9 July 2024 |
Freesia Gardens in Kingston was a busy hub during a recent workshop delivered by Landcare Tasmania team members. Coined the 'Composting in a nutshell' workshop, project officer Sonja Ralph shared her knowledge and passion for green waste, and participants walked away with a host of tips for successful composting.
This workshop forms part of Landcare Tasmania's Connecting Communities with Landcare project which aims is to improve tenant well-being and connection through growing food and connecting with nature. At the heart of this program is connection and sustainability for tenant communities.
Landcare Tasmania is delivering a series of nature-based and food-growing workshops to the Freesia Gardens community, based on their interests and needs which resulted from a roundtable session conducted in January this year. These sessions aim to improve knowledge, well-being, and a sense of belonging through growing food and connecting with nature.
Sonja Ralph talks about best practice composting at the workshop with tenants from Freesia Gardens, a Centrecare Evolve Housing village. Photo credit: Jess Fitzgibbon
While many of the tenants were already using compost bins in their residences, the Landcare Tasmania team developed a centralised composting area for the village, along with resources to ensure they had all the tools to continue their successful composting journeys. Department of Social Services staff and Pauline Marsh from UTAS joined the workshop, happy to pitch in and get their hands dirty.
The newly established composting area at Freesia Gardens ready to go! Photo credit: Jess Fitzgibbon
Being involved in nature and gardening is well documented for physical and mental health benefits - it's a great way to get active, social, and work towards a community-focused goal. Overall, the idea is to improve the local garden area with the tenants who will be involved in growing fresh, healthy produce as well as other activities - and it's something that the participants have had input into designing. Already steps have been made to establish an orchard at the village and there are more workshops to come!
Here are some of the composting tips from the workshop which may assist you with your composting at home.
Landcare Tasmania is undertaking the Connecting Communities with Landcare project in partnership with Centacare Evolve Housing. The project is funded by the Department for Social Services as part of the Strong and Resilient Communities Activity - Inclusive Communities grants program.