Biochar is a miraculous soil amendment that is currently having a moment. We might think it’s a new-fangled product but we’d be wrong. It’s an addition to soil that has been used in cultivation for millennia. A new product from my friends at Organic Mechanics puts the powers of biochar into a potting soil that is ready to go and easy to use for any container gardening on your agenda.

What Is Biochar?

I’ve written about biochar here previously when writing about Organic Mechanics’ Biochar Blend for in-ground vegetable gardens. You can read that post, but in a nutshell biochar is 100% pure carbon that has been burned in the absence of oxygen. The structure of the material enhances how soils hold moisture and nutrients so plants can more readily absorb them. It also provides a place where beneficial soil organisms can reside, so they can aid the plants’ roots in absorbing nutrients more efficiently.

When added to the soil, it:

• helps plants form dense roots,
• holds water in the plants’ root zones for easy access and to prevent water-induced stress,
• helps soils resist stressors, and
• helps produce bigger plants and higher-quality fruits and vegetables.

In addition to the above, one of biochar’s “superpowers” is that it increases a plant’s terpene level. Terpenes are naturally occurring plant compounds that give plants their characteristic flavors. Your herbs, your tomatoes, your berries all will taste like the best versions of themselves with this increased level of terpenes. And you can thank biochar for that.

110 Blend Makes Adding Biochar Easy

Organic Mechanics’ 110 Blend makes it easy for gardeners to add just the right amount of biochar to pots and containers by blending into a potting soil. They’ve done the research and have found a potting soil that contains 10% Organic Mechanics Biochar Blend is the ideal percentage. Any more biochar and that additional amount just isn’t worth the return for the gardener.

The beauty of the 110 Blend is that you can pot up your container vegetables and reap the benefits of biochar without having to mix straight biochar into your potting soil. Open the bag, pot up your plants and you’re good to grow. The 110 Blend also contains coir, perlite, compost, earthworm casting, bone char, azomite, zeolite, alfalfa meal and kelp meal. What do all these ingredients do? They encourage beneficial biology, add valuable nutrients including phosphorous and calcium, and add minerals that nourish microbes and plant roots. The company does recommend adding some fertilizer as you plant or within a few days of planting. You can learn more about the 110 Blend and buy it online HERE.