Making Terra Preta: Did It Work? Let's Dig It!

Last year we began an experiment in making terra preta. In today's video, we'll see what happened.

Today we dig into our terra preta test bed and see what we can see. For the first season, everything grew very well. But later this year, the good growth stopped. My theory is that the trees are sucking up the fertility, but it could also be that the area we charged is running out of fertility. In this bed we buried bones, charcoal, manure, biochar and pottery shards to make terra preta. But it doesn't look like it's as amazing as it should be. What do you think? Leave a comment below!

[awc]

Real reality in the real garden of a real person. Sometimes things don't work out and we don't know why. Thank you for keeping it real.

[brandiisbell]

David- - I believe the people who built terra preda soil probably just added one layer after another for years and years and years. And maybe they had a whole lot of people working on it at different times . It's just the way you've done it on every Homestead I have followed you through. Every year your soil gets better and so did theirs. You and Rachel always leave a place better than you found it.

[nancyseery]

Well, you have kept two trees very happy. I am trying some bio char in our raised bed, mixed with my native clay, old potting soil, fall leaves and what ever I thing won't hurt the soil. It's called ---do what you can with what you have, or why not give it a try!!! God bless you and your family and keep growing.

[ziggybender]

I found this last year that chopping up sugar cane and adding it to the compost pile mixed in with bio char produces the best dark black hummus compose I've ever seen in my life. It takes a bit longer to break down but I can pick up a chunk of sugar cane and see lots of little red wiggler worms inside going to town. Sugar cane grew in Brazil in ancient times and is a fast growing composable ingredient that grows fairly quickly, after the results of my experiments with it I feel there is a strong chance the people of the Amazon included sugar cane in their Terra Pretta preparation. I encourage others to give it a try, sugar can is easy to grow but hard to process but this gives it a new purpose.

[rgb]

David this is very interesting, as I encountered something similar, though no tree roots involved. The 1st year growth was absolutely phenomenal, (~13' tall Chicory plants). The 2nd year started out surprisingly slow, (almost like starting all over), then after a while, (likely after the microbes were recolonized-recharged), again the growth was exceptional, (~7' tall Chia plants & still in growth mode /no blooms at end of season). I concluded that Terra Preta must be like a battery, needing to be recharged in areas where freezing occurs. I'm a wholehearted supporter of Terra Preta methods, great or small, even if to dig a hole nearby the area needing fertility & creating a small-scale 'Compost in Place-Terra Preta' type scenario.

[pine]

Was thinking about this a few days back, I’ve also dabbled in making it in the garden.I burn some wood scrap yearly(try to leave some in charcoal form) and bury lots of fish scrap (crappie) yearly along with table scrap, coffee grounds ect. I’m nearly fertilizer free . I’ve had lots of comments on the size of my squash and okra plants .

[ainabearfarm]

This is great! It points out how complicated soil health can be, how hard it is to nail down causalities and the reality that it is always an ongoing experiment. Thank you for sharing 🤙

[laeotis]

Can you do like, 10 more videos on terra preta? I’m going through a phase… been going through a phase for about 10 years and can’t get enough about biochar and terra preta.
Something I recently found was nitrogen fixing bacteria that isn’t dependent on roots to fix nitrogen in terra preta

[gryphonrampant]

Excited for another winter experiment!
I recall you saying that the terra preta found in the amazon was surrounded by native soil that was not only poor but primarily clay. Could the sandy native soil you're working in be leaching nutrients that native clay soil would hold in place?
You know way more about the tropics than I do, but I recall the amazon generally has poor soil despite the abundant life there, and also that oak forests tend to have beautiful rich loamy soil. Could it be that temperate trees are more likely to eat up the terra preta that the tropical ecosystem, due to different evolutionary conditions, with the idea that tropicals just need to extract less from the soil overall?
I'm so intrigued by these experiments, and wish you the very best in this quest for rediscovering lost knowledge!

[nigellablossom]

We had tree root competition this year, too, because of the prolonged drought. It's the first year that's ever happened, since I have been gardening on this particular property.. which has been a little over 10 years now. We actually had our neighbor's trees sending roots 50-75 feet away into our main garden and soaking up the water and nutrients. I didn't realize that's what was happening until I started poking around in the soil like you did.. and I found a ton of tree roots. I cut them out of the beds as much as I could.. praying we get decent rainfall next year 🙏🏽

[geraldfranz]

I built a garden area under an Oak tree for my son back when he was in FFA in Middle School. I was trying to keep the plants slightly shaded from the burning Florida sun. Good idea, but the beds always got choked up with roots. The garden suffered, but dang that Oak was happy !!! 🤣👍

[vonries]

Thank you for going back to your old place and giving us the update.

[centraltexashomestead-mike]

Hi David, so glad we found your channel. We are on a small homestead and started our channel and having fun. We've been gardening here in central Texas for over 30 years and wanted to share with others the things we've learned. We were on a large homestead but decided years ago to downsize so we could travel. Looking forward to watching your channel. God Bless. Mike

[jefferybublitz]

Another tid-bit to add to ur thinking, & culture of growing an ongoing excellently organic garden David, is to always dump th grass clippings from mowing ur lawn, into th garden all year long. This does several things. 1st, it shades th ground keeping th root ground around them cooler. #2 it's chemically hot, this will prevent weed seeds from popping up for most of th year, #3, it will keep ur feet from tracking mud from a wet garden into th house, #4, as u continue to add it onto th whole garden, it dries up, & breaks down all through the year, so it also fertilizes, as it naturally breaks down.

[bradenclark]

These are thoughts I have after watching the making and annual follow up videos:

After the trench is dug, the sides and bottom can be lined with clay pre-burn so that a hardened clay barrier between the target volume and the surrounding soil is established-hopefully preventing native tree root invasion. Some considerations would be the temperature and longevity of the fire and how that impacts the curation period and efficiency of hardening the layer of clay-dependent upon its thickness. Some of the clay may also pop and shatter while firing because of expanding trapped moisture pockets.

Mixing in Amazonian terra preta introduces micro biome colonies sourced from ancient agricultural sites that may assist in soil longevity, soil life sustainability and micronutrient availability in the root space.

[BrixThePlanter]

I think what happened was that all the research I’ve done talks about either mixing it with compost or some form or type of pre-inoculation to the bio char the quality of the bio char also makes a big difference. The Terra Prater soil was not ash or charcoal it was bio char which is basically any plant material burn in the absence of oxygen and the quality is depicted on how it’s cooled if you have to use water to cool it or if you can bring it out and cool it naturally as well allow it to have more of a porous structure in order to have a very large surface area of thousands and thousands of porous area square feet circumference per piece when you pre-inoculated or mix it with whatever and then add it to the soil it I believe works a little better. I also think that it could potentially be that sense the Amazon was man-made and the plants were much healthier because we took care of them and there was no chemicals or major harm that was being done to our planet I think maybe the plants ran on different genetics or maybe it was a combination of that and that they used human feces while eating the plants around them making a natural lifecycle and those specific micro organisms that are indigenous to that region could be because of those factors or they could just be that they are the indigenous microorganisms of that area and they are so effective because of that specific area

[NoLongerLukewarm]

Should do soil test before and after. Would be interesting to see results!

[rehoboth_farm]

DTG: I don't live here anymore. <digs hole> 😆

[MerwinARTist]

You are addressing some really good questions. I've been making biochar .. and enjoying the process. My main process is sucking up leaves through a shredder .. then running the leaves through a hammermill with charcoal .. making powder. I then add this to the floor of my (large satellite dish) chicken coop. The chickens do their thing and I will use a pitch fork and occasionally turn it. It's a fine powder .. and when I take it out .. I can use it for many different applications. I use it on my ginger and turmeric beds .. as well as putting it directly in my compost pile where the chickens go through it more. I'm mixing my own soils .. filtering out rocks and making raised beds. I have a couple large (fish/turtle) ponds so I have plenty of water. This last summer was pretty rough with hot weather and very little rain .. but I watered my winter squash every day .. sometimes twice a day. I think the big question is .. how to make "terra preta" a continual living growing "organism" of it's own? Maybe that's more the result of accumulation over time. I realize in Florida you have lots of sandy soil .. my soil is mostly red clay/shale rock. I have a lot of good fungi growing in the ground cover.

I have this "new ground" .. which is tree covered .. red clay with little topsoil. For a few years I piled tree branches and debris in a big pile with my tractor's loader .. and pushed the pile so it was getting broken down as I continued to slowly clean/clear the area. This late spring .. I began to take out the bigger wood and rock .. creating a low terrace .. raking it so it was smooth. Lining the down side with logs etc. Then I used 5 - 18 wheeler tires .. cut out both walls .. so I have only a rubber ring (which contains the compost and is the focus of watering effort). Spaced them out and filled with my compost composition .. and put two "Sucrin Du Berry" (google it) plants in each tire. Even tho I got this done late in the season .. I still had a good harvest of about 23 good sized (3 - 9 lb.) winter squash. The area was partially shaded .. with oak, pine, and cedar .. which I'm slowly taking some out or dramatically cutting / pruning the trees to keep the foliage down. I like partial shade .. as the squash vines are prolific and seek out the sunlight. I know about not letting black walnuts grow around your garden .. but never heard anything negative (cautionary) about oak .. but if we are only talking about the trees robbing nutrients .. maybe that would be a delicate balance .. if partial shade is desired.

We have work to do! 🙂

[Unsensitive]

I knew this was really a digging channel!