Category: Announcement

Healing City Soils is a finalist for the Canadian Museum of nature’s Community Action Nature Inspiration Award!  The award celebrates community groups who show leadership in taking action to protect wildlife and habitats, training volunteers and citizen-scientists, or in developing new educational programs for children and adults. The Healing City Soils program analyzes the CRD’s soil health, researches how native plants can be used to remediate contaminated soils, and provides plain language resources and resources to households interested in growing their food safely. 

CEC Annual General Meeting

September 13, 2023

At our Annual General Meeting (AGM), staff and board members of the CEC will review the important work that the organization accomplished in 2022. We will recap educational program achievements, new projects and programs, and discuss some of the ways that the CEC adapted its offerings to serve the public throughout the pandemic.

Want to join our Board of Directors? Find out how here!

CEC members in good standing will have the opportunity to vote on decisions that affect the future of the organization, including helping to elect new members to our Board of Directors. Members in good standing who attend the AGM will also be entered to win a door prize which can be picked up at the Compost Education Centre in following days.

Anyone can attend the CEC’s AGM. For members and non-members, attending our AGM is a great way to support the CEC and learn more about the work that we do here!

RSVP

Welcome Celia!

June 15, 2023

Summer is here and we are so happy to welcome our newest staff member! Celia has been a longtime volunteer in the garden and the Healing City Soils program. We are fortunate to have her on our team this summer. Below are some get to know me questions.

What’s your favorite dish? Tabbouleh! So fresh and delicious.

What’s your favorite summer activity? Riding my bike to the lake. 

What do you like about the Compost Education Centre? I like feeling connected to food, the land, and growing out food responsibly with reciprocity for the beings around us. I love sharing that education with everyone in our community who wants to learn. It’s been great working with the CEC and feeling connected to food and flowers! 

What’s your favorite berry? I love strawberries, but when it comes to flavor, raspberries have my heart.  

What do you do in your free time? I like to garden, sew, and read. Currently, I’m rereading the Lord of the Rings. 

The Compost Education Centre (CEC) is hosting our annual all-organic Spring plant sale on May 13th from 10AM-2PM!

The plant sale will take place for the first time in Haegert Park (1202 Yukon St.) one block from our site on North Park street. Bring a blanket or a picnic so you can enjoy the music in the shade of the giant Sequoia tree. Entry by donation or free for CEC members. Dogs welcome.

The Spring Organic Plant Sale features local farmers offering a wide variety of organically grown vegetable, flower and herb seedlings to get you off to a successful start this growing season.

There will also be a Parent-Child workshop ‘Spectacular Seeds’ taking place during the sale, so bring the whole family and learn about seeds while you’re here!

What you can look forward to:

• The largest selection of organically grown heirloom tomato varieties all in one place for easy shopping

• Organically grown vegetable starts from arugula to zucchini

• Native plants for your low maintenance garden

• Perennial edibles like berry bushes and other fruiting shrubs

• Medicinal herbs like English lavender, chamomile and yarrow

• Culinary herbs like Genovese basil, dill and chives

• Companion plants like marigolds, sweet cicely and comfrey

• Live music!

Thank you to the City of Victoria and Cold Comfort Ice Cream for generously sponsoring this event.

This new factsheet will walk you through: How to build the best soil;  what time and money you’ll need; easy & productive plants to grow; and how to care for your plants throughout the growing season.

All factsheets are free on our website and onsite thanks to funding provided by the CRD.

Click here to read the factsheet

Claire Remington has joined the Compost Education team as the Executive Director.

She is a settler with German, British, and Irish ancestry who has lived on Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ territories for the past five years. She was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and grew up in Nairobi, Kenya where her parents worked for an international humanitarian agency. She holds a BA in Chemistry from Reed College in Portland, Oregon and a MASc in Civil Engineering from the University of Victoria.

Claire is an interdisciplinary researcher with a decade of work experience focused on improving communities’ sustainability and resilience. Before working for the CEC, Claire spent 8 years working for SOIL, a non-governmental organization that operates a household sanitation and thermophilic composting waste treatment service in Haiti. Her strengths include project management, financial analysis, stakeholder consultation, and technical communication. She has also taught university-level courses with a focus on sustainable natural resource management, public health engineering, and sustainable cities.

In her free time you’ll find Claire playing ultimate frisbee, reading a book, hiking, or playing board games with friends.

2023 Seeds are here!

January 13, 2023

2023 seeds are $4.75, pick them up at our retail space at 1216 North Park St.

Annual Veggies

Arugula, annual; Arugula, sylvetta; Beets, Winterkeeper; Broccoli, Purple Sprouting; Carrot, Berlicumer; Kale, Siberian; Leek, Unique; Lettuce, All Weather Blend; Lettuce, Arctic King; Lettuce, Hot Weather Blend; Mixed Mustards; Peas, Sugar Snap, Pole; Spinach, Giant Winter; Squash, Waltham Butternut; Summer Squash, Trio of Summer

Herbs

Basil, Genovese; Parsley, Italian Flat Leaf; Cilantro Sorrel, French

Flowers

Nasturtium, ALM; Mix Sunflower, Mixed; Sweet Pea, ALM Mix

Tomatoes & Peppers

Sweetie (cherry, indeterminate), Matina (medium sized, indeterminate), Ardwyna Pepper

Good Food Champions 2022

November 3, 2022

We are grateful to be this years recipients of the Good Food Champion Award in the Food Literacy Category. This recognition of our work is motivation for us to continue our mission and work closely with our communities as we build resiliency in the face of food insecurity, top soil depletion, and the other issues seen by climate change. We do not do this work in isolation! Congratulations to the other award winners: Iye Creative, Welcome Gardens, Community Fridge, Wild Mountain Restaurant, and Sandown Centre for Regenerative Agriculture. May we all continue to cultivate resilient communities for years to come.