FALL IS IN THE AIR
..and compost is going in the ground. We say this every year, but fall is THE BEST time to apply compost to your orchard, vineyard, farm, garden or lawn. Most of us aren't thinking about spring right now, but if you put compost down now it will be thinking about spring all winter long. It basically gives your soil a six month jump start on spring. All of the compost microbes, nutrients and biota will be assimilating into the soil over winter, making them ready for spring growth. Don't take it from us, take it from some of our most successful farming customers who apply compost every fall: Zion Farm, Wildwood Farm, Tumbleweed Farm, Dalhe Orchards, Domaine Poullion and on and on....
In other news around the Hugger....after seven years we finally offer FULL BENEFITS (health care, retirement, profit share) to our team. It has been our goal for years to finally become 'legit' and offer a complete employment package and we are stoked to have it. We have been terrified of the costs, and the changing political environment but it was long overdue to rip the bandaid. Thank you to Karissa at BCI Group for getting us going.
We completed a number of cool infrastructure projects this summer including a 600 yard custom bioswale blend for Wyeast Middle School, a rangeland reclamation and reseeding project for BPA, an erosion control project for the Indian Creek trail in Hood River and a green roof project. We're always thrilled to be a part of these sorts of projects. They push us to expand our repertoire, meeting engineering specs by combining different compost grades and soils.
Additionally, we've been delivering a lot of compost to local schools lately for their garden programs--Lyle High School, Dufur High School and the Mosier Community School, to name a few. It's reassuring to know the youth of today are learning about the living soil web, getting their hands dirty and harvesting some nutritious veggies to boot!
Ironically, one of the first things we did after leaving our office jobs, was to build a new office (trailer). After seven glorious years of working out of said trailer, we are beginning the process of building a new shop/office building. We are loyal to our roots of working out of a $500 building with reused windows, floors and doors, but it's again finally time to step it up. An element we are really excited about, is that the shop will use heat from the composting process to heat the building. We will share details and photos as things progress.
And, last but not least, we continue making compost 5 days a week, year round, things keep breaking, we keep fixing them, and progress marches on. Thanks for all of your support - we love seeing successes in your plants as we continue to grow ours (plant, that is.)