Barrel Compost: Bringing Harmony & Balance to the Farm by William Shock & Lisa Shock

Barrel Compost is the biodynamic preparation JPI sells in the United States as Barrel Compound. It combines cow manure, crushed eggshells, basalt meal, and the BD 502–507 compost preparations. William and Lisa Shock describe making it in a soil-contact barrel or pit; the pit version is also called Cowpat Pit (CPP) compost.

The Shocks report reducing odor by applying Barrel Compost to fresh poultry-house manure and describe its use as an evening soil spray, on compost heaps, and on pasture in a wider biodynamic program. For the same preparation sold by JPI as Barrel Compound, follow the current one-unit-per-acre field-spray directions and use BD 500 separately as directed.

The article is authored by William Shock and Lisa Shock.

It was published in ACRES USA in February 2010.