Community Composting

Community composting at Open Woods Farm began in the summer of 2022 with technical support and a small grant from the Composting Association of Vermont (CAV). On-farm food-scrap collection laws had recently been updated in the state of New Hampshire, and CAV was willing to help several NH farms navigate local composting laws and begin collecting food scraps from their communities.

Open Woods is now working through a NH Conservation Districts Climate Resiliency Grant to expand the on-farm composting site and build efficiencies with the goal of expanding food-scrap collection to the local public schools. Site expansion should be complete by the summer of 2024.

Food Scrap Collection

Food waste is one of the few waste streams that we can control sustainably at an individual, institutional, and community level.

Community composting presents scalable food diversion options for managing food scraps/organics within a community. The strategy builds community resilience and lets residents put sustainability into practice on a local level, by diverting food scraps from landfills and providing training in food waste composting. —Composting Association of Vermont

By composting with Open Woods Farm, you will promote soil health, water quality, environmental resiliency, and reduce reliance on purchased organic amendments.

Composting With Open Woods

It’s cheap and easy to start composting. Here’s how to begin:

  1. Purchase a 5 gallon bucket or other appropriately sized container with a lid.

  2. Find a safe and easy place to keep your bucket: Ours lives under our sink. It’s easy to access, and it’s safe from wildlife.

  3. Make food, eat food, scrape your plate: When you are finished with food prep and finished with your meal, scrape everything that is food into your 5 gallon bucket. Food includes bones, dairy, meat, vegetable peels, fruit stems, everything!

  4. Bring your full bucket to an Open Woods food-scrap collection site, and empty it into one of our large compost bins.

  5. Rinse out your bucket and begin again.

  6. Please see below for more details on acceptable and prohibited items.

Drop-off Sites

The Canaan Farmers’ Market

Sundays from 10am-2pm mid-May to October.

Find Open Woods at the market, and dump your bucket into our compost bins.

Open Woods Farm

Thursdays and Saturdays from 9am-7pm

There will be a large clearly marked compost bin at the top of our driveway. There is plenty of room to park and turn around. Please don’t drive down to the farm without an appointment. Find directions on our contact page.

Remember…

Peel off those produce stickers right away.

Scrape your plate! Bones are okay! Meat is okay!

Set up a food scraps bowl while you’re preparing meals, then dump it right into your compost buckets.

Coffee filters are okay!

No plastic, no plastic, no plastic. Not even compostable plastic.