We are open for loading from 8am - 4pm Monday - Friday

We are open from 9am - 2:00pm Saturdays in May

Holidays we are closed: New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Indigenous People's Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day

No. All of our bulk soil products and bagged product in full pallet quantities are sold directly from:

Vermont Compost Company
1996 Main St.
Montpelier, VT 05602
802-223-6049

We have multiple retailers that sell our bagged products in less than pallet quantities. Please click here for a list of retailers.

Central Supplies is the only retailer that carries our bulk screened compost:

Central Supplies
839 VT ROUTE 12
Randolph, VT 05060
(802) 728-9531

No. Vermont Compost sells wholesale only – bulk by the cubic yard and bagged by the pallet. If you need less than a pallet quantity of soil (one pallet is equal to 80 20-quart bags or 35 60-quart bags), please visit one of our retailers or order from one of our catalog or on-line sellers. Both can be found here.

No. We only sell bulk by the cubic yard or pallet quantities. Your truck or trailer must be capable of handling a minimum of one yard of bulk product or one full pallet. Bags of soil (6-quart, 20-quart, and 60-quart) are found at local retailers.

Vermont Compost Company will only load soil by the cubic yard, into the back of pickup trucks and trailers. We use wheel loaders with one cubic yard buckets – there is no shoveling required.

One yard of compost weighs 1200 lbs. Most standard pick-up trucks can carry one to two yards depending on the truck's Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (info can usually be found on the inside driver side door of your vehicle).

We cannot load soil into containers, cars, vans, or into trucks that have caps. We do not sell bulk soil in quantities less than one cubic yard. We sell in full cubic yards only - we cannot load half yards.

We ask all visitors to please keep animals inside their vehicles. The farm dogs at Vermont Compost Company are trained to protect the farm and chickens. They are working farm dogs and are very territorial.

Before visiting our farm, please be sure your vehicle is not leaking fluids (gasoline, diesel, brake, transmission, coolant, etc). We ask that trucks arrive clean without any soil-contaminating residuals in the bed (eg. road salt, hay chaff, gasoline, etc). Bringing a tarp to put both under and over the soil will be helpful to you during transport and unloading.

For your safety, we ask that all humans exit the vehicle while it is being loaded.

No. We are not able to refill any of our empty bags of any size.

Yes. Enter at our North Entrance and you will find three bins under the sign reading "Household Compost Drop Off." Two bins receive food waste and one bin contains a soil blend you can use as a cover material to help control moisture and odor. Please deposit your food waste and then sprinkle a scoop of the cover material on top (pro trip: dust your compost bucket with cover material, like flouring a cake pan, to absorb odors and moisture). We encourage the use of reusable buckets for your compost. We do not accept the green home compost container liner bags.

We accept all kitchen scraps including: meat and bones, dairy, fish, unbleached coffee filters and tea bags.

We DO NOT accept: Plastics of any kind (“compostable” or otherwise), PLU stickers, wood ash, leaves, grass clippings, any paper products or “compostable” plates, bowls, cups, or flatware, or any non-Vermont Compost potting soil from ornamental plants. There is no fee for dropping off your scraps.

Yes. We also take brush, tree limbs, and stumps, which we use for hügelkultur-inspired land building on our site.

Please call ahead to make arrangements to drop off your yard waste: 802-839-6014

Use our handy coverage calculator to determine how much Manure Compost or Compost Plus you need to amend a bed or how much Perennial Blend you need to fill a raised bed.

Use our Pot Filling Chart to determine how many yards or bags you need to start your seeds!

All ingredients used in Vermont Compost Company products are approved for certified organic production. Our composting process meets the National Organic Program (NOP) standard requirements and our products are approved by the Vermont Organic Farmers (VOF), the certification branch of NOFA-VT. Our customer base includes over 400 professional certified organic growers.

Click here to view our Vermont Organic Farmers Approval Letter.

Our compost is typically aged between eight and twelve months at point of sale.

Yes. We go to great lengths to ensure our that compost and potting soil is weed free. Other weed spores may drift across our exposed piles, but do not survive turning, weeding, and screening intervals. In order to avoid contamination during transportation, we ask customers to thoroughly clean their truck beds before loading.

Please click here for more information on our compost process.

No. Sterile means devoid of life. Healthy compost and potting soil contains the living biota necessary for successful soil and plant life.

Our compost is comprised of carefully sourced, high-quality ingredients: a fully mature composted blend of bovine, equine, and avian manures, hardwood bark, late cut hay, spoiled silage, animal bedding, and food residuals. We blend biodynamic preparations and mature compost to inspire bacterial and fungal activity. Free of live weed seed, never any sewer sludge. Manure Compost is approved for use on certified organic farms and forms the base of all Vermont Compost soil mixes.

Please click here for more information on our compost process.

We hear about "mold" issues in the early spring, when conditions are still cold and dark.  A linen-white fluffy presence is normal and beneficial. The white growth is an actinomycetal flush which is non-pathogenic and will disappear. We recommend that your plants go into the nighttime hours as dry as possible.

You can learn more about actinobacteria here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actinobacteria

Some of our input stream is certified organic; some is not. Regardless of non-organic input, by the time our compost and potting soil reaches maturity they are approved by VOF (Vermont Organic Farmers) for use in organic production.

Yes. We perform plant germination and growth performance tests (plant "bio-assays") on all composts and soil mixes before we release them to customers. We also perform lab tests in-house to determine EC (electrical conductivity), pH, and NO3 (Nitrate) levels. We regularly send samples to outside University labs for total nutrient and saturated paste analysis, which provides additional information and corroboration of our in-house tests. Each compost has a batch number which follows it from the assembly of raw materials through process, invoicing, and delivery to the customer. Temperature and time of turning data are tracked to prove compliance with the National Organic Program (NOP) and Vermont Organic Farmers (VOF), the certification branch of NOFA-VT.

It is best to blend our compost with other soil, keeping the balance less than 50% compost. Our compost is best used as a soil amendment, not as a complete growing medium. If you need a complete growing medium, try Fort Vee, Fort Light, or Perennial Blend.

Roughly 1-3 inches. Use our soil coverage calculator to help you to determine how much you need.

Please call us for a consult. 802-223-6049

Compost Plus is a nutrient-boosting soil amendment. Add a handful to any plant (or more for larger plants) -- indoor containers, raised beds, flowers, and fruits or make a slurry tea of Compost Plus and use it for watering. This blend will not burn plants/roots.

Fort Vee is ideal for making soil blocks, though Fort Light may also be used.

We recommend Perennial Blend for raised beds or gardens in need of soil volume. If you have existing garden soil or topsoil on site, we recommend amending it with Manure Compost.

Vermont Compost Company accepts food waste from schools, restaurants and businesses. Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District handles the trucking and billing accounts for food residual generators. Please contact them directly at 802.229.9383

No. We do not accept bag returns due to the potential for contamination.

No. All of our soils contain animal manures.

Not directly. We accept household and restaurant food residuals, therefore, we cannot offer a peanut-free guarantee.