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What is Humus?

Humus compost is the product from our garden I would recommend for all gardeners to use in their garden even if you only have a pot on a patio. We get our humus compost for The Garden from our local University Farm at no charge. Any one from the public can also go and get some for a small fee.

Compost is simply organic matter that is broken down and decomposing. Humus compost is that same organic matter that has decomposed but is then eaten by microbes. So basically microbe poop.
  
Humus is not only used across the country but around the world. Midwest Bio Systems, who introduced our local University into making humus, says that none of their facilities can make humus fast enough to satisfy demand. This could very well be why most of their business is educating and equipping farmers to use humus compost on their fields to cut down their cost of fertilizer.

At The Garden we use it like most commercial gardeners by spreading over our plots. By just spreading a thin layer of humus over our plots and not tilling we don't disturb the soil structure. If we chose to put fertilizer in our plots the humus would also help the fertilizer absorb into the soil.

The difference in yields when we use humus is very noticeable compared to some plots that didn’t get it. The largest downside is that we can't make it ourselves because it takes a large scale composting system with lots of monitoring to produce high quality humus like we get form the University Farm.

The compost we do make at The Garden is still really valuable and useable but is still just organic matter that lacks the microbes which helps the plants absorb more nutrients.

PBS has a valuable video Food Forward: SOS: Save our Soil that features Midwest Bio Systems and other efforts focusing on rehabilitating soil across the nation.

Midwest Bio Systems has a great educational corner if you would like to know more about what is in humus and more about how it works. They also have a great nationwide network of humus producers they work with, so there is probably one near you!

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