Growing Solutions would like to extend a very special “Thank You!” to Martha Stewart and her continued use of our Compost Tea System10 & System25. Martha shares her step-by-step instructions for using our Compost Tea Systems in her greenhouses. What an honor, and we couldn’t have said it better ourselves! Please take a look at her full blog post…
Growing Solutions President Michael Alms and Pearl Buck Center Development Director Dena Amend proudly display the Compost Tea System10 donated by a benefactor for use in the Center’s Sensory Garden greenhouse. The Garden is a part of the Center’s on site preschool program.
Serving people with special needs since 1953, the Center helps adults in the Eugene, OR area develop the skills necessary to become productive in the work force. We’ll blog more about our ongoing partnership with Pearl Buck Center clients soon. In the meantime, we’re proud to be a part of this unique feature that the Center offers parents with preschool children.
Growing Solutions’ distributor Mindy Jaffe of Waikiki Worm Company reports on a great story of a process that we hope to see replicated in schools everywhere. It recalls the sagely adage of “it takes a village…”— in this case, a generous donor supplying a System10 to the Calvary-by-the-Sea Montessori Preschool in Aina Haina, Oahu, Hawaii, where organic waste fed to the school’s worm colony is fully recycled to everyone’s benefit.
Assistant teacher Sharon Tamanaha worked with Waikiki Worm to create the vermicompost program. Not only is the school’s garden and landscape benefiting from the weekly compost tea production, the fourth Sunday of every month is dedicated to tea brewed for sale to church members—always a sell out—that brings revenue to help sustain the program.
“We are very, very happy with our brewer,” Sharon says. “It’s easy to use and clean. Every plant is healthy and robust and the entire property just glows.”
Read the full article in Waikiki Worm Company’s newsletter here.
Frothy tea on a chilly fall day? Freshly brewed Compost Tea, that is—applied to the Common Ground Garden during the recent “Compost Tea for the Home Garden” workshop. Michael, with Anne Donahue of the Eugene (Oregon) Friendly Neighborhood Farmers, spoke to a hardy group of inquisitive home gardeners looking for insights on winterizing their gardens.
Michael noted that late fall is an excellent time to apply compost tea to garden beds, turf and general landscaping. “Spraying or drenching leaves, turf thatch and veggie plant material in a state of decay assists organic plant matter to break down, creating optimum soil amendments for the following spring,” he explained as the workshop attendees were visited by some of Oregon’s typical rainfall. “Even in light rain, it’s no problem…the additional moisture carries the good microorganisms further into the soil,” Michael continued.
Growing Solutions donated Compost Tea Catalyst, enough for 500 gallons of compost tea, to the Common Ground Garden. Using a 20 gallon sprayer, workshop participants helped distribute the tea Michael provided, and most took home a container of compost tea from a batch Anne had made using her home compost tea system. Hot cocoa and fresh cornbread fueled the conversation indoors as Michael demonstrated the System10 to gardeners of all ages. Another compost tea application workshop is planned for Spring 2011.
Watching a movie is one of life’s diversions that nearly everyone can relate to, especially that feeling of wanting to share the news when you’ve just seen a great one. Our staff watched one such movie this May and posted a link on our Facebook page. Little did we know that our enthusiasm for this film would literally grow into an exciting new alliance.
DIRT! the Movie, directed and produced by Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow, and narrated by actress Jamie Lee Curtis, brings to life the environmental, economic, social and political impact that the soil has through the stories of visionaries and experts from all over the world. You’ll learn how industrial agriculture has depleted our once fertile soils over the last 50 years, and how there is hope to reverse this trend in the very methods of sustainable agriculture that Growing Solutions advocates for and promotes through the sales of our products.
Based on the book Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth by Quill and Trowel Award-winning writer Bill Logan, DIRT! the Movie takes you inside the wonders of the soil—Earth’s living skin. It tells the story of this most valuable and underappreciated source of fertility, from its miraculous beginning to its crippling degradation.
That basic understanding of the volume of life that takes place in the first five centimeters of the Earth’s skin resonated with everyone at Growing Solutions. Compost tea plays a large role in a dynamic system of solutions that can revive depleted soils with local inputs, low energy consumption and non-daunting technical skills. Naturally we wanted to find a way to share this educational tool with our customers, families and friends.
As an Affiliate Partner Growing Solutions’ Home Page now proudly displays the DIRT! the Movie icon. Click, buy the DVD, and your purchase will generate a $5.00 donation toward providing DVDs of the movie to schools throughout the U.S.
“I’m very pleased to see the wide distribution of this film, and we’re eager to contribute to the momentum,” Growing Solutions’ President Michael Alms explained. “DIRT! the Movie is the perfect portal to understanding that our soil is actually ALIVE! Your view of where and how our food is grown and enters the world’s markets will forever be changed. I encourage everyone to view this great story and be the change locally, in management of home lawns, gardens, and community greenspaces.”