Greetings everyone,
I hope everybody is happy and healthy. I'm here again to show what I've got from the nature adventure that I posted on my last blog.
Gardening is always been my stress reliever and so I always find time to look for some improvement since we don't have the most fertile soil. Today I'm gonna share one of the most organic ways or mediums for planting which is the rice hulls that is an abundance in my area because of the large number of rice paddies here. I will teach you how I used them for my repotted plants and also for my new seedlings.
Rice hulls
are a byproduct of agriculture. They are the husk that has been removed from each grain of rice after harvest and otherwise considered be waste. But did you know they can be the most sustainable soil amendments for improving drainage, water holding capacity and aeration?
Rice hulls are non-toxic and biodegradable, so they feed the soil while they break down. However, they are stable enough to last for a typical gardening season before decomposing, so the soil will enjoy the benefits of moisture regulation and aeration while your plant grows.
From my previous blog, I bring home a sack of freshly harvested rice hulls and a few decomposed ones, so I decided to carbonize most of them for nurturing my seedlings.
Here's the procedure.
Materials used
- old paper (catalogue)
- lighter
- shovel
- old screen
- some soil
- I also add coconut husk to add some fire since I find it hard to lighten because the rice hull was a bit wet from the rain the other days.
Procedure
- I bury the screen and form like a volcano. This way we can insert some fire at the centre to burn the rice hulls slowly but doesn't turn them into ashes. Note, if you want to try this make sure not to leaves unattended and perform this far away from the neighbourhood because it is so smoky (I even perform this under my mango tree so it can benefit what I am doing, we have a belief that we have to make some smoke under the fruits tress from it the tree will produce too many flowers 😁)
I even had my worst companion roaming around 😆
I started lightning at 1 pm and finished at about 5 pm. It take so long and I had a hard time since my rice hulls are so wet from the rain the past few days but then I manage to finish it and turn them into this
Not everything was carbonized because I was using the fresh and a little bit wet but for me it's just right since I still have to add some fresh looking rice hulls for heat protection and also to add attractions to my house plants.
the application
- I mix half part of the garden soil and a half part of my carbonized rice hulls. I also have the fresh rice hull for the topping but was sterilised by heating it on a pan for a minute.
I want to apply them first to one of my rare and favourite house plants. I'm so happy to come up again with this idea because when I started repotting most of my plants they look so unhealthy due to stamped soil that prevents the air and water to flow properly and seems no nutrients at all.
The finished product
I decided to put them here temporarily to prevent them from the chicken. I also had started my new seedlings in an eggshell with the carbonized rice hulls for my vegetable garden fortunately I find them doing well in just 24 hours surely I'll be sharing with you the progress here soon.
I'm also keeping the rest of the carbonized rice hulls for my future plantation.
Thank you for taking the time to read. I appreciate it! I hope you find it ideal and useful too. Feel free to share your thoughts and even give me more ideas for this.