Reply #15: When I first heard about charcoal as a soil amendment here, I was VERY skeptical...

[piedmont]

especially since in that post it was called "fertilizer," which I don't consider it to be. But it did pique my curiosity and after some research on the web, I was convinced that it's both a great soil amendment (in acidic southern soils, at least) and a potentially powerful way to sequester carbon for thousands of years. Since March I've been making charcoal out of my yard waste (I have several hundred lbs. of limbs that I had planned to chip up) and have amended my vegetable garden's soil with it. I use the method at this link: http://www.eaglequest.com/~bbq/charcoal / to make about 30-40 lbs. at a time.