Composting Guidelines
We encourage individuals who wish to compost at the Community Garden to become
support members, a $5.00 investment.
Support Members are welcome to:
- participate as volunteers in work parties and school programs
- attend workshops
- use the compost facilities
- harvest in help yourself gardens.
Three Bin Vermiculture Compost
Red wiggler worms are in the bins.
They feed on organic material and add their castings to the finished compost garden
amendment.
This system is meant to compost kitchen plant waste
Before adding material to compost bin Please:
- remove all plastic material from vegetable matter including: bags - boxes - stickers
plastic or nylon tea bags
- compostable bags and containers will not break down in this system
- ensure that all material added to compost is in smaller pieces
- no whole vegetables
or fruit
- deposit fresh organic material into the bin that is currently active
- read the signs.
Please Compost:
- add small cut up kitchen vegetable waste - egg shells - coffee grounds - tea - waste
bread
- scatter available brown material on top of each fresh addition such as; straw - dirt -
sawdust - shredded paper
- ensure that the material is moist
- With the help of microorganisms, bacteria and worms, this all transforms into
beautiful brown-black soil, in a matter of months. Magic science!
Hot Pile Compost
This pile is used to reduce garden refuse into usable garden amendment over
2 seasons:
- The internal heat of the pile helps to break down the organic material and decimates
most seed.
- You can add weeds, stalks, roots and flowers, as coarse material helps air get into
the pile
- Fewer weed seeds means fewer weeds growing in the garden
- Best practice is to remove weeds before they go to seed
- Please break garden refuse into pieces no bigger than 12” or 30 cm.
For your information, please check out this link for Building Healthy Soils: Building Heathy Soils Handout.pdf
