Happy Monday Yall,
Brussel Sprout season is finally upon us! They look great. Get em while they're hot. We will harvest to order for the next few weeks and then bulk harvest them to store til Xmas.
A note from the compost pad: Thru the summer and fall here on the College Farm we have converted literal tons of dining hall, residential, Project Share, and municipal food waste into beautiful, stable compost. We did this by mixing them strategically until the piles reached temperatures of 155F and above. The high temps rapidly digested the waste, killed pathogens, and neutralized weed seeds. These large piles of black, biologically active compost will "cure" over winter. Throughout the winter, the cores of the piles will still be above 100F as microbes continue to digest the already mostly digested debris. By the spring, the piles will be fully digested into humus - a plant soluble form of nutrition. It will also be packed with living microbes as well as stored microbe genes in various forms. We will spread this compost in the early spring onto our cover crops and pastures. This will contribute to a rich biology that will build our soil as well as protect and feed our plants. In my farming philosophy, compost and cover crops are the backbone of healthy crops. The attached pic is from this frosty morn - I was performing the final turn of our early fall pile.
All that being said, our compost paradigm will undergo a major change this winter. More on that later!
Best,
Alex
4436903023
smithro@dickinson.edu
