Compost Cooperation

I've written a lot of posts about compost over the last few years.  Compost is "black gold" when it comes to fertilizer.  Not only does it add nitrogen and other needed compounds to the soil, but it also nourishes the soil.   It helps to loosen the soil which in turn improves water movement into the soil.  Finally,  it also feeds beneficial microbes in the soil.  Chemical fertilizers can claim none of these benefits.

Recently, we have started cooperating with Oklahoma State University to help recycle some of their kitchen waste.  You can read more about OSU's sustainability efforts and recycling programs here.

http://sustainability.okstate.edu/operations

Twice a week Tom goes to the OSU Student Union and picks up their food waste bins.  He brings them home and dumps them into our compost pile.    There are always a lot of citrus peels as you can see in this picture!

It is important to add dry material, such as leaves or straw to the wet kitchen waste, so he also gathers bags of leaves around town that he adds to the compost pile.  See this blog entry.

http://windyacresnaturalfarm.blogspot.com/search?q=leaf+mountain

Then, about once a week, he turns the compost pile and mixes everything together with the tractor.

It takes some time for the compost materials to decompose.  But, after a while we end up with something that looks like this.

At first glance, it just looks like a pile of dirt.  But, upon closer examination, this is what it looks like.

The Black Gold of fertilizers!