Elegant Composting
As I'm sure you can tell from my previous post , composting is a topic close to my heart. So, when I stumbled across the method Joel Salatin and his team use on Polyface Farm in Virginia, USA, I got quite excited. Joel farms grass-fed beef cattle. In winter, he houses his animals inside due to Virginia's harsh weather. Inside the barn is where the magic happens. I've, honestly, never heard of a more elegant composting solution. Essentially, by simply behaving naturally, Joel's livestock breeze through all the heavy lifting. The process starts with the cattle themselves. They do what cows do best and poo day in and day out inside the barn. Rather than carting the manure away to slurry pits, Joel and his team simply cover it over with woodchips and straw right there on the barn floor. Over the winter months, this pile of poo and carbon grows higher and higher to well over a metre. By spring, isn't everything buried literally in sh** you might ask? The short answer...