ALL COMPOST IS NOT CREATED EQUAL

There are many different compost products available.

Not all are created equal or offer the same quality and benefits.

Compost varies in plant development value and feedstock ingredients.

It is important to know the differences and learn to read the lables
.
Home Composting

Composting reduces the amount of home and garden waste that could end up in landfills or incinerators. Is a good way to cut down on expenses in towns that have a "Pay Per Bag" program where you are charged for each bag of trash you dispose of.

Kitchen Scraps, grass cuttings and leaf and yard waste are the usual sources of home compost materials. Paper egg cartons, dryer lint, newspaper, sawdust, hair, egg shells are additional sources that home compost well.

The drawbacks to home composting are (1) you can only make a small amount of compost, usually not enough to use in a good size garden. (2) It is hard to get a home compost to heat up and sustain a temperature greater than 140 degrees. The high sustained temperature is needed to kill harmful plant pathogens, plant diseases, and weed seeds. ( 3) Lower nutrient value (leaf & yard waste)
.Materials to avoid in home composting are, cooking oil, meats, fats, fish, crab and lobster shells unless you have a good closed container system. Home composting these items can attract critters.

Some items like corn cobs and melon rinds should be ground up first.

Do not put diseased plants in your compost bins, burn them or discard.
Farm Composting
Some farms and stables pile up manure and bedding on their property and let it compost in a pile to use on their fields. This practice has been limited in recent years by new government regulations for manure management. Now it is collected and brought to facilities like Winterwood Farm. Some gardeners get manure from local farms to bring home and put on their gardens, however there are some serious considerations. Farm manure is considered a "Hot" manure and can burn tender plants unless it has been thoroughly composted. The same problem exists as in home composting,where there is not sufficient sustained heat required to kill weed seeds and harmful pathogens.
Municipal Waste Compost
BIO-SOLIDS

Citys and towns across the country operate sewer plants and solid waste facilities. The by product of these facilities is municipal waste. Plants that generate this municipal waste will often have or work with compost facilities that blend the sludge from the sewage plants with compost. Some municipalities will collect and compost leaf and yard waste to blend together with the sludge and make it available to residents for free or at a very low cost.

Commercial composters that use municipal waste (called Bio-Solids) do not always openly market this fact on the packaging or in the list of ingredients. It is common practice to make up more Earth friendly names for these ingredients like "agi-fiber, super humus, and bio-stimulants."

MUNICIPAL WASTE OR COMPOST BLENDED WITH

BIO-SOLIDS

IS NOT APPROVED FOR ORGANIC GROWING

Agricultural Composting
The most natural way to compost

Tons of shellfish arrive daily

Fish waste from seafood industry

Winterwood Farm is New England's largest agricultural compost facility where natural products from the forests, farms and ocean are composted in a natural technique using the same principals as "Mother Nature" on an accelerated time table.

Everything that lives eventually dies and under natural circumstances decomposes. A forest floor is a good example of how this process occurs in nature. However in nature this is a very slow process.

At winterwood Farm we use heavy equipment on large concrete and asphalt pads to mix and blend together organic materials from the sea and farm. Once mixed with aged manure and stable bedding it is placed on the concrete pads in long piles called wind rows. The wind rows begin to heat up as the microbes, microscopic insects and bacteria begin the process of breaking the organics down. This microbial action produces heat and the internal temperature of a wind row will climb to over 150 degrees. The temperature is constantly monitored and when the piles have reached and sustained temperatures above140 degrees the wind rows are turned over again and again until they no longer heat up to the high temperature required for composting, and killing weed seeds and harmful pathogens. When mature the compost is screened to a finer consistency and stored inside for bagging or bulk shipping.

Winterwood Farm composts several tons a day of cooked crab, and lobster shells which is a waste product from the sea food processing industry. A complex molecule found in these shells, keeps the living animals hydrated in the ocean. When shellfish is used in our composting process the same molecule that hydrates the crab and lobster in the ocean will continue to attract and retain moisture in the soil. Winterwood Farm also collects fish waste from the seafood and cat food industry and manures collected from area farms and stables for making Winterwood Farm Shellfish Compost.

Winterwood Farm also receives clean organics daily from a source separation program with area food processors, a super market chain and about 100 restaurants in York County Maine. The resulting compost produced from this material source is Winterwood Farm Eco-Blend Compost.

Types of Agricultural Compost

Leaf & Yard Compost: Makes a nice looking compost however it does not have a lot of nutrient value. Note, sometimes grass, leaf & yard waste has come from sources that spray with chemical pesticides.

Winterwood Farm does not use grass cuttings or leaf and yard waste in their compost.

Seafood Compost: Quality depends on the ingredients. Everything from sea cucumbers, to sea urchins may be the main ingredient found in compost labled seafood compost. Compost containing sea urchins can be very high in conductivity (Salts).

Winterwood Farm uses fish waste from the seafood and cat food industries containing trimmings, fish oils and bone.

Why you can't buy a better compost than

Winterwood Farm Shellfish Compost

Winterwood Farm Shellfish Compost has all the benefits of composted manure products (It is made with aged manures)

Winterwood Farm Shellfish Compost has all the benefits of seafood compost and fish emulsions (it contains actual fish waste including the oils and bone) and has no unpleasant fish odor.

Winterwood Farm Shellfish Compost and Eco-Blend Compost is made from organics. There is no aggregate (Sand) or (bark) added to the finished product as a filler.

PLUS

Winterwood Farm has the added benefit of a high concentration of shellfish, a good nitrogen source for composting as well as more than doubling your soils natural ability to retain moisture.

Buy American - Support Americans

Compost is good for the environment, it is diverting waste away from local landfills and incinerators. By using compost made in New England you are helping the local environment and supporting New England agriculture.

Read the lables...Some compost products available in New England garden centers are actually made in Canada and marketed as if made in Maine.

Winterwood Farm Compost is

100% made in Lyman, Maine

USA
Winterwood Farm is a registered trademark of Beltie Inc. Lyman, Maine