Category: Uncategorized

Mycology at the CEC

December 20, 2023

Ever since moving to the coast, I’ve been fascinated by flora and have spent a lot of time learning the names of the plants around me and how to recognize them. While spending so much time in the forest admiring plants, it became hard to ignore fungi when fall rolled around. Since 2021, I’ve been equally enamored with the fungal diversity that can be found here on the south island, which led me to join the South Vancouver Island Mycological Society (SVIMS). Joining the mycological society has been very fun, and has provided me the opportunity to learn from countless experts while expanding my knowledge of the fungal kingdom.

This fall, the CEC supported me in attending SVIMS’s annual Cowichan Lake Foray as a professional development opportunity. The Foray is a Friday-Sunday event consisting of several guided mushroom walks, identification and generally a survey of the fungal biodiversity in the area. There were a plethora of amazing things out there, but my mushr.oom find of the weekend was definitely finding my first Cauliflower mushroom (Sparassis radicata), which I was able to take home and cook with my roommates. Another fun part of the weekend was getting to help out in the identification room a bit. When I first joined SVIMS, I mostly practiced “keying out” mushrooms that others already knew what they were to get familiar with the process. Keying out is the process of identifying fungi using guidebooks and other resources. This time around, I tried my hand at keying out mushrooms that hadn’t yet been successfully IDed and ended up identifying one of them as a Tricholoma species that we only found one potential previous record of having been observed in British Columbia. SVIMS ended up sending it for DNA sequencing so it’ll be exciting to see if the results are a match for the ID I made!

Compared to plants and animals, there is a lot more we don’t know about what fungi species we have here in North America. Many species here are currently named for similar European species, but as more genetic sequencing is done, we are discovering that the species are distinct from their European counterparts and/or what we previously considered to be just one species is actually several. For this reason, even the most amateur mycologist can make interesting contributions by observing, documenting, and preserving specimens they find. While learning about the ever-evolving taxonomy of fungi is interesting, it’s even more intriguing to learn about all the various roles fungi have in the ecosystem as well as the ways they interact with plants, insects, animals. and everything in the forest.

In my role running the semester long Let it Rot (LIR) program at high schools in the CRD, it has been so great to get to incorporate mycology with the knowledge I’ve gained at SVIMS over the past two years. This fall, I ran a mycology unit as part of LIR which included a guided mushroom walk, a lesson in documenting fungi using field slips, recording key information, properly collecting and taking spore prints. We also learned about fungi’s many roles in the ecosystem and wrapped it up with some fungi trivia. The students were quite excited about mushrooms and got really into trying to spot them. Even this week in early December weeks after our mycology unit students were asking if we could do another mushroom walk. I’ll be looking forward to another mycology unit in 2024 when some spring fungi are out. And stay tuned for an adult introduction to mycology workshop fall 2024!

 By Elora Adamson, Child & Youth Education Manager

Keen to learn more with Elora about mushrooms?

Stay in the loop by becoming a member today

Kayla Siefried, a finalist for Charity Village Award

December 6, 2023

Our Site Manager and Community Education Coordinator, Kayla Siefried was a top finalist for the Charity Village awards, in the category of Most Outstanding Individual Impact. 

As an expert educator and ground leader, Kayla teaches others to do as she says and what she does. In her time at the CEC she has taught 946 workshops to 16,127 childen, youth, and adults on topics related to composting, food preservation, and gardening.

When asked to describe his experience learning from Kyla, a former workshop attendee wrote:

“For the past two years, Kayla has been my invaluable gardening mentor, guiding me through this journey with unwavering expertise and passion. Her exceptional communication skills have not only helped me immensely but have also benefited our entire class. I owe her a profound debt of gratitude, as there’s no one I’ve learned more from about gardening than her.”

We are grateful to have Kayla on staff at the Compost Education Centre.

By Zoe-Blue Coates, Office Manager and Communications Coordinator

Strategic Planning Updates

December 1, 2023

I joined the Compost Ed Centre as Executive Director in February 2023, and I’m constantly learning about who we are and what we do. Let me begin by saying that I am so grateful to work with Elora, Jeffrey, Kayla, and Zoe-Blue. Earlier this year in anticipation of our strategic planning, we sent out a survey to gather data from our community as to what they view as the Compost Ed Centre’s strengths and what they might want us to do differently in the next three to five years. Consistently, the responses highlighted knowledgeable, engaging, and passionate staff as our core strength. And for the future? For us to keep doing what we have been doing – and possibly some expansion!? The responses highlighted for me how well-established and well-loved the Compost Ed Centre is after 30 years of operation.

We want to share our many thanks to everyone who filled out a survey! We compiled the responses into a short PowerPoint to provide some context to our strategic planning.

What has resonated for me most in this role and what we have learned from you all is how the Compost Ed Centre creates impact through education and research. On one level, we transfer technical skills that empower workshop participants, site volunteers, university students, and schoolkids to take on climate mitigation and adaptation action. But on another – and more profound – level, we integrate folks into our community of plants and people. The Compost Ed Centre cultivates an increased sense of connectivity and reciprocity, and we do it by sharing knowledge in a welcoming way.

I can speak personally to how welcomed I have felt to this role and to the Compost Ed Centre’s community. I want to highlight how fortunate I’ve been to work with Alexis so much over the past few months as she has transitioned out of the Executive Director role. The pandemic and post-pandemic inflation has hit nonprofits hard, but Alexis’s steady and wise tenure as Executive Director made it possible for me to step into this role with a confident rather than crisis mindset. Amidst so much change in the world, I feel reassured that the Compost Ed Centre will continue to thrive in the same way for the next 30 years by catching and mixing folks right on into our community – just like the browns and greens in a hot compost pile.

Haven’t yet hopped into the hot compost pile?

Become a member of our community today!

We want to express our gratitude to the Government of Canada’s Community Service Recovery Fund, which has made our strategic planning work possible. The Community Services Recovery Fund is a one-time $400 million investment from the Government of Canada to support community service organizations, including charities, non-profits and Indigenous governing bodies, as they adapt and modernize their organizations. We have been able to engage in the staff retreat and other strategic planning activities with the support of the CSRF.

By Claire Remington, Executive Director

Victoria’s Vital Signs Report

October 12, 2023

Vital signs is a check-up that measures vitality of a region, identifies concerns, and supports action on issues that are important for our quality of life. Each year the Victoria Foundation shares this check-up in a report. This year, the Compost Education Centre is featured in the Environmental Sustainability section.

Read the report

Seven Years of Success with the Healing City Soils Program

October 1, 2023

The Healing City Soils (HCS) program dismantles barriers to people growing their own food; educates on how soil health is vital to local ecosystems, community wellbeing, and climate change mitigation; and builds community around restoring damaged soils. The program is a partnership between the Compost Education Centre (CEC) and Royal Roads University (RRU). On August 28^th, the HCS community came together at Hatley Castle on the RRU campus to watch – and celebrate – undergraduate environmental science students present the results from the program’s seventh successful year of implementation.

Soil testing can be expensive, and the results are often complex, confusing, and disheartening. The uncertainty of soil contamination, the expense of soil testing, and the opaqueness of soil testing results are all barriers that prevent people from growing their own food. The RRU students addressed these barriers and furthermore, they educated on the importance of soil health. There were other environmental science students, Capital Regional District (CRD) growers and gatherers, CEC staff, RRU professors and staff, and friends and family in attendance; and the audience walked away with an improved understanding and appreciation for soil health.

Have questions about your soil quality? Stay connected!

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive updates on Healing City Soils 2024 soil testing

Over the course of eight months, two student groups in Professor Matt Dodd’s environmental science major project course performed literature reviews, designed research questions, learned new laboratory protocols, and engaged in hands-on environmental science.

Both student groups competently explained their science, shared their challenges, provided recommendations for next year’s crop of students, and tackled critical barriers to scaling up sustainable food systems in the CRD.

The first student group focused on providing free heavy metal soil testing of backyards, community gardens, boulevard gardens, and traditional harvesting sites in the Capital Regional District (CRD) to 100 food grower and gatherer program participants; this is part of the CEC’s long-term HCS program. All participants received the results of their heavy metal soil tests alongside easy-to-understand educational materials like the CEC’s factsheet on soil contamination. The results will be incorporated into an interactive online map.

Do you think this research is cool?

Contribute to the sustainability of this program! Become a donor

The second student group was drawn in by the questions of the Ground Beneath Our Feet (GBOF) pilot that the CEC started in 2020; the GBOF group analyzed the potential of using plants, compost, and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) to remediate soils contaminated with heavy metals. AMF naturally occur in many habitats, and they improve plant nutrition, stress resistance and tolerance, soil structure and fertility. The students maintained three different pilot sites where they tested soil quality and plant tissue for heavy metals, planted and maintained plants hypothesized to be bioaccumulators, and applied compost and AMF. The students found the combination of woolly sunflower, compost, and AMF to be effective in remediating contaminated soils.

We are so grateful to the First West Foundation’s for making this work possible!

By Claire Remington, Executive Director

Join our Board!

August 9, 2023

The Compost Education Centre is seeking skilled leaders and innovators to serve on its Board of Directors.

Our mission is to create resilient communities, which support the land and all living beings to thrive, and we want you to join us in this objective!

The Compost Education Centre (CEC) is a project of the Victoria Compost and Conservation Education Society, a not-for-profit, charitable organization.  Since 1992, the CEC has provided in-school and community-centred educational programs for people of all ages throughout Greater Victoria and our Capital Regional District (CRD).  The CEC is mandated to provide practical, hands-on education around composting, waste diversion, soil conservation and environmental stewardship while also promoting organic and ecological gardening practices as a means of reducing the health and environmental effects of chemical gardening practices, which can be harmful to natural systems, as well as promoting the environmental and social benefits of local food production.

Benefits of Participating

• Fantastic opportunity to build experience in organizational growth, not-for-profit and charity work;
• Connect & collaborate with a dedicated team that is passionate about waste reduction, soil conservation and local food production, as well as the intersections between food, land, and environmental justice;
• Training and leadership development opportunities (soil conservation and composting, team building, social enterprise development, event coordination, sustainable living skills);
• Contribute to your community and to the wellbeing of local ecosystems and the broader environment.

Responsibilities

• Attend Board meetings on a monthly basis from 6-7:30pm at the Centre 1216 North Park Street in Fernwood, or online via Zoom
• Participate in 1-3 committees: Policy, Finance & Fundraising, and Board Development
• Work as part of a dynamic team to maintain the successful long term operation of the CEC
• Commit to a 2 year term consisting of 5-10 hours of work per month

Available Positions

• Secretary
• Member-at-large
• Committee members

Fill out the form below to apply.

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

Annual August Plant Sale + 30th Birthday Party

July 14, 2022

The Compost Education Centre (CEC) is hosting our 11th Annual August Plant Sale! This event features local farmers offering a wide variety of organically grown annual overwintering vegetables and perennials to keep you eating through the winter. And to celebrate our 30th birthday as an organization we’ll also have live music, cake, artisan vendors, an e-bike raffle, a bean counting contest, and more!

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

There will also be a Parent-Child workshop ‘Composting 101’ taking place during the sale, so bring the whole family and learn about composting while you’re here!