Compost Academy

Compost Academy Compost Academy makes composting and soil microbiology accessible through mentorship, courses, and community learning.

We equip farmers and composters to regenerate land and transform agriculture—one microbe at a time.

This Thursday, the early bird ends for our fall Live Soil Mentorship Program. Sign up by then and you’ll get 200$ off th...
09/22/2026

This Thursday, the early bird ends for our fall Live Soil Mentorship Program. Sign up by then and you’ll get 200$ off the full price.

If you’ve been waiting to go full steam ahead and learn how to build and apply compost that can restore degraded land back to life, and grow successfully without chemicals, then this program will be an amazing chance to do that.

You’ll join Keisha, Casey and Brian over 13 weeks and learn practical skill sets for Biological Composting that are in use on professional compost lots, working farms, and in organic landscapes.

It’s WAY more than just composting, it’s a journey to gaining the ability to restore soil fertility and ecological health by learning how to work with soil biology.

Just click the link in Bio or comment SOIL for an invitation.

09/16/2026

Three months of production out of a brand new greenhouse and Brian is thrilled with it. The tomatoes have serious vigor, the cucumbers are running ahead of the pickling schedule, and there is a cantaloupe in here that has gone absolutely massive.
There is a second bed of tomatoes and peppers, plus a small herb bed he plans to shift toward perennials over time. Basil is in there now alongside parsley and spearmint, with marigolds tucked in to pull pollinators through the doors.
This is the first greenhouse he has owned, so the whole season has been an experiment in what actually belongs in this space. The cantaloupe is the open question. It wants to swallow everything around it and has already been cut back hard three times. He may skip it next year, though he reserves the right to change his mind once they taste one.

In 2008, Steve Cantwell achieved a stunning victory against Brian Stann in the second round and became the final WEC lig...
09/15/2026

In 2008, Steve Cantwell achieved a stunning victory against Brian Stann in the second round and became the final WEC light heavyweight champion. Four years later, at 25, his body was done. Heavy injuries and a sudden bought of losses brought his career to a close.

Most fighters that age chase a comeback, but Steve chose something else instead. He went home to Pahrump, Nevada and started growing, pursuing another passion he had since childhood. First off, he chose to get into the Cannabis industry, doing large scale indoor growing without chemicals for his business Green Life Productions. Several years later he opened up a regenerative produce business called Green Life Produce.

What made both these approaches thrive is by using Biological only growing methods, using just microbe-focused compost and extracts instead of toxic and expensive chemical inputs. Now, both of Steve’s farms are thriving, and stand out a beacon of inspiration in his community.

JOIN US TOMORROW AT 10 AM FOR A LIVE WEBINAR WITH STEVE and see how he uses Biological Compost on his farms (Link in Bio)

09/15/2026

Ants leave the plants alone. What they are exceptionally good at is farming the insects that do the damage. Pull apart a leaf cluster in this greenhouse and you will find ants swarming through it with aphids lined up on the undersides of the leaves.
Brian has been going back and forth with them daily. Beauveria bassiana has been the main tool, aimed at the aphids rather than the ants themselves. It kills aphids by the thousands and the ants simply carry more back up onto the plants.
So the question becomes how to stabilize the ecosystem instead of fighting one battle at a time. The next move is predators. Lacewings, ladybugs and other beneficials going in to work the aphid population down far enough that the ants lose their herd.
What would you do here? Drop it in the comments.

09/14/2026

Brian shares one of his dream homestead projects he brought to life for his Urban homestead: THE GREENHOUSE. In Newport Oregon where it’s constantly cloudy, raining, and cold for most of the year, a greenhouse is a huge boost for year round production. And it’s also not just the greenhouse itself, but the compost and compost extract Brian is adding to his fertigation system which is really making his plants grow like a jungle inside the greenhouse. In just a few months since his setup, he’s seen bumper harvests of tomatoes, cantaloupe, peppers and basil, and it’s just getting started. A greenhouse that uses microbe-focused compost is a no-brainer, and we want to show you how to do the same at Compost Academy.

09/13/2026

Brian shows off his static compost system, which is one of the classic, low labor, long term composting techniques we teach about at Compost Academy. In this case, Brian layers large amounts of woody biomass with some layers of nitrogen in areas he wants to slowly decompose over time into plantable soil in areas he wants to cultivate. Much like a Hugelkultur bed, he’s composting in place, composting in a way that’s preparing the soil for planting afterward. Static compost is a great long term, slow compost method that breaks down material slowly. Great way to deal with food waste and woody materials in your homestead and farm when you don’t have the time or labor to do a thermophilic or vermicompost!

09/11/2026

Soil Consultant Brian Vagg created an amazing homestead garden in his front and backyard using wood chips, microbe rich compost, and permaculture planning. 4 years after planting, his garden is growing into a beautiful place with high food production and beautiful aesthetics, with minimal needs for water, and no inputs. If you want to see how Biology can help you make a thriving homestead garden, check out our upcoming soil mentorship program!

09/09/2026

When Brian Vagg started on this front yard it was a barren patch of annual weeds sitting on soil that had almost no biology left in it.
His first move was simple. Bring in woodchips for organic matter, then inoculate those chips with compost extract so the microbiology he actually wanted was in there from the start, breaking the material down.
A few years on, the same ground grows food alongside flowering plants that pull in pollinators and birds. The yard is still young, and it is filling in fast enough that it finally feels permanent.

08/25/2026

Brian and Shelby are no strangers to growing food.

For more than 20 years, they watched their California property grow into a thriving food forest—building soil, planting trees, growing food, and learning what it takes to create abundance over time.

Then they started over on the Oregon coast.

Sandy soil. Less sun. Cooler conditions. A completely different growing environment.

This video shows year two of that transformation—and it’s only part of the story.

Over this series, we’re going to walk through the process Brian used to begin rebuilding this property from the ground up: what he started with, how he approached the soil, what he changed along the way, and what the yard looks like today.

Because the finished garden is great—but the process of getting there is where the real learning happens.

Follow along as we break down the transformation, one step at a time.

06/23/2026

An abandoned pool. A steep “useless” slope. A tiny triangle between two roads.

The spaces no one cared about… are now thriving food forests.

In the Hollywood Hills, the Soil Sponge Collective is bringing dead urban soil back to life, using living compost packed with bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes you can’t even see without a microscope.

Ground so hard you couldn’t push a fingernail into it is now rich, cake-soft earth, 18 inches deep. Bare lots have become jungles. One roadside patch hasn’t been watered in 2 years and it takes care of itself.

This is what happens when community + microbes + compost come together.

Want to grow living compost like this? We teach the exact methods at Compost Academy, link in bio and video on YouTube.

What forgotten space near you could become a food forest?

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