Compost

Our Favorite Soil Amendment

Our family knows the importance of having nutrient-rich soil. It is key to growing high-quality, nutrient-dense food.

We are continuously creating and adding compost to our food forest daily. We love promoting soil microbes that aid plant growth, giving us healthier, more vigorous plants. We feel the more biologically diverse our compost is the better.

Keeping it Simple

Here is a few things we compost

We compost in a pile and hand-turn it with a shovel. We compost in a bin and let it sit for 6 to 8 months. We have soldier flies and worm beds helping us break down organic matter. We also throw organic matter right around a tree to let it break down and feed the soil. We collect sawdust and wood chips from around the farm and pile them up to break down. There are so many ways we compost.

- Creating compost in many ways -

Chop & Drop

After cutting down unwanted plants we let them sit and compost in place. We love growing nitrogen-fixing plants, we chop them down at the base, leaving the roots undisturbed to feed the mycorrhizal network and the greens left on top to build up the soil and mulch the plants.

Nature Provides all we need

-Hugelkultur -

We love creating raised beds. Whenever we have a low spot or hole to fill, we fill it with brush, chunks of rotting wood, compost, and any extra soil we have around the farm, we then plant on top of that. We're always improving our soil and adding nutrients and water-holding capacity everywhere. We have seen the wood rot away and act like a sponge, it's a great way for us to save on watering, plus it is a great way to sequester carbon.

We use Soldier Flies and Fish Scraps to Benefit our compost

-Our Soil is Alive -

Nature is working with us to help break down and feed the plants, the soil microbes are helping us increase yields, improve crop resilience against stress, and boost our soil health. We want to make sure there is a variety of trace minerals in our compost that our bodies and plants need.

-Homemade Compost Tea-

Boosting our soil health by creating our own soil microbes right at home with our homemade compost tea.

We then dilute it by adding a 1/2 gallon jug of tea to a 5-gallon bucket of pond water before watering our plants.

- Homemade Biochar -

We create and activate our own biochar from fallin' down trees, branches, and scrap wood we can't use for anything else. Check out our Biochar page to see how we create it.

-Beyond Organic Composting-

We want our compost to contain a full spectrum of essential plant nutrients, macro and micronutrients. That is why we compost such a variety of materials.
We have seen it help our sandy soil retain water and nutrients, we know it feeds diverse life into our soil, like bacteria, fungi, insects, worms, and more to support healthy plant growth. Compost has been known to suppress diseases and harmful pests that could overrun poor, lifeless soil. We know it's an important solution to having a healthy food forest.

Homemade Compost has a significant impact on the fertility of our garden and food forest