The Fluvanna Master Gardeners along with the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission (TJPDC) will offer a free composting workshop on Saturday, October 17 from 10 a.m.-noon at the Lake Monticello Volunteer Fire and Rescue building, 10 Slice Road, Palmyra, Virginia, 22963.

TJPDC sponsors will give away five compost bins, with an additional 25 available at $20 each.  Light refreshments will be served.

The Fluvanna Master Gardeners have been promoting composting in their demonstration gardens at Haden House, and the Fluvanna Community Garden at Pleasant Grove as well as their own gardens and farms throughout the county.  

The workshop will feature demonstration and instruction for small to large lot home composting including the natural recycling of grass and worm composting.  Participants will learn about sheet and hole composting, windrow, heap or pile composting, composting-in-place or no-till composting, and open and covered bin composting.  Instruction will emphasize convenience and simplicity.

“Promoting composting is one of the strategies in our regional solid waste management plan to decrease the amount of waste being landfilled,” said Billie Campbell, acting executive director of the TJPDC.

A 1996 study at the Ivy Landfill found that nearly a quarter of the waste being disposed there from Charlottesville and Albemarle could have been composted instead. Lake Monticello closed its composting facility at Tufton which makes family composting even more important. More than 75 people attended last year's successful composting workshop with many attendees from outside the Lake Monticello area. Composting is for everyone.