14 BENEFITS OF EARTH CARE FARM'S SUPERIOR QUALITY COMPOST

1. Provides a gentle, long-lasting source of soil-fertility.
2. Improves the physical, biological and chemical nature of soil.
3. Carries beneficial microorganisms and other helpful biological substances.
4. Helps plants withstand extremes of weather.
5. Improves tilth; water intake and holding capacity; drainage and aeration of the soil.
6. Unlike fresh manures or many chemical soluble fertilizers, mature compost will not burn plants or cause excessive lush growth.
7. Diminishes, sometimes eliminates, a soil’s requirements for fertilizer.
8. Increases soil organic matter content that results in higher cation exchange capacity providing colloidal nutrient banking in the soil. This makes soil nutrients more available to plants and reduces leaching loss.
9. Secondary and trace element deficiencies will seldom if ever appear in a well-composted soil.
10. Helps to strengthen overall plant health so plants can ward off disease.
11. Has no offensive odor (it has a pleasant, earth-like smell)
12. Does not acidify soil like many chemical fertilizers. (Soil tests indicate that our compost has on average a near neutral PH which helps to maintain maximum biological favorable activity.)
13. Increases biological activity, earthworm populations and overall life energy wherever applied.
14. Gives you the satisfaction of knowing you are working in harmony with nature.

COMPOST INGREDIENTS

We start with farm animal manure, such as horse, chicken, cow, sheep, goat, and rabbit manures. These we gather along with whatever bedding material was used, such as sawdust, wood shavings or straw. We also mix in elephant, camel and other exotic manures from Roger Williams Park Zoo.

Other raw materials added include: clean gurry (fish scraps), shell fish, seaweed, paper, wood chips, spent bark mulch, wood ashes, mulch hay, flower, vegetable, and shrub trimmings and also food scraps. Our major bulking agent is leaves which we receive from local towns. These ingredients are blended, mixed, and turned in an aerobically managed compost system on our certified organic farm. It takes us approximately a year before the ingredients are properly cured. The mature, finished, black compost bares little resemblance to the ingredients it was made from other than the bits of shellfish.

Our compost and organic horticultural methods have been featured in Rhode Island newspapers, The Christian Science Monitor, Rodale’s Organic Gardening, Mother Earth News, The New Farm, Environmental Magazine, and Biocycle.

USES OF COMPOST

Vegetable gardens, Flower Beds, and at Time of Seeding New Lawns
Spread one to four inches thick (the actual rate and frequency of application can be increased or decreased depending on the existing fertility of your soil). Work the compost into the soil.

Planting or Transplanting Trees or Shrubs
The planting hole should be at least twice as wide as the root ball. Mix equally one part compost with one part soil and back fill around the root ball. When planted, mulch the tree or shrub with compost.

Potting Soil, Germinating Mixes, and Greenhouse Soil
For best results for those involved with commerical production,
double-screen compost and store it for an extra year to further mature before using the compost as a major component of your mix. Many good recipes are available in reference books and articles.

Raised Beds
Use our raised bed mix when filling your raised bed garden or container pots. It is a premium soil blend comprised of our screened compost mixed with sand, peat moss, greensand and rock phosphate ready to transplant directly in.

COMPOSTING: A COOPERATIVE EFFORT

Composting is a cooperative effort between man and other kingdoms in nature to accelerate the process of making rich, healthy, living soil. The actual transformation of raw materials into
finished, healthy compost is performed by numerous beneficial bacteria, fungi, and lower animals with the elemental forces of air, heat, and water.

Composting is a remarkable biological recycling process. Among many other things it demonstrates there is no such thing as waste in nature.

Earth Care Farm appreciates your financial and moral support in purchasing our compost. We encourage you to consider making some of your own home compost, and use ours as a supplement to your needs. It is seldom that anyone has enough compost for the care of their soil and plants.

Caution: The compost contains small fish bones and shells. Handle with due care.

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