Composting
Why do we compost?
Compost is the crucial link in the soil-nutrient cycle between production and fertility. Throughout the growing season our crops draw nutrition from our soils. The inedible portions of those crops, along with weeds, fallen leaves, animal manures, kitchen waste, straw, wood chips, and other biodegradable materials all make it in to our compost piles. Through the course of decomposition and fermentation those materials become a nutrient rich, carbon dense humus which we return to our growing space, ensuring fertility for years to come.
Over the previous three seasons we have employed, and continue to employ many different methods of composting. These include windrow composting, straw bale composting, aerated windrow composting, vermiculture composting and most recently, aerated static pile composting.
Why Aerated Static Pile composting?
Compost needs to breathe. In most traditional composting systems this means turning the compost pile several times over a period of weeks and months - exposing buried portions of the pile to oxygen, feeding the aerobic bacteria and molds which break down the pile ingredients in to rich, black gold, compost. This process is time consuming, labor intensive and requires a skilled knowledge of compost pile timing. Even worse, current research indicates that oxygen captured by turning a pile can leave the pile in as little as 20 minutes.
Commercial composting facilities have overcome the limitations of traditional windrow methods, and sped up the process of compost creation through Aerated Static Pile composting. These are systems that feed oxygen to the compost pile continuously using a blower-fan system. Aerated Static Pile systems can create high quality compost in a fraction of the time required by traditional windrows, with less turning, less odor and hotter pile temperatures.
Over the 2014 growing season we partnered with Adam Schwarz of Symbiosis Design/Build LLC., and Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education to trial an Aerated Static Pile compost system for the small scale farm. In the video above our head farmer Emma describes many of the benefits of Aerated Static Pile composting and the importance of compost to our agricultural practices.