FAQ

Isn't this just aerating? No. Aerator holes are at best, a 1/2 inch wide and only a few inches deep, too small and shallow to fill with compost. And most mechanical aerators pull plugs, bringing stored carbon to the surface where it decomposes. Our holes are 2 to 3 inches wide and 6 inches to 2 feet deep. Easy to pour pellets or compost into, punch through compaction layers, and last for years. 

Why not use an auger or a shovel? Augers remove soil instead of just fracturing it, they're slow, they chew through drill batteries, and they're risky if you hit a root or a buried wire. After the first year, you're often just digging back up the compost you buried. A narrow shovel leaves an hourglass-shaped hole that collapses on itself. Our tools are built specifically to lever open a straight vertical shaft and work better and faster than either.

Why not till the compost in? It works once. After that, you're just bringing old organic matter back to the surface to oxidize, and you might destroy the soil structure that took time to develop. If you are starting with very poor compacted soil, stripped of its topsoil, tilling in compost your first year is an appropriate thing to do. If you have intact topsoil with structure and some organic matter tilling may do more harm than good. Dig a hole and learn the history of your soil first. Was your land tilled and plowed for decades prior? Was it a prairie? A forest? Was the topsoil stripped away and sold before a housing development went in? Even if you do till in compost your first year, I recommend using the Bison Underground Method to create columns of compost after you till, once the soil is softened up. 

Why not just add compost on top and use cover crops? Both are genuinely good practices, and I do both. But surface-only methods are slow at getting organic matter deep enough to make significant advancements in structure and carbon % deep in the soil column. Combining them with underground injection gets you both the surface benefits and the deep restoration.

Why not raised beds? Raised beds make sense if you're on bedrock or contaminated soil. Otherwise, if you've got at least a foot of mineral soil before bedrock, restoring what's already there is cheaper long-term (and usually short-term), holds moisture better, and doesn't need yearly rebuilding as the material in the bed breaks down and settles.

How often do I need to do this? Once a year for the first 2-3 years depending on how poor your soil is will give you improvements that would take 10 years or more. After that you can space it out, or use longer tines and drive organic matter deeper as your soil improves.

When's the best time to do it? Fall through early spring is ideal. Summer works too if you're avoiding actively growing roots of plants you want to grow and giving the amendment time to break down a bit before peak growing season, since high-carbon material can temporarily tie up nitrogen if applied right before plants need it most. A month or two is usually sufficient if you get rain or irrigate. That also gives time for microbes or worms to move in or for you to innoculate.