E.A.T. South is Community Composting
This year E.A.T. South launched Montgomery’s first Community Composting Program. Community Composting brings together, well, the community, neighbors and volunteers, to rescue valuable resources (food scraps and yard debris, seriously, these are more valuable than gold for the garden) from the dump and turn them into compost.
Volunteers build our first West Maui-style compost piles in February.
Why compost? Compost is the magic that transforms plain old dirt into garden soil. Compost feeds plants and the microscopic soil life that help plants grow. Think of it as a probiotic for the garden.
Compost helps sandy soil hold water and clay soil drain better.
Making compost rescues nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other important plant nutrients from the landfill and at the same time decreases the amount of methane landfills create. Composting makes fertilizer AND helps address climate change!!!!
Our community composting dreams started with a real need for more compost on the farm. Compost keeps the vegetables growing in our containers and raised beds, and we were not able to find any quality compost locally. We decided we would just make our own.
Farmers check out the temperature of the compost pile at Alabama A&M University’s Urban Farm Field Day.
In January, many of you helped send Farmer Amanda to California to two compost-focused conferences. Her trip connected her with composters from Hawaii who taught her the style of composting we use on the farm now. The trip also opened the doors to additional education and a year’s worth of mentoring to help us create a strong composting program on the farm. Thank you for the donations that made this trip possible!
We’d also like to thank MidSouth RC& D Council who helped fund the tools and materials needed for this program. From the compost shed to the seven gallon buckets to sifters, wheelbarrows, and pitchforks, their support turned our compost dreams into a real, active, community-focused program.
Building the Community Composting shed. Volunteers and MidSouth RC&D Council literally built this program from the ground up!
Right now, our six West Maui Style compost piles are receiving grass clippings, leaves, food scraps, and coffee grounds from three local businesses and several households. A local hemp processor is donating unusable scraps. We’ve rescued 6800 pounds of materials, that’s 3.4 tons, from the landfill. It takes a little over a year to end up with finished compost, and we’re excited to see what our Montgomery-made compost does for the garden next year.
Curious about community composting? Want to get involved? Email compost@eatsouth.org.