Creating your own Compost, Wormbin & Rain Barrel

Do you ever wish that you could stop throwing away your kitchen scraps, and instead use them for something useful? Or, that you could water your garden with all of the valuable rainwater that runs off your roof? Join us at this Sustainability Series workshop where we will surprise you with how easy it is to create your own compost system, wormbin, and rain barrel. Wake up the earth by exploring these three sustainable systems that can make your urban lifestyle a little more green. Compost and rain barrel kits will be available for purchase.

Co-sponsored by the Boston Building Materials Coop

Patrick Gabridge is a longtime gardener (and also a playwright and novelist). He’s the co-founder of the 200 Foot Garden project in Brookline (where he lives) and a past community garden coordinator for the Cooper and Crite gardens in Roxbury. He’s a graduate of the BNAN Master Urban Gardener program, on the steering committee for Bountiful Brookline, and always eager to talk about gardening and local food with just about anybody.

Ann McGovern is the Consumer Waste Reduction Coordinator and composting outreach specialist for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP). She coordinates Massachusetts’ home composting education program and compost bin grant program, through which over 109,000 compost bins have been distributed to the public. She has taught the composting session for the Northeast Organic Farmers Association (NOFA) Organic Land Care Certification Course since 2003, and for the Mass. Horticultural Society’s Master Gardener Training program since 1994. In March 2005, the PBS show “Ask This Old House” featured Ann as guest expert in a home composting segment.

Louis Froston was born on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao (approx. 50 miles north on Venezuela), and has spent a lot of time growing up between the islands of St Maarten (also a Dutch colony, located in the Leeward Islands), Montserrat (a British colony located approx. 30 miles S.W. of Antigua, and 300 Miles east of Puerto Rico), and of course Curacao.  He has been a electrician for the past 25 years and a member of Local 103 of Boston I.B.E.W.  He is a member of Clark-Cooper Community Gardens in Dorchester, and is currently an engineering student at Wentworth Institute of Technology (Boston, Ma.).  He has been a home owner in Roxbury for the past 9 years where he resides, and enjoys back yard gardening.