Biochar trial update #1 - Cabbage and Broccoli

We are participating in a trial to see what effect biochar has on annual vegetable growth.  I wrote about this a bit before, so here's the first update.

This week on Wednesday I inoculated the biochar for the first 4 test beds.  I first measured out 3 five gallon buckets of finely ground char.  Then I mixed the char 1:2 with compost (one bucket char to 2 buckets of compost) and mixed all that up in a big bin.

Next, I watered the mix down so that the microbes from the compost would multiply and inoculate the char.  Then it sat for 3 days.

Put char into the container

Add compost

Mix thoroughly

Water it in

 

On Saturday, it was time to put in the first transplants for the trial.  The first 4 trial beds will be tomatoes, cabbage and broccoli.  When the cabbage and broccoli come out in July, we'll put in a planting of black beans.  This way we'll get to test fruits (tomatoes), leaves (cabbage/broccoli) and a legume.  The steps for doing this are:

Spread compost on all 4 test beds.  Add biochar to 2 of the test beds and spread it out.  The kids were champs and did a big chunk of this.  Then they took down the tomato tunnels we had set up from last year.  This is a big job and I wondered if they would be able to handle it by themselves, but they did great!  In case you're wondering why they were working on their own, I was working on the chicken tractor in the last post.

Next, we re-assembled the tomato tunnels in the new beds.  The tunnels are made of 16' cattle panels pinned between 2 fence posts, so the first step is to pound the T posts in to the beds at the right spacing for the cattle panels.  We put them about 1 foot into the bed so that there is a foot for the tomatoes to be planted on the inside of the tunnel and 3 feet outside the tunnel for the other vegetables.

Assembling tomato tunnels

Then we have to bend the cattle panels between the T-posts to make the arches.  This is a 2 adult job because the panels are heavy and they can spring back and catch you with some fairly sharp edges.  We clip the panels to each other to keep the whole tunnel a bit more stable once their in place.
 
Now we're ready to plant!  We put the same mix of varieties and vegetables in each of the 4 beds.  We planted a total of 72 cabbage and broccoli plants on the outsides of the tunnels.

Then we watered the transplants in and put leaf mulch around them to retain the moisture and discourage weeds.

Watering in the transplants

spreading mulch

Last, we covered them with insect barrier so that the cabbage moths don't eat our crop instead of us! 

Cabbages covered and ready for a good spring rain.

Ta da!  Finished garden beds!

Chicken tractor!

Its been a busy couple of weeks, so here's the first of a couple of posts to get caught up. 

Our friend, Jeff, has helped us make major progress on the chicken tractor.  Last weekend, we went from the frame in the last post to an enclosed top coop space as seen below:

You may notice that the coop part has a skylight.  We thought it would help the chickens be more in tune with natural light cycles since their laying is determined by how long the days are.  We also built nest boxes for the inside.  Both end walls are doors - one that we will use to get to the next boxes and one that we will use to clean out the coop.

Our guest chickens in the coop! 

 

This is where we left last week.

 

This weekend we added the top cap to shed water from the peak and vent air through the coop.  Then we put a perch on the inside and added a handle to help move it around.  Lastly, we installed a door frame on the bottom so that we can get into the lower run segment. 

Now we need to paint the frame, install the back wheels and put the chicken wire around the bottom.  Then we'll have a chicken house for our soon to be chickens!

The coop now.  :D