Justin Rhodes takes us on tour Vermont Compost, Karl Hammer’s multi yielding system.

The system is designed to produce high quality compost but Karl uses the compost to feed a flock of chickens that produces a high quality eggs on a “no grain” diet, eating from the vegetable scarp , insects, manures and microbiology that is in the compost.

The surprise in this video is Karl is also using the compost to make “Black Garlic” !

Black Garlic is made by holding bulbs of garlic in temperatures ranging between 60-90’c for a period to time ranging between a month and 3 months . It turns out that if you keep compost at 60-65’c then you will get the temperature needed to make Black Garlic.

Karl also grows his garlic and has a flock of mules that supplement the compost making with manure.

That is function stacking for increasing of yields at its best!

Compost feeding chicken making meat and eggs and black garlic.

Watch Justin’s tour of Karl’s place here.

You can also learn more about Yields in Permaculture Systems in section 2.5 of our Youtube Permaculture Design Course.

Feature picture by Sven Brandsma from Unsplash.