Heyday Farm CASE STUDY

Heyday Farm is a 25-acre high intensity regenerative farm located in a rural/residential area of Bainbridge Island, Washington. With the costs of organic fertilizers on the rise and waste hauling fees continuing to climb, finding an onsite composting solution was an integral part of the environmental & financial success of Hey day Farm. Heyday needed a composting solution with excellent odor & noise control that would allow for efficient processing of diverse feedstocks with full environmental compliance to satisfy regulations in place to protect residences in close proximity to agricultural operations.

In 2013, Heyday Farm worked with the experts at GMT to select a Site Built In-Vessel Earth Flow composting system. Constructing the composting system inside an existing on-farm 30’x50’ hoop house lowered the overall project costs and timeline.

At 34’ long and 10’ wide with a capacity of 40 cubic yards, this custom composting solution allows for easy processing of manure & bedding from the farm animals, offal from the pigs & chickens, and green waste from the produce. Feedstocks are loaded into the front end of the vessel for the automated auger to shred & move towards the discharge end over a period of 10-21 days, depending on the recipe. Feedstocks are easily loaded & unloaded into the vessel with a tractor, dumped directly into the composting bay, or stored in an adjoining bay until ready to process.

The end result? Beautiful, homogenous compost that is free of odors, pathogens, weed seeds and doesn’t attract flies. The entire process is highly visible and interactive, making for an excellent stop on the HeyDay farm tour, allowing visitors to understand the farm to table, table to farm approach being applied on the farm. The nutrient rich compost is used in regenerative agriculture practices of rotational grazing on the pastures and in gardens of HeyDay farm, creating a decentralized, fully circular waste stream.