Good VS Bad Compost _ What's The Difference

I already see the difference so much. No, no joke. Honestly, Chris, like I've never seen something like this. It should have like an old forest kind of earthy smell to it. Careful sniffing it because sometimes you can sniff up microorganisms. Yeah. It's as simple as that. That's it? Yes. It's really epic, Chris, because I'm learning something new. Even after all these years farming and, you know, using compost. This is our, our product, the Glenord Organics. This is our biodiverse compost. We make this on our farm with locally sourced inputs. So we use horse manure from from different local farms and then hay that's grown by us. Careful sniffing it because sometimes you can sniff up microorganisms. Oh shit. Yeah. So we're just going to dump this in here and really have a feel around with it. Yeah, I already see the difference so much. No, no joke. Compared to what I've used before, which is kind of like stable and. So when we talk about compost, we talk about structure and stackability. When you have stackability, that means your fungi are at work kind of holding the compost together. So in the bottom of the bag, when you kind of get this outline of the bag, that's really good structure. And then it literally just crumbles away like instantly, just nicely crumble. So that's a really good indicator of good compost. And then as you can tell, it's not hot. Like, no, we're handling this. It's not, but it and it doesn't smell it, but it has an odor. It doesn't smell like putrefaction, but it smells. It should have so good compost. It should have like an old forest kind of earthy smell to it. When you have this one's been sitting in a bag for a while, so it doesn't have that freshest compost smell to it, but it like it when you have compost and I can squeeze it like this and there's not much water coming out of it. That's about 50, 40 to 50 percent moisture. That's how you should be getting compost. It should not be wet coming to you. And we measure our compost by volume and not by weight. So we're not like waterlogging it, which can cause problems as well. So it's nice and dry. Nice color. It's like a brownish color, not completely black. So that's a good indicator of compost stackability locally made to get your local microorganisms in it. You're not wanting to bring in compost from all over because then you're not getting the biodiversity that you want. So you want like local microorganisms. We like to stay within eco zones. Yeah, it's like our just for for the listeners tuning in. Like I have Nicole here from Glenroads Organic. She's in Ontario, Canada. And the reason why she's here is because I've started to make my own compost here at the farm, at the old mill. And I have a lot of food waste and I've been mixing my own batches. But it's not to the it's not to the level of what I want. And so you're here now and you're bringing your compost that you make. And it's really epic. And yeah, I really see the difference. I really see the difference straight up, not just from my compost that I've been making, but also from previous batches of compost that I've been buying over the year, always looking at the price. Yes, I've always bought compost because it was kind of cheap. Yes. But looking at this, I realize that perhaps that's not the best move. So this is when we when we make our compost, this is a point of pride for us, is that I can get compost through its heating cycles within four weeks. So what that means for us, because we are a certified input, compost is like an organic kind of input. We have to go through five turns above 131 degrees Fahrenheit for it to be considered certified as an organic input. So what that means is we need to have enough nitrogen to get it through five turns, which can sometimes be very tricky. But we also adhere to the soil food web principles and waiting certain hour thresholds. So once it reaches 131, we wait 72 hours and then we can turn the compost. The higher the temperature, the faster you can turn it. So what we like to do, this is from one of our last rows last year. So those are ones this was made the 21st of September of last year. So usually around that time, it's kind of a bit tricky because the temperatures are really variable. Yeah. So we like to push through our compost within four weeks just to make sure that it can get through all its heating before the temperatures really start to drop. So we start with literally what you have kind of out there. We start with wood chips and we start with hay and garden scraps, especially when we're cleaning out the garden. And we can go from just regular straight up inputs all mixed together to this product within four weeks. And that's impressive. That's when you really start to see. That's when I see the magic happen. And that it's alive, that it's kind of digesting everything. It's one of my favorite parts of the entire job is watching those piles go from the first day we make it to the day it's done, where you can really when you see this product. That's my favorite thing. Yeah, I don't want to be too kind of like an old guy here, but like my favorite part is when it's done and ready to go into the fields, because that for me is just one step out of so many. Yes. But I'm curious because this this was packaged almost not a year, but you said last this last November. We made that package for you. OK, so OK, so the pile the pile was made because I opened it and it's still kind of like it has the humidity. It feels like it's not the right. And that's the humidity is the respiration from the microorganisms. OK, so even if it's sealed. Yeah, it's still we have to poke holes into our bags so you can get the aeration in there. But so that's your microorganisms still working. And that means they're alive. And you have active compost is when you see the respiration on the bag. OK, and it says grow JRO, the Glen Road Organics. Great. Sounds great. What about the color? It's a dark brown. By rule, it should be about like the color of 70 percent. Cocoa is what we like. It's also it's also saying here that it's not sterilized. No, because to us about sterilizing compost, once you sterilize something like you're it's almost heat treated after the fact. And then once you sterilize it, you're losing all your microorganisms. Do you think that some compost company might sterilize it to not have weed seeds in it? That is a potential. But if you go through the proper heat treatments, so you should be good. Yeah. Keeping it at 131 for 72 hours. That means that the hot center of your pile is being heat treated. And that kills off any pathogenic microorganisms along with weed seeds. Let's say we just like I ask her another question about soil mix, which is not compost, but soil mix that we use in our trays like potting mix, potting mix. Would you have potting mix sterilized or not? No, we don't. We we make a line of potting mixes and we don't sterilize it because we put our compost in it. Yeah. So I would we be sterilizing that. And like we put our compost, which is heat treated, like through the composting process. So that's where we kill off all the bad is through the composting process. So you don't need to do it after. OK. I'm happy like this is all. I'm checking a lot of things that I've been thinking myself and kind of teaching. But you're confirming a lot of this. So I'm happy. It's really, really nice. Honestly, Chris, like I've never seen something like this. It's I take that as a compliment. No, no, it's true. Like, no joke. Like, I've never seen compost that is so fluffy. And you can you can smell the horse, the manure from the horse, a little bit. It's really, really nice. You see the chunks. Are you chopping up your inputs or are they going in some of them like really big? Our horse manure is with bedding. So that's part of what goes in. And then the wood chips are dependent on what size we get. And then our hay is cut to a specific like we use a crop chopper on the farm and it's cut to a specific length to get it in there. But when you have to when you're making compost, you don't want everything to be the exact same particle size, because once you get that, it starts to clump and then go anaerobic. You want diversity in the size of your inputs in order to create the structure of that compost pile. And that's what allows the oxygen in as well, because once your bacteria start reproducing and generating that heat right off the bat, they use a lot of oxygen. So you need to make sure that there's enough structure to bring in oxygen in as well. So that's a really major component of it, too. Is there like one secret to make a great compost? There's not one secret. It's a lot. We like to say it's an art and a science because you can learn the science of it. But there's also like the innate knowledge of what goes well together. So it's an art and a science. Nice. Well, I'm really impressed. I have to say. Thank you. I really am. Thank you very much. One of the easier ways to apply compost. So obviously you can do like the shoveling onto the garden beds, which is great because it adds organic matter and your compost and your microorganisms. And that's great for building soil. But an easy way to get a lot of coverage is by making compost extracts. So it's really simple. You just take this as a paint strainer bag. You get these from hardware stores. So we like these because you can fit a lot in there. You can also use cheesecloths or like a really old T-shirt. Anything that's really going to just keep in the bulk of the compost, but let the microorganisms get out. So we just take this and then really good compost. You're only going to take like a couple handfuls just like this and then just dunk it into the water and then you'll immediately see the color change start to happen in here. So the color in here, what you're getting from the color change is the acid. So like your humic, fulvic, almic acids that are in the compost. That's what starts to create the change in the color. And then you just kind of massage the bag very gently as to not injure the microorganisms. And you can see the color start to change already to a nice, deep chocolate brown. And you're looking for about that same color consistency, that 70 to 80 percent cocoa color in your extract. So that's what you start to get. And then it's it's as simple as that. That's it. Yes. And then I just kind of like you water that in with it, with a can, with a stream, with a watering can. That's it. This is it. Wow. And this is still good. Yeah. And then what we do with this is you can try and make another batch of extract or you can literally just throw it on your beds as compost. OK, I have a question, a curveball for you. Why don't I make compost tea with this? Compost tea starts to get really complicated because that's when you start to feed your compost and you have to keep it aerated. So you take this and you add in inputs like just to feed it, to increase the populations. But what can go wrong with that is if you overfeed it and if you're not checking it with a microscope, it goes anaerobic. So that's where the danger of compost teas, unless you can like check it with a microscope, you start to get a bit wishy washy on can it go anaerobic. So would you go to say that? Let's say you're the kind of farmer that's kind of like not a measuring kind of farmer. Perhaps that's not the best way to go about compost tea. Yeah, you need to like you need to keep an eye on it. Like not just an eye. You need to measure. Yeah. Monitor. Yes. Oh, monitor all the time. I've like even with us monitoring our compost tea, I've had it go anaerobic on me before and it's like just just the way it goes sometimes. OK, so I like this. So you find like great, amazing compost like this. Yeah. And then you simply. This is it. And this is like that's the exact color you want. That's really good for it. And that's how much compost we use. Nice. Nice. I like that. And this it's so easy. And you like once you start using just this much compost, you could do this entire greenhouse out of that 22 liter bag. You think so? I if you wanted to, you try. Yeah, I have my figs here and this is a kiwi plant. Yeah. And so they're in a pot. So they'll be they'll be happy. Yes. So the way we like to do it is once we transplant out in the field, we'll go through and we'll water with compost extract after transplant. Compost extract. Yes. So not compost tea, compost extract. Tea is when you start to feed. It's really epic, Chris, because I'm learning something new. Even after all these years farming and, you know, using compost. I didn't know about compost extract. It's so it's one of my favorite ways to apply fertility because it's just so easy, like the extract was done in what, 30 seconds? And then you just have to go out and apply for seedlings. It's just like, yeah, I can imagine doing this for seedlings, just giving them a little boost every week. And it gets them through that transplant process better. And what we do for our garden is we just fill a 45 gallon drum with water and we'll make extract in that. Come on. Well, let's see what we could we could fertilize. Have you ever seen? This is Malabar spinach. It's really nice. The height. Yeah. The chef really likes it because it's like really thick. I make soups and everything. Wow. I've never seen it grown up like that. This is like the fifth cut. The fifth cut off, though. Yeah. So once you start to apply, you know, like your biology and everything to beds, you start to increase your water infiltration and water holding capacity. So at our farm, we don't irrigate. We have no irrigation system set up like we don't irrigate. We don't water. Everything is just held for us. So that's really nice, too. So you'll start to have less watering requirements and this is like this is done with extracts, too. Like you don't always have to be applying solid compost to your beds to get this done. Do you broadfork these beds? Yeah. So when you broadfork, you can go through and just apply extract on that bed. So it'll start to sink through where you've broadforked. And then that's the biology going down to compaction layers and breaking that up. So for anyone listening here, we did Chris and I did a video about compost teas. And my experiments with compost teas were not conclusive. And I'm not this kind of like geeky guy that can really measure things. It's just not who I am. I'm more of like, if it works, it works. If it doesn't, I move on. But compost extract, it's totally in it. That for me is really simple. And I've seen how easy it is to make it. So I'm excited to try it. Excellent. All right. This is it for this week. I hope you guys are well. We'll catch you next time. Jan out.