Growing veggies, flowers and fruits is not only for the garden – growing in containers can be an incredibly rewarding and abundant way to add nourishment and local veg to your meals. In this workshop, learn about what types of containers are the best to use, how to replenish nutrients and choose the right soil, and what varieties of fruit, veg and flowers are best grown in containers.
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Book an Adult Workshop
Gain new skills and knowledge with the Compost Education Centre! Learn more about our classes. Looking to register for one of our public workshops? Click here.
We are happy to come to your organization and share knowledge about the topics listed below. Online options are also possible, and workshops can be delivered to your group on Wednesdays through Saturdays. Daytime offerings are preferred, but evenings are also possible.
Custom workshops are also available. Please be in touch using the form below to share what you are looking for. Composting Basics, Worm Composting, and Soil Life workshops can be shortened for a one hour-long “lunch and learn” format.
Workshops
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Container Gardening
Contact for price quote · 1-2 hrs
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Hot Water Bath Canning
Contact for price quote · 2 hrs
Ever wonder what to do with all those tomatoes? How about the epic amount of beets your neighbor just gifted you? Or just want to Do-It-Yourself and make your own berry jam to enjoy in the dark days of winter? In this workshop we will talk about the basics of safe produce preservation using the hot water bath method of preservation. You’ll get to taste some yummy home canned goodies, and we’ll make a batch of home canned jam together. You will come away with a basic idea of how to can the season’s abundance safely, and have a list of resources to consult for further learning.
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Zero Waste Living
$200 · 2 hrs
Ever dream of a life where you create no waste? With some thought and planning, it’s possible! In this workshop, we’ll explore a typical home – from the bathroom to the kitchen, the garden to the living room, and identify a variety of ways that you can go waste free by making simple changes in your everyday life. At the end of the workshop, we’ll each make a commitment to an action that we will hold each other accountable to in weeks to come. Bring something to write with?
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Food Preservation Basics (offsite)
Contact for price quote · 1-2 hrs
Come learn the basics of how to preserve the abundance from your garden or local farmers. We will learn the basics of dehydrating, we’ll cover how best to freeze foods, store foods, and we’ll learn the science behind hot water bath canning and fermenting too. Preserving foods is not only a delicious way to taste summer in the dark rainy days of winter, but it is also an act of sustainability and creates more security in the food system.
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Sustainable Site Tour
$175 · 1-1.25 hrs
We offer guided tours during which participants will gain an in-depth understanding of the many ecological gardening techniques and processes at work on the Compost Education Centre’s site. Topics covered include attracting pollinators, permaculture guilds and food forests, organic vegetable growing, soil stewardship and rainwater harvesting.
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Resilient Lifestyles: Permaculture 101
Contact for a price quote · 2 hrs
Resilient Lifestyles are necessary in these times of climate change, forest fires, and a pandemic. Learn about how you can model your garden, home and life after nature, using the permaculture principles. Permaculture is a sustainable design theory modeled on natural ecosystems. With attention paid to where these practices and where this knowledge originated, come and learn about the ethics and principles of permaculture, and scale-able ways to apply the theory to your garden, home and life.
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Planning Your Year-Round Veggie Garden
Contact for price quote · 2 hrs
Here in Victoria good planning makes it possible to harvest produce from our gardens during every month of the year. Knowing when to sow seeds is important. But it’s just as crucial to know when and how to transition one crop to another. This presentation will show you how to plan to grow year-round, care for your soil, protect your crops in winter, and we’ll even touch on pests and diseases!
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Grow Your Own Food 101
Contact for price quote · 1-2 hrs
Want to grow your own groceries but not sure where to even start? This tip and info rich workshop is designed for beginners who want to get their hands dirty and start producing fresh produce in their backyards or in containers. We’ll cover soil health, basic gardening techniques like watering, weeding and mulching and so much more.
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Soil Life: Really Important Tiny Lives
$200 · 1-2 hrs
The soil under our feet is teeming with a web of microscopic life, whose complex interactions support all other terrestrial life. Healthy soils feature an intact and diverse microbial food web, which sustain nutrient cycles and maintain soil structure. We’ll finish by discussing the most effective ways to steward this living medium, and come away with aan inspired understanding of the intricate ways life in the soil, supports all life on earth.
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Worm Composting
$200 · 1-2 hrs
Everything you need to know about starting up and maintaining a worm bin compost system, also known as vermicomposting. Perfect for small space composting and apartment living, or in addition to other composting systems you already have started at your home. Vermicompost is every gardener’s dream as a finished soil amendment, and serves as a fast, easy food waste diversion tool.
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Advanced Composting
$200 · 1-2 hrs
Advanced Composting aims to broaden the scope of participants’ knowledge of composting methods. Topics covered will include dynamic accumulators and hot composting, compost tea, in-situ composting methods and humanure.
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Composting Basics
$200 · 1.5 hrs
What is the recipe for compost success and why does composting matter? This workshop will explore the answer to these questions, and will offer instructions on what it takes to produce an amendment for your garden that is rich in beneficial microorganisms and nutrients! We’ll cover the 6 factors for composting success, how to choose the best composting system for your needs and how to increase the rodent resistance of your compost pile.