Compost Happens! Free Workshop Saturday, July 8

Home composting of yard waste and select kitchen waste takes materials that could wind up in a landfill and converts it into compost, a useful product for our South Florida gardens. It also avoids the energy and carbon emissions associated with transportation of this material to a centralized final disposal site. Anything that was a plant can be composted.

Want to learn how to compost? Master Gardener Terri Stephen will teach you how to make organic soil from your own kitchen and yard waste.

University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, in cooperation with Miami-Dade County’s Department of Solid Waste Management hosts FREE home composting workshops throughout the year. Here’s the next one:

When: Saturday, July 8, from 9:00am – 10:30am
Where: Thalatta Estate, 17301 Old Cutler Rd, Palmetto Bay, FL.
RSVP: 305.259.1245

“Learn About Composting” Day

Yes, there really is an annual “National Learn About Composting Day” and it is today. Created in 2011, the originator explained his reasons:

As a Boy Scout leader, this author follows the Boy Scout motto “Reduce, Re-Use, Recycle”. Composting is a great way to re-use a wide range of things that otherwise would go unnecessarily into the waste stream.

Even before that, International Compost Awareness Week (ICAW) was started in Canada in 1995 and is held the first full week in May each year. International Compost Awareness Week and National Learn About Compost Day have the same goal:

… to raise the awareness of the public regarding the benefits of using compost to improve or maintain high quality soil, to grow healthy plants, reduce the use of fertilizer and pesticides, improve water quality and protect the environment.

So in the spirit of learning about composting, consider the humble banana peel and “regenerative loop of life.”.

And if you want to learn more about composting at home, Miami-Dade County in partnership with the University of Florida is giving a FREE workshop on Saturday, July 8 from 9:00am – 10:30am with Master Gardener Terri Stephen at Thalatta Estate, 17301 Old Cutler Rd, Palmetto Bay, FL. Call 305.259.1245 for more information or to RSVP.  “Learn how to make organic soil from your own kitchen and yard waste. Easy and fun and great for your garden.”


“The Compost Story” was produced by Kiss The Ground and Elevate Films. Be sure to visit their site to read about the wonderful work they are doing.