Char Chit Chat

Episode 13 of the Char Chit Chat with Amanda from Tinwald Farm covered a lot of cool stuff. I feel like more women are needed in the world to run farms so that they become way more connected with the living systems that they are part of.

Amanda farms regeneratively near Cromwell where her challenges are improving degraded soils and reducing inputs. She is doing this by breeding and applying microbes at scale and incorporating biochar into various aspects of the farm. Amanda has studied extensively with the Soil Food Web Foundation where soil life education is paramount.

Amanda explains in detail how microbes are extracted from home made compost and applied to the vineyard and pastures at scale. And also how grapes can be grown in a regenerative way. Current trials involve applying mixed compost and biochar under a wool mulch to those vines that need it.

And of course, how biochar is made and with what feedstocks in the Kontiki Kiln with skids for ease of mobility...

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

Episode 12 features well known regenerative farmer Greg Hart from Mangarara Farm in the Hawkes Bay region. Dylan has known about Greg and his tree planting for many years and met Greg at the Underground Festival in 2025 after he attended his biochar workshop. It's great that Greg is now seeing the benefits of biochar to his farming systems and he is an excellent advocate for its widespread adoption.
Greg talks about his farming journey and his move towards exploring better ways of raising animals without the abundant use of fossil fuels once he realised it's completely unsustainable around 20 years ago. Trees on farm are a massive part of this as are other ways of cycling nutrients such as on farm slaughter and charring of bones.
Greg also is interested in intentional communities and is setting up an agrihood to address the "more people needed on the land" issue in a proactive and practical way.

Lovely photos at: https://passionatepermies.wordpress.com/2026/07/27/char-chit-chat-with-greg-hart/

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

Shakēd is involved in a large variety of endeavours and we talk about these for awhile before biochar comes up, but hopefully you will still find it all interesting!

We chat about a 3 year black soldier fly trial using food waste to make fertiliser and high protein animal food, gold mining awareness and activism, local resilience and education through The Basket Hauraki organisation, and of course about biochar at home at the intentional community where Shakēd and his family live (https://www.pakarakafarm.co.nz).

More info and photos at: https://passionatepermies.wordpress.com/2026/07/18/podcast-with-shaked/

Dylan's first face to face podcast with an update from Phil in Ashhurst about what he is up to (S1E2 here). We had just returned from Hamilton with John after Fieldays 2026 and I was spending two days staying with Phil on my way to Wellington.

Phil has been at this property, soon after arriving from the States, for 21 years. It was great to have a tour of his permaculture influenced block of around 1 ha in size. Captioned photos show some of what was on show: https://passionatepermies.wordpress.com/2026/06/20/phil-stevens-podcast-no-2/

Phil also showed me a small local community garden at the library and community orchard near his farm. It seems Ashhurst has benefited from like minded people contributing towards community resilience over the years.

Phil is the current Chair of Biochar Network New Zealand and also has some great biochar info on his Slow Farm website: https://slowfarm.co.nz/services/biochar

Listen to the podcast on your favourite podcast app, including YouTube podcasts.

Episode 9 with Lydia from the Wairarapa covers the relationship between soil health, plant nutrition, and human health. Lydia is a qualified nutritionist on a mission to pickle household food scraps using bokashi buckets along with her bone char made from her friend's Complete Cow farm business, and supporting people on a mission to improve their health.

We talk about her 2 businesses; Pickled Compost and her personalised nutrition support and her work in public health and as a market gardener. There are some great images from Lydia's websites on the supporting blog post: https://passionatepermies.wordpress.com/2026/05/26/char-chit-chat-with-lydia-thomsen/