry Pippin, Williams’ Pride and Chestnut Crab. Most of these second early summer apples typically ripen in August

Next to ripen will probably be Trailman Crab, which I’ve had in July before, but also in August.

I should be posting some more photos and historical info about some of these apples to Instagram over the rest of this month.

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Peasant King and My Tree Collard Selection Project

About 5 years ago, a friend gave me some tree collard seeds from Montenegro.  Some years since planting those seeds, I’ve selected one seedling that stands out from the rest to name, propagate and distribute.  I have ostentatiously and awesomely dubbed it Peasant King. 

Tree collards are a perennial vegetable also variously known by other names like Tree Kale, Palm Cabbage, Walking Stick Kale, Tree Cabbage and no doubt more.  They are something like collard greens or Broccoli leaves, except that they grow all year for multiple years without flowering eventually becoming very tall.  They could be compared to regular collards, but generally are heavier in texture and maybe stronger flavored.  I also suspect they might be more nutritious, but who knows without an analysis, and I don't know that it's been done.  Tree Collards are a member of the species Brassica Oleracea, which includes, Broccoli, most Kales (not siberian or red russian, which are Brassica napus species), Cauliflower, Kohlrabi, Brussel's Sprouts, Cabbage and Collards.  Many people are surprised to find out that these are all the same species of plant and and as such can inter-pollinate.  The only reason that lets say a cauliflower and a kale plant look and act so different is that they have been bred for different characteristics for a very long time.

"In Jersey, the Palm Cabbage is much cultivated, and reaches a considerable height. In La Vendée, the Cæsarean Cow Cabbage grows sixteen feet high." PLANT LORE, LEGENDS, and LYRICS, RICHARD FOLKARD, JUN. 1884 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44638/44638-h/44638-h.htm

Tree Collards are traditionally grown in various parts of the world as fodder for both humans and animals.  They probably originated in the British Isles.  A variety referred to locally as Purple Tree Collard has been grown in my area by both old and young back to the land types for a long time, but they are generally propagated by cuttings, not seeds.  That is because the particular purple tree collard that is grown around here rarely sets any seed.  Flowering is not very common to start with and they flower only weakly when they flower at all.  Also, they don’t seem to pollinate themselves and I suspect they may only set seed when pollinated by another genetically unique variety of tree collard or other member of the Brassica Oleracea group.

When I got these rare and unique seeds, I saw it as a chance to find out if the trait of resistance to flowering was transferable, with an eye to selecting out some new perennial varieties worthy of propagation by cuttings.  I grew out around 35 new plants in some out-of-the-way long term test beds.  I was impressed early in their growth that many of the plants seemed more vigorous than the standard tree collard I had been growing for years.  I wondered if our tree collards had picked up virus or genetic damage that caused them to grow more weakly.  I won’t be 100% sure if the average plant is more vigorous unless I grow multiple varieties side by side with the old type. What I'll probably do instead is yank out all of my old Purple Tree Collards so that they don’t infect my new varieties if they are carrying something infectious.

Peasant King shows much darker purple and more completely colored leaves than the average seedling in the group. The leaves also average much larger. More average leaves are to the left.

Out of those 35-ish plants, I have selected just one so far that is clearly superior by a combination of leaf size, color, shape, vigor, uprightness and resistance to bolting.  It has beautiful, large, dark purple leaves.  While most of the seedlings more or less resemble the purple tree collard grown here, they vary in color, with a few being more or less purple.  The old cuttings everyone grows here are partially purple, but probably average 50% or more green.  My new selection is among the most completely purple of this seed population, though, like all of them, there are green patches.  Keep in mind that the color trait will vary somewhat with weather, soil and culture.  The leaf shape is a little more frilly and rounded as well.  All in all, it stands out from the crowd in it's physical attributes, and if random leaves are picked from all of the plants, it's leaves are easily distinguishable from the rest

The original plant is now about 7 feet tall at 4 years old.  it is not the tallest, but that may be just as well.  I think a combination of tall and short types might be best scenario in terms of design options for gardens.  It has resisted flowering through at least two hot California summers with no water, and two of the worst drought years in living memory.  Those trial beds have also gotten very little fertilizer past the initial establishment.  The conditions I’ve grown these in shows out just how tough these plants are.  We have no significant rain for usually about 5 or 6 months of the year, depending on the year, yet the percentage of plant loss to drouth was not all that high.  Heavy environmental stress often causes plants to flower, probably as a reproductive imperative- as in, "I might die, I better make babies to pass no my genes".  Growing these under these challenging conditions creates heavy selection pressure to weed out the weak plants.

I named the variety Peasant King because it is tall, with a beautiful crown of royal purple leaves, and tree collards are the epitome of healthy old school peasant food.  My home girl Sophia Bates acquired these seeds, which were gifted to her by the Matron of the farm she was staying at in Montenegro.  She said that they are a regular staple among the farming folks of that region and are grown in every nook and cranny of the homestead that is not used for anything else.  They are pretty neat.  A tough resilient plant that is easy to propagate from cuttings, is very nutritious and grows with little care in out of the way spots.  To boot, it looks cool.  I think further trial will show Peasant King to be more upright and handsome than the usual collards.  Only further trial will tell us for sure, or whether it will show out some other problems such as susceptibility to pests or disease.

So what’s the down side?  Some people don’t like them for one.  They are also not very hardy.  John Jeavons of Ecololgy action, a long time promoter of tree collard growing, says the usual purple tree collard can freeze out below 18 degrees Fahrenheit for extended periods I do not recommend trying to grow them in areas where they don’t really want to grow, but see below for possibly more hardy options.  Being perennial, they can be host to long term pests, like aphids.  I have gotten aphids and if I recall, maybe some fungal disease on my Purple Tree Collards in the past, but they always seem to outgrow everything eventually.   Once I can grow more of them and get them to some other people, we will find out how they fare in the long run.  I hope to have cuttings of Peasant King to offer in the next year or two.  I should be rooting cuttings within a couple of months to grow more plants, to make yet more cuttings to distribute.  The first available cuttings will go to a combination of influencer types and content creators and as usual my patreon supporters.  Sometime after that I’ll probably distribute cuttings for at least a year or two as long as it keeps performing well here.

THE FUTURE

In doing research I ran across a blog comment somewhere by Chris Hommanics saying that he has been working with tree collard hybrids for some time.  He had actually contacted me last year about getting me some apple scions, which I unfortunately wasn't able to take advantage of.  Anyway, small world.  It turns out he is offering a population of hybrid Tree Collard seed that he’s been working on.  It is a randomly mixed hybrid pool of tree collards mixed with Kales and other oleracea types.  The seeds are available for experimentation and can be acquired here.  This seed offers a much more diverse genetic range, with improved texture and varying form.  This looks like a really promising project.  I also ran across a video by Plant Abundance on YouTube, showing a kale, tree collard hybrid which he grew from chance pollinations with Kale in his garden.  I think the future of tree collards is likely more along these lines than the more traditional inbred line I’m working with.  Only the future will tell if that is all good, but I’d say expect to see an explosion of tree Brassica diversity over the next two decades.  The internet makes spreading knowledge and plant material so much easier than it used to be and new people are inspired every day to do backyard breeding and selection.  Even a few years ago when I started this project, there wasn’t all the much about tree collards out there on the web.  Now there are lots of videos and blog post.  The internet has been good to the humble tree collard.

The seeds are still viable and I planted two flats this spring

My plan from here is to germinate a bunch more of this Montenegran tree collard seed.  This time, I’m going to do a pre-selection in the flats, choosing only the healthiest looking vigorous seedlings.  Then I’ll plant those in trial beds on a close spacing, of maybe 6 or 8 inches to do a second selection.  The winners will be transplanted to trial beds and once established, I’ll neglect them, just like I neglected the current trial beds and see what survives and thrives.  In the name of diversity and resilience, I would eventually like to select out three or more plants worthy of naming and propagating from cuttings. The seed stock I have here would also ideally be crossed with the common local purple tree collard as well, for some genetic refreshment, diversity and invigoration to the line, but I may leave that up to someone else.  After that, if I continue working with them, it will probably be to hybridize in some other Oleracea varieties, like kales and maybe purple cabbage, and start growing those out.  I think Chris Homanics said that about 25% of hybrids inherit the perennial trait of resistance to flowering, and I think my seedlings might show a pretty similar rate of inheritance of that characteristic.  Transference of perenniality was my biggest question going into this project.  Now that we know that the trait is transferable, even when crossed with other B. oleracea types that tend to seed quickly, it opens up a huge window of opportunity to work with perennial tree Kales and Collards.

If you want to experiment with breeding and or selection, tree collards should cross with other members of the Brassica oleracea group, including many kales, broccoli, cauliflower, collards and Brussel’s sprouts.  There are hybrids of Brassica napus with Brassica oleracea, but I'm not sure how easy that is to achieve.  The idea of a cross with the napus Russian or Siberian Kale is very intriguing though.  Read more about those inter-species hybrids here.

Please don't contact me about cuttings unless maybe you are a collector or breeder that will in some way ultimately benefit others by distribution, education, research or breeding.  If I have cuttings, they will be offered in the web store as they become available.  Since the variety is named, it should get into circulation from other sources eventually, as long as it proves it's merit over time.  I still have to look into options for release to the public.  I'm going to check out the open source seed initiative, an organization which one of my gardening heroes Carol Deppe is involved in, but I still need to think about whether I think their whole concept is a good idea or not.  My intuition tells me there is something wrong with the framework of the project, and that is usually the start of something lol.  I'm also not sure if they do vegetatively propagated varieties.  I have my own ideas about what the future of seeds and perennials, plant breeding, legal issues, the plant breeding community, and the broader gardening and orcharding culture could look like, but that's another bag of worms.

A Locally Discovered Rare, Late Hanging Apple, Pomo Sanel

The fable I heard is that someone discovered a late ripening apple on a local homestead, took cuttings, named it Pomo Sanel and it shows up occasionally at scion exchanges.  Like any such apple, it may be an older named variety, but I don't know that anyone has identified it as such.  Although I'm not crazy about the Banana overtones, it's late hanging and richness of flavor have impressed me, and I think it would be found worthy of propagation by some.  If nothing else, the genes that allow it to hang late into the winter are worth preserving.

Very late hanging apples are one of my great apple interests.  Walking out to my trees crunching through the frost to munch on a sugary, juicy, flavorful apple is something I've become attached to.  I recall in previous years that Pomo Sanel is usually my second latest apple, ripening in January, between a group of Christmas apples like pink parfait and Katherine and Lady Williams ripening February 1st.  This year it is earlier.  Apples from storage can be quite good at times, but they can also be less than optimal and may pick up off flavors.  Besides, letting apples hang does not preclude storing them as well, even the same variety.  I think this apple may be better if picked at some point and then stored.  By that I mean that it may be more reliable and I might have fewer losses to rot in the stem wells or the occasional cracked apple, and that ultimately the apples would last later.  Even for a durable apple, hanging through rain and freezing weather an take it's toll.  But I would still let a few hang, because I like having them off the tree.  Another thing to consider is storage space.  I have no root cellar.  I have unheated rooms and a small fridge.  Storage of apples is not convenient for me.  And I was just last night trying to stuff things in the fridge because the crisper drawers are mostly full of apples.  In the end, I think a combination of both hanging late apples and storage, will prove the best strategy to carry fresh eating apples through.  Some varieties will keep long, but will not hang late.  I suspect that most long hangers will store well if picked at the right time.

Pomo Sanel is well above average for winter durability. It will show cracking on some fruits though.  It also frequently shows separation of the skin from the stem down in the stem well.  It also seems to dehydrate naturally on the tree a little bit.

As long storing apples go, I suspect that many others may do better than this one.  Dehydration and resultant shriveling are commonly considered a fault of storage apples and Pomo Sanel is already showing signs of shriveling on the tree.  It is not always a deal killer though.  Sometimes they will retain an acceptable texture as they lose water.  A good example is that some Russet apples will wrinkle up and become rubbery in storage.  Given the tough flesh and somewhat rubbery tooth of some of the specimens on the tree now, I suspect it will have a partial tendency toward that effect.  Other apples will soften in their own ways.  Some become what might be called tender, but without being at all mushy or mealy.  I personally enjoy coarse grained tender apples.  This one also seems to have a tendency in that direction.  Although they were clearly picked too late for best storage life and quality, I do have some put away in the fridge now, and am interested to see how they do.  I must have stored a few in the past, but I don't recall.

My general impression of Pomo Sanel is that it's a gem in the rough.  It is not a highly bred apple, like modern specimens of perfection being created now.  It has some character with it's freckles and somewhat uneven matte colored skin.  The dense flesh requires a little jaw work, something modern people don't get enough of anyway, so that could be a plus. 

The flavor is pretty complex, with maybe something like a fruit smoothie effect.  The most prominent flavor is banana. It's not a sickly sweet banana flavor, but it's definitely there on top, like it or not.  The sugar is  not overly high, but very adequate and compliments the level of acidity well.  Intensity of flavor is definitely above average.  It's no Suntan, but it asserts itself for sure. 

Pomo Sanel's very late hanging characteristics got my attention.  I've been meaning to make some crosses with it, but this is the first year I did.  I crossed it with the queen of late hanging apples (in my orchard), the sleek, durable, beautiful, highly flavored, well behaved Lady Williams.  She impressed someone, because she is one of the parents of Pink Lady, an excellent late hanging apple in it's own right that I've eaten off the tree here at the new year.  Another potential cross would be Gold Rush and Pomo Sanel.  Gold Rush is by all accounts an outstanding storage apple and has disease resistance genes.  The ones I'm eating out of storage now are quite good around Christmas.  They both have Banana as a prominent flavor when ripe, but other flavors differ a little.  Gold Rush has more spice in it.  Gold rush is not durable on the tree though, where it cracks and declines in quality.  Both seem productive.  Gold rush has Golden Delicious and given the characteristics and appearance of this apple, it wouldn't surprise me if it comes from the Grime's Golden/Golden Delicious line.  Other late hanging apples that come to mind as possible candidates for crossing are Whitwick Pippin, Allen's Everlasting, Pink Parfait, Grenadine, Granny Smith, Katherine (of Etter) and Pink Lady.  Since I've made crosses using some of those late apples already I also hope to have seedlings that could potentially provide breeding material.  Who knows what the limits of quality, hanging and storage apples might be if we keep crossing these late lines.

I'm saving some seeds from this interesting apple to distribute this winter, but I can't send out scions of Pomo Sanel, or anything else, due to disease issues in the orchard.  I may at some point try to sleuth out a new source of scions to distribute to people that might grow it and share it out.  I have no idea what level and duration of cold it can stand.  Even if picking it for storage, it has to ripen into at least late November here.  It's okay to pick apples early for storage, but they should be fully sized up.  The picture below shows Pomo Sanel in mid November still looking a little lean and green.  Your mileage may vary of course.

Pomo Sanel looking a little bit green on November 14th here in Northern California

One thing I feel sure of is that this variety is worth saving, and it is certainly not remotely safe at this point.  Maybe the longest standing, most knowledgeable and well connected local fruit collector/experimenter I know asked me for some mosaic virus infected scions a couple of years ago.  I'm sure there are more copies out there among the local fruit collectors somewhere, but if it's not distributed much by any of us, it will fizzle out like so many others have.  That is assuming that it is a unique variety and just an unidentified more common named variety.

My Hand Watering Tool of Choice, the Fan Sprayer, and Cheap Hoses Just Got Cheaper

My watering nozzle of choice is the fan sprayer.  Unfortunately it's hard to find a good one these days.  Read more below, or watch the video. 

Also, the hoses I just recommended in another video and blog post, Craftsman 50 foot, 5/8 inch rubber hose, just went down in price further for the next day.  They go off sale TODAY.  Someone commented that Sears is in financial crisis and may go under, so it might be a good time to buy some.  They're like "WE'RE GOING DOWN, QUICK, SELL ALL THE HOSES!"  They are 17.99 with free shipping on orders above 50.00,  or free in store pick up even if they aren't actually on sale in the store.  The 100 foot are about twice that much, so same per foot price.  http://www.sears.com/lawn-garden-watering-hoses-sprinklers-garden-hoses/b-1024024

The package says the hose contains lead and chemicals known to cause cancer as everything must in California.  I did a brief search and found this hose to actually score very well against most tested for toxic compounds including lead, of which none was found.  http://www.ecocenter.org/healthy-stuff/samples/50-ft-craftsman-premium-heavy-duty-rubber-garden-hose

Quite a few people commented on the video with positive reviews of this hose, including people that have used them for over 10 years.

I like fan sprayer nozzles because they deliver a lot of water and deliver it gently if designed well.  The other major reason I like them is that the spray pattern and water delivery can be adjusted by tilting the head side to side.  I can cover a 3 to 4 foot wide swath 8 feet away by holding it horizontally, or concentrate most of that water in a one foot circle at the same distance by simply tilting the head vertically.  In between those extremes, you can adjust the width by adjusting the tilt.  This versatility and the wide horizontal coverage make them especially good for watering wide beds as well as for variable conditions.  nothing else I know of delivers this amount of water in that sort of versatile pattern.  Unfortunately good ones are hard to find and I can't recommend a new one, though I can recommend some old ones.

Hole size is a major design issue with these.  If sprayers with small holes are available new at all, they will be the exception.  Small holes mean finer streams of water, which equals less trauma to seedlings and seedbeds as well as the fragile soil surface.  High volume and gentle delivery are hard to find in one package.  The older fan sprayers seem to have small holes for the most part.  THE ROSS is the brand I've used most and they are not that uncommon to run into.  THE ROSS #10 shown in this video was patented in 1924.  There are at least two models I can recommend, the #10 and #11. Both have similar holes, but different construction.  Examine old ones for leaks at any soldered or folded seams.  The cast metal body of the #11 can corrode through in some cases, so examine them closely as well.

Three good fan sprayers.  THE ROSSes #'s 10 and 11 and a no name short brass one that is every bit as functional, if a little less durable.

A common design feature in new models is a valve in the handle of the sprayer.  I think that is a mistake.  The valve will fail eventually and can't be replaced.  From my experience with hose shut off valves, it will probably fail rather sooner than later.  Most people will want a hose shut off valve on the end of a hose anyway for switching appliances and such without going back to shut off the valve at the spigot.  I have one on the end of every hose, which makes a valve in the sprayer body not only an unnecessary failure waiting to happen, but it's also an unneeded restriction in the line.

Most hoses should have a shut off valve already.  Putting a valve on the sprayer is usually going to be a disadvantage, let a lone redundant.

The vintage ones can be found on ebay or etsy.  Etsy seems to have quite a few, but I had to search "garden sprinkler" and sort through a bunch of results to find them.  They are not super cheap, but given what is usually available on the market now, it might be worth spending 10.00 to 15.00 on a vintage one.  I've found quite a few of them over the years at flea markets and such, but most of mine came from one single estate sale where I found a pile of them.  Lucky me :)  I have excellent thrift store/yardsale/flea market juju though.  Just ask my mom, or my pile of all clad cookware.

My second hand juju is strong.  Pray to the flea market gods all you want, some of us are just born with it.

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A Tale of Three Watering Cans and a Hose Recommendation

I got two videos on watering for ya today.  One is about three quality built watering cans and watering can design.  The other one is recommending the Sears Craftsman rubber hoses on sale now and seemingly every spring at 20.00 for 50 feet.  My friend Mark Albert recommended them saying they are good for 30 years (also confirmed by a youtube viewer).  I've been using them for a few years and plan to keep buying them.   I haven't met a plastic hose that will last yet and If there is one I'll bet it's not this cheap.  If they aren't on sale in the actual store, you can ask for the online price with free delivery and they'll let you walk out with them for 19.99 each.  That's all you really need to know, so you don't even have to watch the video!

How to Graft onto Existing Fruit Trees, Frameworking and Topworking Explained

I've reached #10 in the grafting video series.  I'm looking forward to finishing the last 2 or 3 segments and moving on to something else.  It's quite an investment to watch it all, and I know it is not needed just now by a lot of people, but it will be there when it is needed.  It will be really great to finally have a grafting resource to refer people to in my writings and videos and it is long overdue.  So here is #10.  I've talked about a lot of the material covered in this video in a blog post about frankentreeing some time back, which can be read here  And here is the video playlist for this series.  The summary below is an outline of what's in this video, mostly for search engines.  The information is covered better in this video and in the blog post linked above.

A distillation of this video:

Grafting onto exsisting trees is approached in one of two basic ways, either by topworking or by frameworking.  Topworking cuts most of the tree off and regrows it, while frameworking retains the main tree structural wood and replaces the fruiting wood with the new variety.  Framework grafting has the advantage of producing fruit more quickly and is less damaging to the tree.  A well frameworked tree may suffer no permanent injury, while a top worked tree is much more likely to have ensuing problems with decay due to the large open wounds created in cutting off large branches or trunks.  Also, it is possible in one year to add many varieties to a frameworked tree.  On a good sized tree you might add 50 to 90 varieties in one season, whereas you would have to wait for the top of a top worked tree to regrow in order to graft on more than a few varieties in the first year.  I favor frameworking in almost all cases except where damage done has to be remedied by growing a new top, or by some other special circumstance.  It does require more scions and more time, but unless the scale of operation is large it is a no brainer to choose frameworking in most cases.

A frameworked tree can be grafted in one year with very little or none of the old fruiting wood left on.  Some sources will recommend leaving some of the old wood and that is okay if you are concerned, or if you are not sure your grafts will take well.  I would not hesitate to work over an apple tree completely in one year if it is healthy.

A common mistake in frameworking is to graft onto smaller wood near the outside of the tree's canopy.  It is better to go back in to wood nearer a limb or large branch, thereby replacing and regrowing all of the fruiting wood.   Don't worry about grafting into stubs the same size as your scion, just set the scion to one side, and if the stub is large, set to scions, one on each side.

Another common mistake is to add a scion, but leave old fruiting and leafing out wood crowded around it.  There is a good chance that the new graft will not grow well if it is not given some room by removing proximal fruit/leaf wood. 

A spacing of about 18 to 24 inches is pretty good between main offshoots on one side of a tree.  If they are 24 inches apart, each only has to grow 12 inches to the side until they are touching.  Branches on the other side of the tree can be the same spacing, but staggered between the branches on the opposite side when possible.

There are many grafts that can be used, but cleft and whip and tongue are good mainstays to use on smaller stubs and on stubs over an inch you can start to think about using rind (bark) grafts, covered in an earlier video.  It is possible also to add a graft into the side of a bare limb or large branch by either cutting into the side of it and setting in a wedge shaped scion, or by using a rind graft of some kind.  Those operations are less likely to succeed than the familiar grafts already mentioned, but if it doesn't take, it can just be grafted again the following year.

Aftercare is similar to other grafting.  Wrap grafts very tightly and very well to prevent movement of the grafts during a couple months of critical healing time.  Seal the scions to prevent drying out, and check them in mid summer to make sure that rapid growth is not strangling the grafts where they are wrapped.  If the grafts are strangling, either remove the tape, or unwrap it and re-wrap around July sometime.

Scions for framework grafting can be much longer than those used for most other grafting.  I like to use scions with 8 or more buds personally.  Very long scions can be used if they are splinted firmly to immobilize the grafted section, but I'm not sure there is any real advantage to doing so.

Tools required are just a sharp knife, pruning saw, pruning shears, some kind of grafting wax or paint or seal and something to wrap with.   See the Tools Video for more on that stuff.  Don't forget to tag them too!

Late Blooming Apple Varieties and Radical Coffee Grounds Man

For those of you who live in frost pockets, here are the latest blooming of my 200+ apple varieties.  There are some good ones in there too.

No Brush Left Uncharred! The New Scorched Earth Policy!

It's not much harder to make a big pile of charcoal out of a burn pile instead of just burning it to ashes.  The short version is that you light it from the top and then put it out with a hose.  There is a little management involved and I do like to stack it neatly myself, but you can cut all kinds of corners and still end up with a lot of charcoal.  The charcoal lasts forever, and works amazingly well in my garden, so it's a pretty good deal!

Final Selections are in For the Bulgarian Giant Leek Seed Saving Project

I recently went through and picked the final winners in my seed leek trial.  This time I went for some short stout ones, but all were still probably at least 18 inches long.  I think size and up to almost 3 inches diameter are probably a little more practical than the really tall and somewhat more slender ones.  the leeks will now flower in their new home and seed should be ready by fall.

Permanent Soil Improvement Experiments w/ Biochar Continue, Catch Pit for Artichokes

This is the fourth such experiment in long term deep soil modification using a simple system of trenches or pits.  For now I'm using the term catch pit.  The basic concept is a hole where you toss in stuff that builds soil and feeds plants, backfilling with charcoal and dirt as you go.  It's cool.  Everyone should do it so we can find out how well it works.  I think default thinking these days is to let someone else prove things first, but I think that is backwards and everyone's context is different anyway.  I'm not just interested in how the finished soil performs, but how it ends up fitting into people's lives.  To me that part is just as interesting.  A society that feels an obligation not to waste soil nutrients and to build soil for the future is the one I'd like to live in, so that's what I'm doing.  I don't really know about the state of the rest of the world, but I think America would benefit from picking up a shovel more often and investing in an uncertain future.

Of Tan Oak Leaves and Rural Myths, Will They Poison Your Garden?

Here is a look at my first fruit from an intentionally cross pollinated apple seedling!

Now onto today's business.  I've been told for years that you can't use tan oak leaves on a garden because they are toxic.  I've used tons of them for over 10 years without observing any related problems.  This video is about that assertion and the odd tendency for people to latch onto and propagate negative information.

Making Top Shelf Seed Starting Mix From Common Stuff

This is how I make my seedling mix.  I rarely put anything purchased in it and It's great stuff.  Seedlings grow well and can get quite large before they start running out of nutrients.  Because of the high organic matter, it holds water, yet drains quickly and remains well aerated.

Tending the Leekage, Bulgarian Giant Leek Project, Weeding, Cultivation and Mulching

Some overdue tending of my seed leek project.  From here out I just need to keep fertilizing and watering till spring when I select the best leeks and allow them to go to seed.  The seed should be ready for sale in fall of 2017  Related videos linked below.

Some related videos...

Potato Onion Series Part 3: Harvesting and Curing

Here is my second to last video in the series on potato onions.  Once these bulbs are cured, they go on ebay August 15th under the Paleotechnics account.  The next video will be on cooking with them.

Much Improved Growth of Leeks in Biochar Test Bed

About three years back I set up my first biochar test bed.  I divided the bed into three sections of 10% charcoal, 5% charcoal and 0% charcoal.  The sections were all treated the same, except the 0% section was amended with a small amount of wood ash in an attempt to approximate the amount that would have been added incidentally with the charcoal.  I even dug the 0% section exactly the same as the 5 and 10% sections.

The first year the char sections of the bed performed poorly.  Lettuce failed to thrive in the char sections, but did fine in the 0% section because the charcoal sapped the soil of nitrogen and who knows what else.  several growing seasons later though, it's a different story.  I forgot to mention in my leek planting video that the bed I used was this test bed.  now that the leeks are established and growing, there is an obvious difference in the three sections with the 10% doing the best and 0% by far the worst.  While there could be some other factors involved, it's pretty clear that the charcoal is having a very positive effect.  I would say that the 10% section could be doing as much as 600% better than the 0% section.  The weeds look a lot happier too.

What the exact effect is, I don't know, and while I'd like to know, I don't necessarily need to.  It is just working and that is the important thing.  It seems that the charcoal amended sections are making better use of whatever resources are put on them.  We'll see how the leeks progress through the season.

What I learned from this experiment so far is that 10% is better than 5% and 10 inches deep makes a difference.  I'd like to put in a similar experiment with 10%, 15% and 20%.  I'd also like to do sections of a bed at a constant percentage, but one dug to 2 feet and one dug to only 12 inches.  And there are many more experiments I could do.  Each bed I install will be a different test of some kind.  It is easy enough to set them up and I could potentially learn from them for years.  I hope some of you out there will start collecting or making charcoal and setting up your own experiments.  If you already are, leave a comment and tell us about it.