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Garden-Wise: Tips from Community Gardeners
Garden Leadership
Building an Effective Garden Team
Engaging the Spirit of Volunteerism
Ingredients For A Successful Community Garden
The Future of Community Gardening
Water
Soil
Weeds
Composting
Putting Your Garden to Bed at the End of the Season
Beauty In Community Gardens
Vandalism
Theft
Funding & Fundraising
Beyond the Garden Bed: Garden Relations
Community Relations
Funding Sources
Tips - Container Food Gardening
Tips - Extending the Calgary Garden Season
Fact Sheets
Aboriginal First Nations Gardening
How-To Links
More Links
Fresh From the Heart to the Calgary Inter-Faith Food Bank
Seedy Saturday
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Community Gardens
>
Resources
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Garden-Wise: Tips from Community Gardeners
> Composting
Composting
Making Earth for Gardens
Use pictures on your compost bigs to show what to put into the bins and what not to put into the bins.
Start a composting team of 6 to 8 people. Have this as one of the volunteer roles people choose from when they join the garden and pay their rental fee. Explain that choosing a role is part of joining the garden! The garden cannot run unless everyone does their bit.
Chop up greens and brown into very small pieces to reduce the amount of time it takes to have finished soil.
Water the compost bin regularly when you water your garden bed then turn and stir the compost weekly to sustain the soil making process.
If compost bins in progress of making soil did not get moisture last year, add this volunteer role to the gardener's agreement so that 4 people are responsible for checking the compost pile and watering it before it gets too dry and stops making earth.
Use unpainted, untreated pallets instead of painted or treated ones when you are building a multiple bin composting system.
Compost Big! You need at least one cubic yard of greens and browns, water and air to create the right chemical reaction to make earth. If you have a small compost pile you don't get enough heat created to turn the greens and browns into soil.
Ask neighbours near the garden with trees in their yard to donate their fallen leaves in bags for the community gardens browns bin in the compost area.
Compost tea improves soil fertility and plant strength to withstand pests. Wash all harvested produce before it hits your plate!
Compost Tea: Mike Dorion of
Living Soil Solutions
sprays with compost tea.
Laureen Rama of
Eco-Yards
also offers a compost tea spray service.
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