Turn, Turn, Turn- Composting at Adamah

From Hummus to Humus
The gorgeous native flowers in bloom and juicy vine-ripening tomatoes draw the Adamah visitor's eye- but the heart of our farm might be the compost yard. 

Five foot tall towers of rotting material seem to stand still- some dark brown/black, some dotted with kale stems and bamboo forks, always one pile that is freshly covered in spaghetti marinara, eggshells, and orange peels- although they are anything but static. 
 
The wild activity in the yard is a partnership between us and billions of invisible microbes to turn trash into treasure.  We use a process called thermophilic composting, creating the right conditions for heat-generating microbes to thrive. We pile carbon-heavy materials like raked up autumn leaves and spoiled hay in the right proportion with nitrogen-heavy materials like pizza crusts, apple cores, and goat manure. The pile stays moist from our New England rains, and we aerate it by turning it with the tractor bucket.  

The most obvious organisms to enjoy this concoction are our chickens, who graze on the piles like mountaineers, spending their days plucking up a burnt popcorn kernel here and a wilted salad green there. They take great pleasure and fuel their egg production with the nutritious food we humans rejected, eliminating our need to buy them expensive grain feed produced far away. 

Under the chickens’ little dinosaur-like feet, a whole host of other organisms are also having a feast. Worms, ants, centipedes, and beetles are ripping the material up into smaller pieces while bacteria, fungi, and actinomycetes are breaking it down chemically.  

When a pile is big enough, we stop adding material and start a new one for fresh waste. We grind up the materials with a rototiller to help them break down more quickly. Aerobic bacteria give off a lot of heat as they feed on the organic matter. We monitor temperatures with a thermometer big enough to check Paul Bunyan for a fever, and we use carefully timed aeration to keep the cooking pile between 130 degrees (hot enough to kill pathogens and weed seeds) and 160 degrees (the highest temperature preferred by our thermophilic bacteria friends). 

When the bacteria finish licking their proverbial plates, without any material left to consume, the pile cools down and fungi and actinomycetes take over. We continue to let the pile sit for at least a few more weeks to allow the fungi to break down woody bits. The chickens continue to enjoy the pile, scratching at it with their talons to unveil wiggly worm treats. The chickens seem to spend time on the almost-done piles the way we graze on snacks at a movie- a relaxing pleasure more than the hunger-crazed buffet experience they have on the fresh piles.  

Finished compost smells amazing, like a fresh rain, and there is no evidence of the individual banana peels or grilled cheese remnants that it began as. What used to be hummus left behind in an unfinished pita sandwich, has become humus- the organic component of soil. 

We spread the rich black humus before planting vegetables, fruits, or trees. The infusion of organic matter feeds the soil’s microbial population, who, in turn, release essential nutrients in forms that plant roots can readily take up, while simaltaneously aerating to improve drainage and structure.  

The pizza crust rejected by the Kellogg kindergartener, or the cantaloupe rind tossed in the bin at Isabella Freedman, represent hard won carbohydrates synthesized from atmospheric CO2 and sunlight and precious groundwater by wheat plants or melon vines back in the field where they began. By composting them, we cycle that energy back through the carbon cycle, with the help of microbes and invertebrates, so that it can again give life to those who eat our fresh bell peppers and cherry tomatoes.  

Unlike manufactured fertilizers, this is all done with very little fossil fuel use. Adamah fellows schlep food waste from the Isabella Freedman dining hall with a cart each morning. We pick up the food waste from Kellogg School down the road twice a week, and Salisbury School students drive their dining hall’s waste from the next town over. Local landscapers drop leaves off from only a few miles away. All the invasive phragmites that we harvest to cover the sukkahs at Isabella Freedman get brought up the steep but short hill from campus.  The chickens, of course, make their manure contributions just by hanging out on top of the piles poking their beaks at corn on the cob and baked ziti.  
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Thank you to all the hundreds of holy schleppers out there who have contributed to our piles over the years. One soil!