The Fertility Facility

It started with one small bin. I built it out of the heaviest, ugliest pallets you've ever seen. It was my first pallet project, and at the time I didn't know there was a patient art to pallet scrounging. Armed with a skill saw, hammer, and crow bar, I used a full pallet for the back and cut another pallet into pieces for the sides. It measures 18x41x48 inches. I rested a scrap piece of tin roofing over the top to keep the rain out. Surprisingly, it took my family of 3 and flock of 9 chickens almost two years to fill it! It looked like it was full after about a year, but when the contents got to the lid, you could actually see the magic of composting: One week you think you've poured your last bucket of slop in as the lid teeters over the mound. The next week the pile has settled a few inches allowing for another addition. This happens from week to week as the pile is continuously breaking down. It's feels like such a magic show to keep adding to the pile, and it's a wonderful confirmation that your pile of scraps is indeed a compost pile. 

Bin #2

The Fertility Facility began out of necessity. The two sheep and two goats I was raising in 2010 made for a lot of dirty bedding to take care of. I built bin #2 and started adding our food, garden, and barn scraps to it. It soon became "full" as it was mostly barn litter (poopy straw) and didn't quite have enough green to keep it composting quickly. So I built bin #3, which became a holding tank for barn litter. I continued to add greens to bin 2 for about a year. Eventually, I came up with the composting co-op idea, but I was working full time, had a two year old, and was milking the animals twice a day. It just didn't pan out to put more on my plate. In mid-2011 I became a bona fide stay-at-home mom and starting drawing out the plans for mass composting. In January 2012 the program started and I gradually expanded from composting for nine households to composting for 23 households, a preschool, a bread bakery, a bistro, a grocery store/deli, and a food bank. So I did some more building:

 

#4, the first co-op bin, & #5

 

 #6 & #7

 

#8 & #9, which form the northern fence around my garden

 

 

#10 & #11, continuing the fence

#12 & #3, which are a separate experiment

#13 & #14, waiting to be needed and completing the north fence.

 The storage bin, packed full of leaves for future use as biofilter

Some Numbers:

Now, February 2013, just over a year after beginning, I have filled (to ultimate capacity,) 10 bins.

• Two bins are actively getting added to.  
• Three bins are starting to cool, meaning they're about half way done. 
• Two bins are mostly done and are getting finished by worms (who just show up when it's time)
• Five bins are completely composted and are awaiting spring use.   

     Spreadsheet Totals

• 220 hours (not counting building, turning piles, and record keeping) on the project.
• 5269 gallons of material collected 
• 19,661 pounds of material collected
• ~11,500 pounds of additional material from my barn
• ~600 pounds of cover material (collected leaves, garden debris, straw)

Surprisingly, this doesn't take up much space in my yard, considering how much material has gone in. Volume wise, the break down of the material is astounding. The first round of breakdown has a shrink rate of about 50%. The reheat and final breakdown shrinks by another 33%. 

So I started by piling up 1188 cubic feet of material and ended up with 392 cubic feet of compost. 

Last summer I saw bags of 1.5 cubic feet (~2 5-gallon buckets) of compost selling at a store downtown for $20. That means I created about $7920 worth of compost. In other words, if the market was there and I could sell everything I produce, I actually could make a fair wage! Collection fees could also boost the $$ potential. 

So after it all, I've got a huge accumulation of greatness just waiting to grow something delicious. It's been fun, and I don't see reason to stop! If I could just get my paperwork act together to get the license/permit, I could "open" for official business and make some $$. For now, I'll just keep composting!