These widely recognized soil-health principles — drawn from USDA NRCS and the broader regenerative agriculture community — frame how we think about the compost we make and how we recommend using it. (This page is a starting draft — add your own voice and on-farm examples here.)
Reducing tillage and chemical disturbance protects the fungal networks and soil structure that took years to build.
Bare ground erodes, overheats, and loses moisture fast. Cover crops and residue keep soil temperature and moisture stable for biology to thrive.
Living roots feed soil microbes through root exudates — the more of the year there's a living root in the ground, the more consistently that biology is fed.
A wider variety of plants above ground supports a wider variety of microbes below it — different species feed different biology, which is part of why our compost aims for high species counts, not just high volume.
Grazing animals cycle nutrients back into the soil quickly through manure and trampled residue, another way to keep the biological loop closed.