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Book an Adult Workshops

Gain new skills and knowledge with the Compost Education Centre! Learn more about our classes. Looking 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 1 hour long “lunch and learn” format.

Workshops

Cultivating Healthy Soil in the Garden

Contact for price quote · 2 hrs
In this workshop we’ll explore the basis of all life on earth: Healthy Soil! We’ll explore what soil is made of and the vast importance of soil microbes. We’ll answer these questions and many more:
- What is soil made of and why does soil chemistry matter for growing healthy gardens?
- What is the function of beneficial soil microbes?
- What are some gardening methods that can help my garden thrive with beneficial soil microbes and healthy soil chemistry?
- How can I compost like an expert, mulch like a superstar and build soil organic matter every day of the year?
- Check out on site composting operations in the demonstration gardens: Earth machines, hot compost, tumblers, sheet mulches and worm bins! Together we will build a compost pile.
Come learn why soil is so important for plant growth and how to build incredible soil.

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Yard-Free Composting

$200 · 2 hrs
We’ll cover options that are available for composting without a yard. Surprisingly, there are many, and we’ll discover the benefits and drawbacks to each so you can determine the system that is right for your life & home. We’ll learn about:
- countertop electric food dehydrators & “composters”
- private food scrap pick up, municipal food scrap pick up & proper use of greenbins
- bokashi composting
- worm composting
Bring your questions, we’ll have time for Q & A.

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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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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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Soil Life: Really Important Tiny Lives

$200 · 1-2 hrs

Soil is capable of supporting plant life and is vital to life on earth, yet we understand very little about its complexities. Dig deeper with this introductory soil science workshop where we’ll look at the soil ecosystem and the microbiology that helps us grow nutritious food.

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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.
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.