Soil Health, Microbiology, and Compost Brewing Workshop

Date: October 9th 

Time:  2-4 PM 

Location: Salt Spring Center for Yoga

Cost: Sliding scale: $25 / $40 /$ 60 

Purchasing a higher value registration allows us to offer low cost access to others.

Take a deep dive into the soil food web, compost systems, and brewing compost teas for healthy, resilient soils. Through a farm walk, microscopy session, and practical demonstrations, participants will gain tools to support thriving agroecological landscapes.

Course Outline

Land walk

• Observing areas of tillage, transitionary no-till spaces, and no-till spaces

• Run-through of our compost piles — hot & static piles 

• Material sourcing, and aspects of the system 

Compost Brewhouse

• Looking at equipment for small scale compost teas / extracts 

• Application methods of teas / extracts 

Microscopy

• Looking at video logged samples from previous soil tests 

• Exploring a sample that the gardeners have brought in (I hear that’s a desired component!) 

• Run-through of the core concepts of the soil food web and the primary organisms of these ecosystems

Conversation Points

• How to support our soil ecosystems to be thriving, healthy, and self-sustaining within the agro-ecological landscape

• Influences on soil health, and the intersections of physical, biological, and chemical soil processes

• Local / regional sourcing of parent material for soil input and amendments

Meet the Facilitator

Paz Q Rainville

Paz Q Rainville (he/ki) pursues regenerative culture as a guiding purpose. His life has been shaped by time as a crew leader in the BC Wildfire Service; being on the frontlines of Ada’itsx (Fairy Creek) blockades; and now as a land & farm steward on Salt Spring Island.

Ki gives his energy to various initiatives in the Southern Gulf Islands that are pursuing biogregional food justice & sovereignty; circular governance; self-expression; and regional Indigenous allyship.

Paz’s days are largely given to the Salt Spring Centre of Yoga, where he caretakes the Farm, and where further elements of land-based spirituality and living in community are fully alive. Paz is a certified lab technician through the Soil Food Web School. 

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