Cornelia (and Kai) run KoruKai Herb Farm in Banks Peninsular, near Christchurch. We had an excellent chat about how they make and use biochar for their animals, compost toilet, worm product, and composting in general. Also, about their homesteading and small home business selling herb related products as well as live compost worms!

Resources mentioned:

Phyto Farm: bringing plant medicine back to its rightful place in garden plots and promoting the kitchen as a pharmacy (Little River)

Crafty Gatherer: Designing and producing artisanal tools.

Southern Humates: Shallow humate mine in Southland.

Biochar Network New Zealand: National biochar organisation.

Wow - what a great project Betsy has going on - City to Farm is all about collecting food resources in the city and using it to build soil on a banana farm! The project is on a mission to see if Terra Preta can be created and how it long it will take as well as educating primary school students about biochar and composting food scraps.

The episode features the excellent video by Nicholas Monk called Soil Revival - The Terra Preta Research Project.

An introduction and overview of Biochar: https://www.sces.org.nz/biocharThe national biochar association in NZ: https://biochar.net.nz/ (BNNZ)Intro sound:https://freesound.org/people/joshuaempyre/sounds/250749

Ben is known as Dr Compost and works in education, landscape design, permaculture, and with biochar. He is also treasurer for Biochar Network New Zealand.

We chat about who Ben is, what he does, and heaps about his biochar passion. Links to topics mentioned:

Wanaka Wastebusters

Dr Compost

NZ Tree Crops

Ithaka Institute

Frank Strie

Ring of Fire kiln by Kelpie Wilson

Joany is one of the founders of The Good Carbon Farm and we chat about how she got into biochar, the work her charity is involved in, and what she looks forward to for the future.

The Good Carbon Farm on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Projects mentioned in the chat:

Oke school gardens (https://oke.org.nz/)

Restoring Takarunga Hauraki (https://www.rth.org.nz/)

Slash for Cash, Tolaga Bay (https://www.slashforcash.co.nz/)

Enviroschools (https://enviroschools.org.nz/)

Upper Hutt community gardens (https://www.upperhutt.govt.nz/Community/Community-Gardens)

Victoria University Wellington industry Alliance Programme (https://www.linkedin.com/company/indallpro/posts/)

An introduction and overview of Biochar: https://www.sces.org.nz/biochar

The national biochar association in NZ: https://biochar.net.nz/ (BNNZ)

Intro sounds:

https://freesound.org/people/joshuaempyre/sounds/250749

Dennis Enright is Managing Director of New Zealand Biochar Ltd and promotes organic and sustainable growing practices, and the role that biochar can play in such systems.

He has over 40 years of experience in agriculture and horticulture that ranges from researcher to commercial producer. In addition, he has sat on the committees of various local and national organic organisations in NZ as well as Biochar Network New Zealand and ANZBIG.

Dennis mentions Paul Taylor and the Good Carbon Farm in our interview.

This episode with Phil covers where he is from, how he got into char, his favourite method of making it, what he uses char for on his lifestyle block, benefits of char, interesting new research about decontamination of pfas using char and iron, what he thinks is needed for biochar to go mainstream, and his role with Biochar Network New Zealand.

https://slowfarm.co.nz/

Biochar Network New Zealand

Support/donate: https://checkya.com/char_chit_chat

A short introduction to the host of Char Chit Chat - Passionate Permie Dylan Our website: https://passionatepermies.wordpress.com/

Listen to more from Dylan:

31 July 2024 Reskillience: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/retire-by-35-with-dylan-graves/id1723090226?i=1000663884860

9 May 2024 Quorum Sense: https://www.quorumsense.org.nz/content/podcast/38-transforming-waste-into-biochar-with-dylan-graves

Support/donate: https://checkya.com/char_chit_chat