Helping the City of Seattle stay green and improve its environment, the Seattle P-Patch Gardening Program preserves green space as community gardens throughout Seattle and helps residents grow fresh organic produce. Improving the soil is the best way to grow great vegetables and preserve the environment of the City’s community gardens.  Gardeners improve soil by composting in compost bins or by burying garden waste in the ground. Many community gardeners seek tips on how to improve soil for their gardens.

The Seattle P-Patch Community Gardening Program, Seattle Tilth and Seattle Public Utilities partnered to offer a Master Composter Training Program for gardeners in Southeast Seattle P-Patches. With the collaboration, Seattle Public Utilities provided funding for the classes, Seattle Tilth provided the composting educational training and Seattle P-Patch program recruited program participants and coordinated the program. In making the connection with communities and gardeners, P-Patch staff worked with volunteers and interpreters to get the word out to the community.

This training was focused on Southeast refugee and immigrants who are the residents of NewHolly and the surrounding neighborhoods. The training provided interpreters for five languages that included Vietnamese, Chinese, Khmer, Mien and Lao.  P-Patch staff and student intern volunteers coordinated interpreters and helped with the outreach strategy process. More than 15 participants attended the classes weekly from June through August.

The gardeners were very interested in learning the theory and gaining hands-on practice about the composting process and how to improve soil.

A graduation ceremony was held on August 4. Congratulations to all of the participants for completing the first multilingual Master Composter Program!

By Bunly Yun
Community Garden Coordinator