THE LATEST DIRT Autumn

2009

THE NEWSLETTER OF THE GREATER VICTORIA COMPOST EDUCATION CENTRE

Marvelous Manure! By Kim Watt

Many organic farmers and compost fanatics consider manure to be the single most important ingredient in the compost pile. Manure can increase the ability of the soil to absorb water, can inoculate garden materials with beneficial microorganisms and bacteria, and provide a rich source of nitrogen and nutrients to the compost pile. While manure has been used as a fertilizer, compost ingredient and soil conditioner since the earliest days of agriculture, the dawn of synthetic fertilizers and soil amendments has decreased our reliance on this valuable resource. For many farmers, excess manure is considered a waste problem which can contaminate local watersheds and cause nutrient overload in aquatic ecosystems. Less than 20% of the nutrients in manure ever find their way back to agricultural lands. Through reintroducing manure to the backyard com-poster, we can utilize what is sometimes treated as a waste while introducing many valuable nutrients to the garden.

Manures are essentially the partially-digested feed and degraded plant materials of herbivorous animals. Manure is considered a “green” material in the compost, as it has high nitrogen and bacterial content. However, a lot of manure is mixed in with carbon rich straw and other bedding materials which can balance the high levels of nitrogen. When adding it to a hot compost bin, Earth Ma-chine, or other aerobic backyard composting system it is best to layer in 2-4 inches of manure between equal layers of carbon rich materials. As much as 30% of the mass of manure is active bacteria, which will digest and help accelerate the breakdown of organic matter in the compost.

Many people ask whether there is a difference between fresh manure and rotted (aged) manure. Fresh manure is a mixture of urine and feces and contains higher levels of moisture and nitrogen than aged manures. Because fresh manure loses half its weight in moisture during the aging process, aged manure has a higher concentration of minerals and soluble nutrients and is considered lower in nitrogen. Both fresh and mature manure can be used directly in the compost pile but only well-aged manure can be used directly in the garden, as fresh manure can “burn” plant roots with too much nitrogen and salt.

While adding manure to the compost has many advantages, not all manures are created equal. The value of the manure is de-pendent on the health, age, and species of the animal it comes from and the quality of food the animal is fed. It is best to use the manure from herbivorous, free range animals, as their feces are less likely to contain pathogens which could be harmful to human health. Common sources are from horses, cattle, lla-mas, goats, sheep, pigs (veggie-fed), rabbits, poultry, and worms. Llama and worm manure can be mixed with soil and applied directly around mature plants without “burning” them, while all other manures should be composted or well aged be-fore coming into contact with plants.

Animal Manure Comparison Animal % N Nitrogen % P Phosphorus % K Potassium

Llama 1.7 0.69 0.66

Chicken 1.0 0.8 0.4

Horse 0.7 0.25 0.55

Sheep 0.95 0.35 1.0

Cow 0.6 0.15 0.45

Pig 0.5 0.35 0.4

Rabbit 2.5 1.5 .5

Worm 3.2 1.1 1.5

Looking for manure in the city? There are a few good sources of manure in the city. Tally-Ho and Victoria Carriage Tours allow the public to come collect their horse manure at the corner of Belleville Street. and Menzies Street. Online classifieds often have postings from farms where manure is available for pickup, and bags of manure can sometimes be found along rural roads in Metchosin and Saanich.

For more information about manure and other great organic gardening tips, call us at 250-386-WORM (9676) or email Kim at sitemgr@compost.bc.ca.

Staff

Kim Watt Marika Smith Nashira Birch Nadine Brodeur Marion Wylie

Contact us at

1216 North Park Street (at Chambers) Victoria BC V8T 1C9

Hours of Operation Wed. to Sat. 10 am to 4 pm Closed on statutory holidays,

long weekends, and the month of December

Phone: 386-WORM ( 386-9676)

Fax: 386-9678

E-mail: info@compost.bc.ca

Website: www.compost.bc.ca

Board of Directors Janet Hockin Gail Snider David Neate

Natalie Cushing Wendy Dunn

Thomas Maguire Tim Taylor

Bill McKechnie

Contributors to this issue of

THE LATEST DIRT

Nadine Brodeur Marika Smith Nashira Birch Kim Watt

Stephanie Enevoldsen

Newsletter Formatting

Nadine Brodeur

We gratefully acknowledge the core funding support that we receive from the CRD and the City of Victoria. Addi-tional support is provided by the Fern-wood Community Association and through the generosity of our Compost Club Members and the residents of Greater Victoria.

Welcome to Kim - Our New Site Manager

Printed on-post consumer recycled paper

Richard, our summer site intern poured his enthusiasm and expertise into building a solar food dehydrator for our demonstration site. The dehydrator is built from mostly recycled materials including a used kitchen cabinet, old window frame, salvaged wood, a damaged solar panel, and a dryer vent. Already the dehydrator has been work-ing hard drying tomatoes, apples, and berries from the site and will hopefully help us preserve the summer har-vest for years to come! It was a fun project to watch un-fold and is a welcome new addition to our demonstration site. Come by the centre to check it out in person and stayed tuned as we intend to offer a course next year on how to build one yourself. You too can savour your har-vest in the winter months!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR DONATIONS

B. Pegg A. Tokarek M. Lovell

K. Cook N. Turner J. Boyle

S. Zimmerman G. Seabrook

While Angela is on maternity leave - Kim Watt has joined our team. Kim joined the centre as a volunteer in 2006 before becoming the Site Manager in 2009. Her path to managing an urban agriculture and edu-cation site has been a lifelong one. Kim grew up in a family of farmers, organic gardeners, permacultur-ists, and food-lovers, who nurtured her passion for green living from a young age. As a teenager, she began taking permaculture and organic gardening courses. After high school, she followed her passion down to Central America for an internship on a per-maculture farm. In 2008, Kim completed the 9-month intensive Linnaea Ecological Gardening Pro-

gram on Cortes Island, and has more recently been working locally as an organic veggie garden de-signer. She is currently completing her degree in Child and Youth Care and Environmental Studies, and applying her passion for this work into developing a youth program (SLUGS – Sustainable Liv-ing and Urban Gardening Skills) at the Compost Education Centre. Managing the demonstration site here at the Centre feels like a natural fit, and Kim is pouring her green thumb, creative mind and

passion for local and global change into the gardens!

Kim enjoying a fresh bell pepper from the garden...

Our Solar Dehydrator: A fun and inexpensive way to preserve food!

As an initiative to harvest & circulate rainwater among beneficial water loving plants, reused bath tubs were originally installed in 2002 by staff and volunteers of the Compost Education Center. A mixture of clay, sand & straw [cob] was built around the tiered tubs to beautify and add cohesion to their func-tion. The center asked Fernwood resident & natural builder, Stephanie Enevoldsen, of TerraCobba Designs, to rebuild the cob in 2007. But upon taking apart the weathered cob surrounding the tubs, it was evi-dent that the entire project needed to be rebuilt from the support foundation up! A scheduled workshop allowed participants to learn how to mix & build with cob. Since then, continu-ous work parties have resulted in applying earthen plaster & grout, installing mosaic tiles for more weather resistance, and finally sealing the tubs with linseed oil & beeswax. Thanks to staff and volun-teer help over the years, the tubs should now hold up well in the rain; demonstrating natural beauty and function at the center. - come by the centre to check it out!

For more information on TerraCobba Designs and their projects

call Stephanie at (250) 595-3047 or email at terracobba@gmail.com.

Form and Function: Mosaic of Cob Tubs Complete!

Our solar dehydrator made mainly of reclaimed and recycled materials!

Volunteer Spotlight

Kids’ Compost CornerKids’ Compost CornerKids’ Compost CornerKids’ Compost Corner Fall is a time of plenty, with leaves piling like snow drifts and pumpkins and apples squirming to be harvested and eaten. The scary thing is…most of these resources end up in the landfill…entombed for years in all that garbage…Don’t let your resources go to waste this fall!

What to do with all these leaves??? Fallen leaves are Mother Nature’s way of composting…When they fall, they don’t go to waste. Instead, they create a ground mulch that protects the tree’s roots over the winter months like a warm blanket and keeps the soil from being washed away or invaded by weeds. The leaves also provide food for worms and other soil animals, who recy-cle the leaves’ nutrients back into the soil to grow more healthy trees and plants.

Build a leaf pile. Leaf piles are fun to jump in, and when you are done, they can be saved all winter as a great “brown” ingredient for your compost. Mulch your garden. We need to add extra blankets to our beds in the winter – and so does your garden. Mulching helps to keep the soil warm and moist, and protect it from being washed away with all our winter rains.

What to do with all these pumpkins???

1) Smash your jack o’

lantern at Pumpkin Smash! On November 7th and 8th, the Compost Education Centre will be playing pumpkin smash-ing games at various Thrifty’s locations to make sure that the left-over Halloween pump-kins get recycled back into the soil from which they came. (see page 4)

2) Read: Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White, Illustrated by Megan Lloyd.

3) Compost your jack o’ lantern at home. In the spring, you can use the finished compost to plant more pumpkins!

4) Make roasted pumpkin seeds. This is a delicious way to use all parts of the pumpkin. Check out Terralicious’s pumpkin workshops (see page 4).

Summer fun for worms at our first annual WORM CAMP! Over the summer we ran a new program at the centre called ‘Worm Camp’. This little pilot project was created as a way for school teachers to have their worm bins and worms taken care of over the summer and then returned to them in the fall, ready for the next group of students. Great fun was had by all the worms who participated and it was soon time for them to pack their worm-y backpacks, collect their arts and crafts, say good-bye to their friends and head on back to school! We held two ‘worm harvest parties’ in the glorious sunshine and thanks to the efforts of our fabulous volunteers, managed to send over fifteen pounds of worms back to school! A great big thank you to all of my ‘Worm Wranglers’: Rhona McAdam, Lynn Monchamp, Brenda Pilon, Sarah Gignac, Randall Filan, Kathy Cook, Glenys Verhulst, Mildred Woot-

ton, Robert Pegg, Denise and Rose. As a reward, the worms were kind enough to share their castings with their dedicated wranglers! The harvest parties were a great social and learning event AND saved the centre around 20 hours of worm picking, allowing us to use that valuable time to deliver more educational programs! Stay tuned for more party invita-tions! Happy Fall everyone! ~ Marika (and the worms)Marika (and the worms)Marika (and the worms)Marika (and the worms)

Compost Educator Training Program (CEP) Graduates Compost Educator Training Program (CEP) Graduates Compost Educator Training Program (CEP) Graduates Compost Educator Training Program (CEP) Graduates Congratulations to our CEP graduates upon the completion of their practicum:

Tricia Irish, Meagan MacDonald, Haley DeKorne Happy Collins, & Christy Mack

Our Worm Camp participants - if you listen

closely you can hear them singing age-old camp songs!

Our dedicated Worm Wranglers retrieving

worm-y participants to send them back to school. Photos courtesy of R. McAdam

Jack o’lanterns from last year’s Pumpkin Smash.

Did you know? Worms are not the only composters in the soil…South American leaf-

cutter ants drag leaves under ground to chew them up. The funny

thing is, these ants don’t actually eat leaves! Instead, they turn them

into compost to cultivate a certain fungus, which is what they eat.

These ants are important for the soil -- in its lifetime, a leaf-cutter ant

colony may move up to 20 tonnes of soil!

DATE EVENT TIME COST

Oct. 3 Composting Basics 10-noon FREE - call to register Oct. 14 Terralicious - Sweet Squash & Pumpkin Dishes 2-4pm $45 - See website for details Oct. 17 Grow the Best Garlic 2-4 pm $15 (Members refer to policy) Oct. 17 Tricky Treats: Snacking on Pumpkins 3-4 pm FREE - See website for details Oct. 24 Grow the Best Mushrooms 2-4 pm $15 (Members refer to policy) Oct. 24 Tricky Treats: Snacking on Pumpkins 3-4 pm FREE - See website for details Oct. 28 Terralicious - Sweet Squash & Pumpkin Dishes 2-4 pm $45 - See website for details

Nov. 7 & 8 PUMPKIN SMASH 10-3 pm By Donation – See website for details.

Nov. 14 Composting Basics 10-noon FREE - call to register Nov. 14 Propagating Food Plants 2-4 pm $15 (Members refer to policy) Nov. 21 Mason Bees Part 2 2-4 pm $15 (Members refer to policy) Dec. 12 Annual Holiday Sale 10-4 pm Come buy your Seasonal Composting Gifts!

DECEMBER Centre closed until January

MUST PRE-REGISTER FOR WORKSHOPS BY CALLING 386-WORM OR EMAILING info@compost.bc.ca

THE LATEST DIRT is published quarterly. Submissions to the newsletter can be sent to the Com-post Education Centre. Unless otherwise noted, arti-cles appearing in this newsletter may be reprinted only in other not-for-profit publications, with the credit given to the author (when named) and

THE LATEST DIRT.

Giving Goes Green! Giving to the Compost Ed. Centre is easy! Save time and paper by offering your dona-tions on-line through Canada Helps.org. Sim-ply surf over to www.canadahelps.org and type in “Compost”. Our name is on the top of the search results. Or, visit our website and click the Canada Helps link. Donations are still happily accepted at our office.

Our 5th Anniversary Our 5th Anniversary Our 5th Anniversary Our 5th Anniversary ---- Pumpkin Smash Pumpkin Smash Pumpkin Smash Pumpkin Smash ! It’s time again for us to gather and celebrate the spooky for our largest event of the year – our 5h Annual Pumpkin Smash!

This year’s Smash will again include four Thrifty Foods locations and we are excited to announce that we will be partnering

with Terralicious to offer a variety of courses before Halloween focusing on how to use your pumpkins and squashes as food

not just decoration! Terralicious will be offering 2 different courses. The first being Tricky Treats: Snacking on Pumpkins

which is a free course for parents and kids at the Thrifty Foods Demonstration Kitchen. The second course is for adults at

Terralicious Cooking and Gardening school entitled Sweet Squash and Pumpkin Dishes and will focus on how to cook heri-

tage varieties of pumpkins and squash in delectable gourmet ways! Pumpkin Smash will be held November 7th and 8th from

10am to 3pm each day. Bring your family and friends, and of course your pumpkins, and join us for Pumpkin Bowling and

other fun family games to help us raise awareness for composting!

Tricky Treats: Snacking on Pumpkins (FREE)Tricky Treats: Snacking on Pumpkins (FREE)Tricky Treats: Snacking on Pumpkins (FREE)Tricky Treats: Snacking on Pumpkins (FREE) Thrifty Foods Demonstration Kitchen

Tuscany Village Thrifty Foods - 1626 McKenzie Ave.

Parents and Children (max 2 children, ages 6 and up)

October 17 or 24 from 3:00 - 4:00 pm

All supplies provided including pumpkins- Call Thrifty Foods at (250) 483-1222 to register!

Sweet Squash & Pumpkin Dishes ($45)Sweet Squash & Pumpkin Dishes ($45)Sweet Squash & Pumpkin Dishes ($45)Sweet Squash & Pumpkin Dishes ($45) Terralicious Cooking & Gardening School - 741 Haliburton Rd.

October 14 or 28 from 2:00 - 4:00pm

All supplies provided including pumpkins- Call Terralicious at (250) 883-8860 to register!

Pumpkin Smash (by Donation)Pumpkin Smash (by Donation)Pumpkin Smash (by Donation)Pumpkin Smash (by Donation) Saturday, November 7th - Fairfield & Cloverdale Thrifty Foods

Sunday, November 8th - Admirals & Hillside Thrifty Foods

Family fun and games! Bring your jack-o-lantern - 10:00 to 3:00 pm

Upcoming Events