By Judy Elliott, Education and Community Empowerment Coordinator
For over 15 years, Denver Urban Gardens has partnered with Denver Recycles to offer the Master Composter Training and Outreach Program. This annual train–the–trainer program provides over 40 hours of education in composting biology and micro-biology, vermicomposting with red wiggler worms, an understanding of integrated solid waste management, and most of all, an opportunity to directly educate people about the magic environment of the compost pile.
The course, which accepts 30 volunteers each year, has a large emphasis on demystifying the science behind the process, and involving participants in creating the healthiest soil amendment, compost. Our volunteers utilize seasonally available materials, such as: thatch (un-decomposed stems of grass plants in the spring), landscape prunings, the unmentionable contents of refrigerator produce bins, the two foot long zucchini that is not even appropriate for zucchini bread, and learn to create material that smells like the soft, moist environment of a rain forest.
We creatively reduce our carbon footprint by keeping those bags of leaves out of the landfill and use them as part of the structural component of compost piles. Master composters create strong bonds with their animals, carefully brushing them, gathering the fur, knowing that it is savored as a nitrogen-rich ingredient of the pile. They savor their environmentally conscious attitudes of eliminating pesticides and chemical fertilizers, knowing that compost stimulates the growth of beneficial soil microorganisms, opens up air channels for deeper rooting patterns and is a source of both major and minor plant nutrients. They learn to appreciate receiving their water bills, well aware that compost enriched soils have the ability to decrease their water usage by 20%.
Our volunteers, although required to ‘give back’ 40 hours teaching composting, often stay with DUG for long periods of time. They are active year-round, volunteering at Earth Day events, our many community gardens, six farmers’ markets, street fairs, with other urban agriculture programs at Harvest Mountain Farm and the Sustainability Park. They reach out to the public from May through mid-October, teaching at our Gove Composting Site and become our ambassadors for modeling sustainable gardening practices. They reclaim their ‘inner child’, working with children at elementary schools, teaching the wonders of creepy crawly worms, using fall leaves and torn strips of newspaper, making ‘yucky worm sandwiches’ with the youth, introducing them to the basic processes that teach ways of living lightly on the earth and giving back more than you receive.
Most of all, master composter volunteers develop a strong network of friends, reinforced by monthly potlucks, united by a desire to plant new seeds of environmental respect.
Composting is truly more than a recipe. It is the very foundation of organic gardening, requiring nurturing, non-judgmental attitudes and an ability to think outside the box. DUG is looking for 30 exceptional people to be ‘with’ us on this journey in 2013. We will have an updated program schedule on our website by the end of the third week in October. If, after viewing this information, you are inspired to schedule a program interview, please contact Judy Elliott, Education and Community Empowerment Coordinator and lead trainer for the program at: judy@dug.org, 303.292.9900. She’ll promptly be in touch (after she finishes turning the compost pile).
