Having fresh, healthy food accessible to all should be a human right. Yet, our food systems are not set up for this. We continue to GMO and chemical fertilize our way to higher yields with lower amount of nutritional content. These farming practices are killing us, our soil and our waterways. If we restore our soil, we can let the critters in the dirt do the hard work. The microbes have a deep rooted relationship with the plants we grow and if let them thrive, our plants will thrive. Knowing this, I set out to understand the current soil health maintenance and needs of organic farms in Washington. I was curious to learn what farmers are doing to care for their soil and if there were gaps in their needs. That’s when I stumbled upon friends at the Chimacum Grainery and the Community Wellness Project. Together, we attended an accelerator to explore the soil needs we could fill for farmers on the North Olympic Peninsula to increase the community’s food resilience. We received two grants to make compost to distribute to local farmers in the area. I’ve been making compost using clean, local feedstocks including: 

– horse manure from a horse that is not on dewormers or other medication

– spent mushroom blocks from a mushroom farm

-seaweed from the Puget Sound Restoration Fund (partnering with local oyster farmers to take the seaweed that washes up on their farm)

-whole salmon offal after spawning from the Quilcene Hatchery

We’ve been using a diy aerated static pile system with bouncy house blowers (one of which I bought used on fb marketplace) and perforated pvc pipe on an on/off cycle timer. I used an arduino and temperature sensors to log temperature in my piles. After burning cash on skid steer rentals and 2 scam tractor purchasing attempts, we used grant money to buy a small Kubota tractor used to mix and turn the piles.