Compost Education Centre Spring Fundraiser on April 6th!
March 16, 2016
Join us for our Spring Fundraiser to give back to the earth while having fun, chatting with friendly folks and bidding on fantastic silent auction items!
The wonderful musical talent that is the Blackwood Two will be performing their acoustic melodies and your ticket includes a pint of Hoyne beer and an appetizer buffet. Tickets are $25 and are available online through Eventbrite.
Proceeds from the fundraiser will directly fund our school workshops and projects such as the Healing City Soils Project, an initiative offering free soil tests to analyze Victoria’s soils and create a virtual “soil health” map of Victoria. Fundraising allows us to continue these great projects and to educate children and adults about the importance of soil conservation, composting and creating and sustaining local food systems.
Bid on fantastic silent auction items generously donated by:
- Costa Verde Landscaping
- Victoria Clipper Vacations
- Moksana Yoga
- Atlas Health Therapy
- Brun Body Bar
- Moon Under Water Pub
- Curves Oak Bay
- Cast Art Studios
- Royal BC Museum
- Haros Restaurant
- Pizzeria Primastrada
- Caffe Fantastico
- Eagle Whale Eco-Tours
- Storied Wine and Spirits Gift Basket
- The Keg on Quadra
- Kelp Reef Kayak
- Hands on Pottery
- Emerald Day Spa
- Tonic Spa-tique
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Bokashi is a Japanese term meaning “fermented organic matter”. Different from composting, which is aerobic, it is an anaerobic process that allows a person to deal with a wide variety of food waste on-site. Bokashi harnesses the power of effective microorganisms (EM) dehydrated onto a cereal base to carry out the fermentation process . It is best used as a partner to a compost pile, because you will need a place to compost the ‘spent’ material once it has finished going through the bokashi process. It is a great alternative to the green cone food digester as it breaks down the same types of materials but doesn’t need sunlight or to be buried down 2 feet in your garden work. You can make your own system or purchase a ready-to-use unit.
In general, tumbler composters are in the form of a barrel mounted on a stand so the unit can be turned or “tumbled” around a central axis. They can be mounted horizontally or vertically, both work well. Turning these units easily incorporates air into the material inside the tumbler, which can speed up the decomposition process. It is possible that you may get a finished product faster than with passive backyard composting due to the increased aeration that tumblers make possible. However, beware of manufacturers that say you will have finished compost in three weeks or less – anything that looks finished in this short amount of time will be unstable and need to sit for at least 6-8 weeks longer to cure.
When we built our new greenhouse wanted the plans for this project to be free and readily accessible. As such, this factsheet includes a budget and materials list for the greenhouse, a list of the lessons I learned, and some photos of the building process.
Community outreach volunteering involves staffing the Compost Education Centre mobile displays when we attend different events throughout the CRD, such as:
Garden volunteering is a great opportunity to learn new skills and help out in the gardens at the Compost Ed Centre! Work bees are held on the first Saturday of every month from 12:30-3:30. Each one is focused on a relevant task in the garden for that month of the growing season. We begin with a short theory lesson to give some background on the task and then get dirty applying the new knowledge in the garden.
