How we turned a waste problem into a growth engine—literally. Our composting system, explained

Our soil feeds our greens. Then it feeds the Earth. Here’s the loop we built. Great microgreens start with great soil. That’s why at Everyday Micros Farm, we grow with the high-quality soil. This soil is packed with mycorrhizal fungi—so every plant is stronger, healthier, and more nutritious. But what happens after harvest? Most people might think we throw the soil away since we grow indoors. No way! Our dream is to one day use that compost for our own outdoor plant beds but since we don't have any outdoor space (yet lol), we give our compost to Ryan at Ryan's Market Garden for his vegetables. At Everyday Micros Farm, even if we can't use it ourselves, we turn that leftover roots and soil into compost that can keep feeding plants for someone else.

Leftover microgreen roots from our microgreens trays

What might be surprising for people is that soil is actually really rich with life. There's a living ecosystem in soil. it's full of organic matter, microbes, fungi and nutrients. That is what gives life and flavour to the plants we grow. Without that living ecosystem in soil, you just have dirt. Dirt is lifeless, depleted with no nutrients to give. Often when farm land is overused or heavy use of pesticides, farmers are left with dirt, lots of sand, silt and clay which is hard to grow on. This can lead to flavourless food, high flooding risk since it makes it harder to absorb rainwater and generally a lot more problems for the farmer. Even though we are growing indoors right now, at our farm, we see a huge opportunity to take what's left of the roots and soil after we harvest our microgreens, leaves and edible flowers and give it back to the Earth. When microgreens are harvested at our farm all the organic matter, fungi and nutrients are still there in the roots and soil. So as the roots breakdown in the compost pile from our microgreens, they will act like a slow release fertilizer to add more nutrients back into the compost making it super fertile and great for outdoor growing. This is how we deal with the compost at our farm! Step 1: Composting harvested microgreens trays

After we use up all of the fresh harvest for our restaurant and community orders, we put the remaining organic matter into our small compost bins. This frees up our used trays to get washed and sanitized for our next planting session. With our various varieties and vast orders, our bins can start to get pretty full so we need to put them in a bigger storage container.

Leftover peashoot microgreen roots going in our compost bin

Step 2: From tray to our compost bin

Once most of our bins are full, we dump these into our big newly installed jumbo compost bin that is only for organic matter for our farm.

Our current compost bin at the farm

Step 3: From Compost Storage to Ryans Market Farm

Once this bin has been filled, it gets taken to the local farm, Ryans Market Garden. Ryan will use this compost as mulch for his gardens because of its high nutritional value in the soil. 

Ryan's Market Garden is where we drop off our compost from our microgreens, leaves and edible flowers

It's great to know that even though we can't use our own compost for our own outdoor growing yet, We love knowing that it doesn't end up in the landfill and can go towards growing some kick ass local veggies by Ryan. The stronger local food system we have in Burlington, the greater the opportunity for more resilience in the community!