Yvonne Savio (Photo courtesy Gardening in LA website)
Join Pasadena Public Library and Master Gardener Yvonne Savio on Saturday, January 9, for a special Pasadena Grows dedicated to showing participants how to start a home compositing program.
In this free virtual discussion, participants will learn about the benefits of home composting, including suitable ingredients and successful techniques.
Pasadena Grows is a program started by the Pasadena Public Library’s Hill Ave. branch in partnership with Pasadena Water and Power. The program includes workshops, a free seed lending library, a gardening book collection that’s free to borrow with a Pasadena Public Library card, and other activities. With the pandemic, most Pasadena Grows activities are currently virtual.
Yvonne Savio is a gardening consultant and the author of www.GardeningInLA.net where she provides gardening tips and calendar events and opportunities for Southern California gardeners. She promotes gardening events, volunteer opportunities, and job opportunities that are available in the greater Los Angeles County and Southern California areas. She blogs weekly about her Pasadena garden and elsewhere.
In 2016, Savio started writing the “Southern California Garden Checklist” in Sunset Magazine.
Savio is affiliated with the Garden Writers Association, the Southern California Horticultural Society board, past member of the American Community Gardening Association and the Los Angeles Community Garden Council, and a board member of Garden School Foundation.
Composting is basically producing organic material that can be added to soil to help plants grow. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says food scraps and yard waste together currently make up more than 30 percent of what are thrown away, and could be composted instead. Making compost keeps these materials out of landfills where they take up space and release methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Basically, composting requires three ingredients: browns, which includes materials such as dead leaves, branches, and twigs; greens, such as grass clippings, vegetable waste, fruit scraps, and coffee grounds; and water.
Your compost pile should have an equal amount of browns to greens, the EPA says. You should also alternate layers of organic materials of different-sized particles.
The brown materials provide carbon for your compost, the green materials provide nitrogen, and the water provides moisture to help break down the organic matter.
To sign up for the virtual event, visit www.cityofpasadena.net/library/calendar and click on the January 9 tab. The event is scheduled for 10 a.m. A link to the Zoom event will be sent to your email after you register.
