Composting and nutrient recycling for a market garden - crowdsourcing ideas for better systems

Howdy folk, I've long been a browser of these forums over the years but never a poster (made my account today!)

Anyway, thought this might be a good place to start gathering some ideas.

I work at a small scale organic, no-till market garden. Their composting systems are pretty.. non-existant. I'm working to create a better way of cycling nutrients and promoting microbial activity.

My knowledge human-scale composting systems come from the Bio-intensive/Jon Jeavons style. This relies on inputs from a lot of lignin carbon (aiming at a 60:1 ratio), which help provide aeration, usually open piles (with tarps or roofs in my area - very high rainfall), and aiming for 55c temperatures. If built well, these piles may not need turning. But sometimes they need turning 1-2 times. That's important if you're not using tractors.

Unfortunately we don't produce anywhere near as much carbon as Bio-intensive methods would like for a sustainable farm and compost production - we still rely on inputs. But that's something we may able to partially address.

This method also relies on you building a pile all at once, of ideally 1.3³+ in size.

So my problems I need to solve are:

Dealing with constant but irregular flow throughs of high nitrogen material from cropping out beds - we do a lot of leafy greens

- what do I do with piles of green material before we have enough to build a pile - we need to it to be thermophillic and aerobic because >

Composting diseased material reliably - currently this is thrown in the "corner of shame," as well as reliably recognising which diseases are relatively safe to compost at 55-65c and assume "dealt with"

Human tool scale

- we're producing a lot of food, and could be creating a lot of compost from crop residues, if we could create consistently high quality compost. But we don't have access to heavy machinery, and we don't want to be relying on huge fossil fuel machines for turning piles

Composting seems to be a hard one to get good info on - there's a lot of advice out there, and much of it from my limited scientific understanding is poor advice. So I'm looking for scientifically accepted "good" practices that might help us deal with these things.

I am actively researching, but I figure there are likely lots of folk around here with buckets of knowledge and peer reviewed info as well!

What I have experienced with composting is that in a way it is labor-intensive.

What is currently being done with plant waste?

If I were in your situation, I would first train the workers to put plant waste into a central location.

Once the workers are onboard with this concept then it would be time to decide how to determine how to make a system work.

Will you be the person to take charge of the compost pile?

Do you plan to set up nice-looking bins or just have piles?

I hope this helps somewhat and maybe other members will give you their thoughts on how to set this up.

what is small scale? 1/4 acre or 20 acres?
people have made composters out of barrels that are supported horizontally and rotated and vertical set ups too. could be perfect if your worried about rain in a traditional pile or bin pile type composting set up.
if one works for you and you need more space, make another one this way you are dealing with a wheel barrow load or two at a time.

here is one example



here is another example

Anne Miller wrote:What I have experienced with composting is that in a way it is labor-intensive.

What is currently being done with plant waste?

If I were in your situation, I would first train the workers to put plant waste into a central location.

Once the workers are onboard with this concept then it would be time to decide how to determine how to make a system work.

Will you be the person to take charge of the compost pile?

Do you plan to set up nice-looking bins or just have piles?

I hope this helps somewhat and maybe other members will give you their thoughts on how to set this up.

Currently it either gets chucked in one of the compost bays (I've at least got people covering their green waste with woodchip), or if diseased material or weed seed material, thrown down the bank - which none of us like.

imply piling crop resdue though, feels like a lot is going to be lost to gassing off, and turn into a hot anaerobic sludge.

I will probably take charge of the compost piles - there will likely be many on the go at once. I've only just started working here, and we are transferring to summer crops - but at the moment, we are probably producing enough crop residue for a 1mx1mx1m compost pile every two weeks. Prettiness isn't a concern, but quality compost and dealing with disease is.

bruce Fine wrote:what is small scale? 1/4 acre or 20 acres?
people have made composters out of barrels that are supported horizontally and rotated and vertical set ups too. could be perfect if your worried about rain in a traditional pile or bin pile type composting set up.
if one works for you and you need more space, make another one this way you are dealing with a wheel barrow load or two at a time.

here is one example

here is another example

We're about 1/2-3/4 of an acre. Too big for the home style scale composters in those bins - as we're moving into summer crops and taking out a lot of crop residue, we would fill one of those in a day or two.

Also with such low volume, I don't think it would get to sufficient heat to deal with pathogens. Looks like a good set up for a home though! I remember my dad making something very similar when I was a kid.

I know having enough carbon was a concern, so a couple things that I have done is to check with the tree service companies in the area for truck loads of woodchips. Or, I go around a nearby town in the fall and pickup bags of leaves for free.

Once you have enough carbon to help, I would suggest something like "Chicken Tractor on Steroids". https://www.discoverpermaculture.com/FertileCompost

Even if you don't have enough carbon, letting the chickens process the food into eggs, meat, and rich soil could be good. Also pigs could help convert that food into bacon while providing fertility and rooting services.

I farm 1/2 acre and I use 3 1m2 boxed heaps and one open heap. That produces about 1m3 of compost a year, it really doesn't make much all that green leafyness just vanishes.

I find that continuity of supply is an issue, for most of the growing season there are no browns whatsoever, and at times like when the strawberries are finished and are cut back there is a huge imput of cut leaves/grass all at once. I deal with this by having a heap out of the way, any massive amount of something, like strawberry leaves, potato tops or stems of brassicas when they are pulled out goes there, it is heaped up all year, then flipped over in the late autumn covered with a tarp and left until spring. To counteract the 100% green diet for the smaller piles I keep a bin full of chopped straw by the compost, whenever you add greens, also add a small layer of that. Our straw is very old stuff from our barn, we have enough for at least 30 years. but you can use any old spoiled straw you can get hold of, or dried leaves, cardboard.. anything you can source easily.

I like these two Youtubers, and they both have great ideas for market garden scale compost heaps, BOTH of them import materials from other households. Both of them add diseased material and have no issues, I do as well.


I would kill for his compost bays, the price of the oak alone.. urgh


Much more accessible system, still works.