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Amazon product #2: horticultural charcoal.

This is an uncharged, raw version of the charged biochar with chunks that will not go through 1/4 inch screen.

Let me know what you all think of the labels, has to shuffle stuff around since the words are longer than the biochar label ones

#grownostr #biochar

Keith 2y ago

I’m interested in biochar. I bought some charged with humid acid from American Biochar this spring and my blueberries loved it. The leaves went from red to green in weeks. I’m thinking about adding some to my garden this winter. My idea is to make a mix of compost, uncharged, bio, char, manure, and wood chips and spread it on my garden when I put it to bed for the winter. What do you think of that idea? How much bio char would you recommend for a 20‘ x 50’ garden?

By the way, I try to buy from people directly, so they don’t have to pay Amazon fees. I went to your website and it needs a little love and attention. I wouldn’t mind giving you some tips for free or maybe even doing a little work in trade if you want.

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CP 2y ago

Thanks for the feedback! I'll do 2 replies, one for the garden and one for the website to keep them separate.

Regarding the garden... I am assuming you have established it for a few years so you aren't trying to kill sod.

Do you tend to plant in rows? Do you have established paths?

I would mix the things you mentioned with the exception of the wood chips and lay that down. To start out, I normally put down 2-5 gallons of biochar per 32 square feet depending on what I have on hand... so for your application on 1000 square that's like 50ish to 200ish gallons evenly spread which is a lot.

It will be good to mix in the biochar in the fall so it charges over winter.

So if you plant into rows/beds, apply your manure/ compost/ biochar mix heavy in the areas you plant so you don't need so much biochar. This is what we do at our church garden, just apply to beds.

If you till, till this in but not deep... 2 inches should be good.

Then woodchips on top, thicker on the paths and thinner on your bed. This will keep in the moisture but not tie up nitrogen while it decomposes.

If you care to, put in some winecap mushroom spawn in the pathways to start breaking down the chips.

In future years, you'll amend the beds with your manure mix, take your aged wood chips from the paths and shovel as mulch on the beds, and add fresh wood chips to the paths.

Keith 2y ago

This is great advice! It’s my first year gardening in this spot but I’ve been working on the soil for three years. There used to be a large brush pile that I burned in place the first year. The second year I covered the area with black plastic and let the summer sun bake all the weeds to death. Last year I borrowed a wood chipper and covered the entire area with chips from decaying branches I picked up from the nearby woods.

My soil is thick Tennessee red clay. I couldn’t till if I wanted to. Do you think biochar will help loosen up the soil?

CP 2y ago

What will really help here is follow my advice but before you lay down the wood chips, plant some daikon radish seeds into the compost/biochar/manure mix. You do not have to plant deep!

These will drill channels down into your soil and scavenge nitrogen and nutrients from the manure.

If you cover this with woodchips, go easy, only an inch or so, so the radishes can find their way up to sunlight.

Next spring when you kill them (by chopping the tops off), as the radish decays, your compost/ biochar/manure mix well fall into the channels and begin to deepen yor soil!

On my soil here these guys will go down 6-9 inches and most winter kill.

Here is where I get my seed

https://www.deercreekseed.com/daikon-oil-seed-radish#168=137

Keith 2y ago

I had heard about planting daikon radishes before. I never thought to mix them in. That will make life so easy. Also, thanks for the link. That’s a great price.

CP 2y ago

Now regarding the website... yes that has gotten away from me as I was working on other things this summer.

Here is my asap list:

- redo the product pages to match what is going up on Amazon. I've been working on packaging and sizes and do not have them up on the site yet. Complete revamp here. Take down the bokashi and worm casting products for now.

This winter:

- go through all article content, establish interlinked silos around topics for SEO. Images needed and better, more pleasing formatting. Get my affiliate links in order. I'll probably separate into 9 separate blogs, one per silo. Probably allocate a week or two per silo/topic.

I can go into more details but that's the big ticket items/ plans/ ideas.

Any other suggestions you have are more than welcome 🙂

Keith 2y ago

Yes, product pages was going to be my first suggestion. You are leaving money behind by focusing on Amazon.

Second, loading time seems slow. So slow that I went to it on my desktop just to make sure it wasn’t an issue with my phone. I didn’t check for page errors either. Getting your loading time as low as possible and fixing any page errors will do more for your SEO than any content you create. New creative content benefits Google. When anyone Googles SEO the results always direct you to content. However, I guarantee you that a slow page with errors will never be in the top search results.

Try to be as simple as possible. Think “no more than three clicks to a sale.” Focus your sales funnel to highlight your products. Think Craigslist simple. I shouldn’t have to go to the menu to find your products.

Have more informative but succinct product descriptions. “What is it?” “What does it do?” “How to use it “ What is the benefit to the customer?

The thing that really drove me crazy was your post. Here’s a nice picture of a great product and no way to buy it! If I could have tapped on a link that took me directly to the product page which contained the information I mentioned you would already have a sale.

CP 2y ago

Thanks so much for all of this.

What you are saying reflects in my site analytics... nobody is looking at the products.

I had not focused on the packaging until literally 2 months ago, so now I have what I need for more attractive products instead of biochar in a bowl 😊

I'll look into the loading times as well.

Thanks!