Heavily compacted, loamy garden soils benefit just as much from an application of Terra Preta as light, sandy substrates. We offer the original product here: pure biochar, which you can use to improve the soil in your garden and make your own black earth. This independent preparation involves loading the biochar with nutrients and organic matter. For example, nettle manure, compost tea or liquid fertilizer are best suited as additives. You should leave the liquid to work for two or three days before applying the mixture to your beds. Adding clay or rock flour can further enhance the vitalizing effect on the soil. You can work the nutrient-rich mixture directly into the soil or add about a handful to the planting hole when planting new trees and shrubs or highly nutritious vegetables. Simply cover with a little soil, place the plant on top, fill the planting hole and finally water well. This provides the roots with a long-term nutrient and water depot, which they can "tap" individually and which offers them ideal starting conditions. You can even do something good for your compost with activated biochar. Thoroughly aerated, nothing stands in the way of your garden waste decomposing evenly. It also prevents unpleasant odors and rotting. The resulting black soil retains its fertility for many years so that you need to fertilize your plants less and moisture is retained in the garden soil for longer.

The term Terra Preta refers to a fertile, deep black soil in the Amazon region. Studies suggest that some deposits are over 4,000 years old. They refer to the traditional practice of the indigenous peoples of South America of enriching the soil on which they grow food using a mixture of fermented plant residues, dung and faeces, clay shards and charcoal from their own hearths. This enables them to farm on the nutrient-poor soil of the tropical rainforest in the first place.

Black soil provides the proof: Under certain conditions, biochar can contribute to humus formation, soil improvement and a significantly optimized nutrient supply. Thanks to its porous structure, pure biochar has an enormously large surface area which, as the experts say, can be loaded with nutrients and revitalized by microorganisms and soil fungi. Building on the wealth of experience of the indigenous peoples of South America, Palaterra® in Hengstbacherhof in Rhineland-Palatinate has therefore developed a specialized process in which plant residues are brought together with biochar, clay minerals and microorganisms and treated using a biological process. The secret lies in the fermentation: similar to sauerkraut production, ideal environmental conditions for the anaerobic preservation of the plant material are created in large fermentation windrows in the absence of air. In this way, valuable enzymes, vitamins and humic acids are produced, as they occur naturally in humus soils, peat and lignite. The aforementioned biochar serves as a catalyst by stabilizing and buffering the processes and storing the resulting plant nutrients. Valuable soil fungi settle on the surface of the biochar, which later help to provide the plants in the garden with a comprehensive supply of nutrients. On top of this, there is a climate-friendly effect, as the carbon in the biochar remains bound in the soil in the long term.