Shone Farm Fall Festival
At Cold Creek Compost, we are proud to support Shone Farm, a cornerstone of agricultural education and community engagement in Sonoma County. Located in the Russian River Valley AVA, Shone Farm is part of SRJC’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Department and provides students with hands-on learning experiences that go far beyond the classroom. We are excited to help promote their upcoming Fall Festival, a celebration that brings our community together in a spirit of learning, fun, and collaboration.
The Shone Farm Fall Festival, now in its fourteenth year, will take place on Saturday, October 12, 2024, from 10 am to 3 pm. What began as a small garden open house has grown into one of the most anticipated events of the year, drawing over 3,000 guests last year alone. This year’s festival will feature a wide range of activities, including hay bale rides, a pumpkin patch, apple picking, wine tasting, a kid’s zone with a rotten fruit slingshot and compost lessons, tractor displays, sheep shearing, and a showcase of student enterprise projects.
We encourage everyone to attend this wonderful event, and you might even be lucky enough to see some of our compost in action.
California’s Composting Future
Composting has always been hip, but now it’s the hottest trend in the state. New state regulations are encouraging more composting than ever. Cold Creek Compost has happily offered nearby counties cutting-edge composting services for decades, and continues to be one of the few facilities permitted to handle food waste, a huge part of California’s waste stream. Thanks to Cold Creek Compost, Mendocino County and the surrounding areas are well-positioned to meet the state’s new requirements and help the state in its fight against climate change. For in-depth reading and visuals, see
SF Chronicle’s Special Report.
Sonoma County WeAct Compost Giveaway
Cold Creek Compost is a proud partner of WeAct (Windosor Earth Action Climate Team). Just recently, we donated compost to help put on a free organic compost giveaway. It was a huge success, so next week, it will be happening again! We couldn’t resist joining the effort to spread compost and compost knowledge in our community. Here are some details:
Time and Place:
Saturday April 3, 2021
From: 9am – 1pm
Location: Keiser Park—Free ½ Cu.Yd. per household
What to Bring to Haul-Your-Own:
● Shovels, gloves
● Tarps, buckets, feedbags &/or a pick-up truck (a few extra feedbags will be available)
● Covid-Safe Mask Required
Benefits of Organic Compost:
Compost replenishes the soil and boosts your plants with nutrients, microorganisms, and organic matter, improves water retention, recycles organic resources, helps conserve landfill use, and pulls carbon out of the atmosphere.
WeAct is a group of dedicated citizens in Windsor working to address the global climate emergency through local action.
Contact: 707-494-0222
Food Waste, Landfills,and Greenhouse Emissions
Reducing food waste is one of the most effective ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Not only that, food waste is the number 1 contributor to landfills! So if you aren’t going to finish your plate, at least do your best to make sure your leftovers end up at a compost facility like ours. Few can boast a 99% recovery rate like Cold Creek Compost. That means 99% of what comes to our facility goes back out into the world as a useable product. See more in this infographic from Waste 360.
Salts in Compost
Cold Creek is always interested in the cutting edge of compost research and technology. We’re always happy to discuss the science behind compost with our customers as well.
We recently came across an informative research paper published by the Environmental Research and Innovation Center at the University of Wisconson, Oshkosh. The paper breaks down the different salts in compost, their importance for plant growth, and methods for testing salt content in soils. There’s a lot more to it than whether a soil is too “salty” or not! Read the paper to learn more.
We found the paper at the Composting Council Research and Education Foundation. Check out their website for lots of other information about compost and what makes it great!
Nutrient Cost Comparison
Here at Cold Creek we’re focused on maximizing nutrient content and minimizing cost. We believe that knowing more about your fertilizer and soil will help you Buy Less, Spread Less, and Grow More. It may be possible to find a lower cost compost than Cold Creek’s, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a compost that can compete with our nutrient content per dollar. Cold Creek’s Compost is even competitive with chemical fertilizer.
To help see the benefits of our compost, we’ve put together this worksheet. Take the time to calculate how much your spending on fertilizers, and see what Cold Creek has to offer.
Cold Creek Earns Congressional Recognition for Sustainability
On August 28, 2017, U.S. Congressman Jared Huffman visited Cold Creek Compost, toured the operations, and presented Martin and Cold Creek Compost with a Sustainable North Coast Award for the company’s dedication to environmental stewardship and sustainability. Cold Creek Compost and Martin are truly honored by this award and recognition for their 22 years of sustainable materials management. Thank you Congressman Huffman and many congratulations to Martin and the Cold Creek crew!
Learn more about Huffman and his sustainability mission on his website
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reduce, reuse, then recycle. It’s important to remember to follow these guidelines in that order. As much as we love composting your food waste here at Cold Creek Compost, we want to remind you that it’s even better if your food scraps never make it to the garbage can at all.
A huge portion of America’s food waste is perfectly good food that just couldn’t find a hungry mouth to feed before it ended up in the trash. We’ve stumbled across a few apps, aimed at businesses as well as families, that can help reduce the amount of food that gets thrown out. These apps help make the most of our food, and one was even developed by a seventh-grader! Check it out at waste360.com.
Below: Happy Holidays from Cold Creek, but don’t let your Christmas leftovers go to waste!
Commonwealth Hospital Gardens
The Commonwealth Gardens hope to provide fresh vegetables to the future Howard Memorial Hospital under construction in Willits. To support the non-profit venture, Cold Creek Compost has been donating its Agrow-Blend compost to the Hospital Gardens for years, and has also provided advice on how the Gardens might generate their own compost to recycle their own plant and food waste. Cold Creek hopes to continue to support the Gardens as they grow.
See Cold Creek's comprehensive Product Catalog for details on our products and their benefits.
Product Catalog
Cold Creek Compost is proud to be featured in the children's book Composting Abbie, a tale of how a whale can be composted, and how a tragedy can be turned into an opportunity.
More