Feeding our fields

Earlier this week I spent two days spreading compost on our fields in preparation for the crops that will grow there this year. Farmer Ed and the livestock crew have been building our compost pile over the last year using manure from our livestock, leaves, and some veggie scraps and debris from last year's crops. The compost that results is rich in nutrients to feed our soils and in turn our crops this year. Also rich in organic matter, compost helps build the soil's ability to hold water--something we desperately need in our generally sandy, dry fields.

Spreading compost is a pretty noisy affair requiring two tractors and a clunking, clanking compost spreader. I use the first tractor to scoop bucketfuls of compost into the bed of the spreader, then switch tractors and pull the spreader, now riding low on its tires, out to the field and start cranking it out over the future beds of onions and squashes. Farmer Ed jumped on the tractor so I could make a quick video to show you how the compost spreader works:

It doesn't look like much, but that compost spreader saves dozens of hours of back-breaking work shoveling compost out onto the fields by hand. I was thanking the tractor gods this week for inventing such a wonderful machine.