Char Chit Chat11 Sep 2025

CCC S1E14 with Cameron Smith

Episode 14 featured Cameron who lives on a lifestyle block near Pukekohe in the Auckland region of New Zealand.

I liked Cameron's answer to what is biochar: "I like the coral reef analogy - I think it's something people understand. They have a strong visual image of what a coral reef is... and full of life, a structure, a habitat..."

Cameron is super passionate about biochar because of the results he gets after adding it to his growing areas.

We talk about the practicalities of making biochar and how his methods have adapted over time to suit his context. Retorts at community gardens, TLUDs for corn cobs, pits for home biomass, to old dairy vat for prunings and sawmill waste...

We also talk about feeding biochar to various animals and using it successfully in a deep litter sytem for chickens.

We hear about Cameron's optimism for making serious inroads into predator control with the confluence of intelligent, resetting, and dynamic traps that hopefully will become low cost enough to be deployed throughout all of New Zealand.

The chat gets into permaculture near the end and you can also read more on Cameron's blog: https://onionroadfarm.com/ including some posts about biochar :)

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

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Episoder(35)

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CCC S2E14 with Kevin Rapson (Buzi-B Flower Farm)

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23 Sep 34min

CCC S2E13 with Amanda Currie (Tinwald Farm)

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22 Aug 58min

CCC S2E12 with Greg Hart (Mangarara Farm)

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CCC S2E11 with Shakēd From

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18 Jul 45min

CCC S2E10 with Phil Stevens (Slow Farm)

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20 Jun 14min

CCC S2E9 with Lydia Thomsen (Pickled Compost)

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26 Mai 42min

CCC S2E8 with John Valentine

Episode 8 with John explores his recent discovery of biochar for his compost and his method of making it in a stainless steel bucket. This takes some work to do, but in a social context such as hangin...

14 Mai 30min