July workshop garden – ZTL garden (Zero to landfill)

Tags

compost, food, Food waste, garden, gardening, Green waste, home grown, Landfill, organic, Waste management, workshops, ZTL garden

Meet our participants Tristan and Robyn.

The morning was perfect for gardening, nice and cool and some good hard gardening to warm us up.

This month we have planted a garden using a new compost product from a company called

ZTL Organics (Zero to Landfill).

Zero to Landfill was started in 2008 with a focus on recycling organic waste, in particular food waste, from hotels, restaurants and businesses in Cape Town

Zero to Landfill Organics food and garden waste compost is unique in that it contains high levels of nutrients which are broken down and stabilised during the composting process. Egg shells, seafood shells and bones supply high levels of Calcium, meat and fruit waste provides high levels of Nitrogen and Potassium, Coffee grounds are rich in Nitrogen and leaves and garden waste provide the carbon. Using food waste as an ingredient in our compost also saves water. The high moisture content of food waste makes it possible to compost dry material without using thousands of litres of precious water. Soil is mixed in to our compost to help to stabilise the nutrients and to make a rich potting mix that can be used in new beds and as a lawn dressing.

No need to add bone meal here! The chicken bone is evident there is enough Calcium in the mix.

Tristan getting stuck in with Robyn at his side.

We await to see how the garden will develop!

Workshop dates/booking

The April Elemental Organic – vegetable growing course

Tags

course participants, food, gardening, home grown, organic, South African endemic plant, workshop, workshops, worm farms, worm garden

The morning dawned cooler, with cloud cover and a small bit of drizzle, perfect weather for gardening.  Here we see the course participants getting stuck in and preparing the soil.

All the hard work now complete, including installing 2 mini worm farms to giving the soil a continuous feed. The garden has been named the “Worm Garden”. Wow, everyone just fell in love with the worms.

Here we have our participants.

From left : Daniel, Mani, Jennifer, Lambert, Tim and Manish.

To avoid disappointment, as space is limited, book now for the next course which will be held 4th May.

email : aristonorganic@gmail.com

Learning to grow your own workshop 2 March

Tags

carrots, compost, eggplant, food, growing from food scraps, horseradish, lettuce, marjoram, nature, oregano, pineapple, planting, plants, preparing soil, propagation, rocket, rosemary, spinach, wild garlic, winter savory, workshops, worm castings, worm compost

We had a fabulous workshop yesterday. Jo and Janine arrived full of energy and enthusiasm.

We started by assessing the site in which we were going to garden.

We proceeded to improve the soil with compost made from straw, cow manure and mushroom compost.

We then planted some 2 liter bottles with small holes in the bottle to make sure we have water going down to the roots.

We then look around for plants we could propagate to plant . Rosemary,  wild garlic ( our companion plant), horseradish, winter savory, oregano and marjoram were chosen.

The worm farm was harvested for worm compost. Oh my word the girls just fell in love with the worms.

We then planted using the worm compost.

Seeds that were chosen to sow were : carrots, spinach, eggplant and lettuce. the carrots were sown directly into the ground, the others were planted up in seed trays which Jo has taken home to nurture until they are ready to be planted out.

Our piece of resistance for the day was planting a pineapple from food scraps.

We finished the bed by mulching with leaves and compost again and a thorough watering.

We all left thoroughly dirty and tired but thoroughly satisfied.

Book now for the next workshop in April

https://aristonorganic.wordpress.com/workshops-for-2013/

email aristonorganic@gmail.com