How to Compost at Home

Sep 15, 2023

By Patrick Murphy, Program Manager

Backyard composting often feels like a hobby reserved for those “in the know.” Like sourdough starter and beer brewing, the process seems both too simple and too complex to get started. How do you get from wheat and water to become bread? How do you turn yard waste and food scraps into compost? The answer is planning and time (and bacteria). With a little preparation and some patience, you too can compost your food scraps at home.

Composting requires a little forethought, some dedicated space, and the diligence to do regular light maintenance. If you can keep a houseplant alive, you should be able to get a compost bin started. The most important thing with backyard composting is to choose a system that will work best for you, which you feel you can sustain long-term. There are two common options for at-home composting, “hot pile” and “vermicompost” (or worm bins).

A stereotypical “hot pile” composting system uses a large bin and regular aeration to convert organic materials (i.e. food scraps) into compost. This system works very well when it receives a regular supply of organic materials, and is turned often. However your pile will begin to work less and less efficiently if the bin ever has less than a full cubic yard of material in it. Hot pile systems require that you maintain a specific ratio of high-nitrogen/high-carbon scraps in order for the bacteria to break down the material. I would recommend these systems for larger families, or organizations looking to get into composting. Learn more about hot pile composting here.

A vermicompost system relies on worms to digest and process organic matter to create compost. These systems offer more flexibility compared to a traditional hot pile system. Vermicompost systems can be made in any size, allowing them to fit into more spaces (some people keep their bins under their kitchen sink). Vermicompost systems do require more careful planning than a hot-pile system. While worm bins do not need to be turned, bins need to be emptied more regularly and the worm populations need to be divided to prevent overcrowding. Worm bins also typically cannot be added daily: worms eat in “batches”, so waste needs to be collected and added all as a single, larger quantity. I would recommend worm bins for smaller families, or people who might lack the space or volume of material needed to start a hot pile system. Learn more about vermicomposting here. 

There are multiple options when it comes to composting at home, make sure you check out multiple methods and choose the one which you feel you’ll be able to maintain the easiest. Consider alternatives to compost like indoor bokashi fermentation, or an outdoor green cone digester. Compost alternatives allow you to avoid most of the emissions created by throwing away food scraps while still allowing you to return nutrients to the soil. Focus less on the total volume of compost produced, and more on ease of use for yourself.

Tell Us About Your Urban Ag Needs!

Sep 4, 2023

By Patrick Murphy, Program Manager

Installation of a garden bed at Faith Food Fridays in Vallejo

Sustainable Solano firmly believes that the best community projects are community driven. We believe strongly that solutions and ideas need to come from locals who know their area, the neighborhood, and what they can expect from their community. Most communities are acutely aware of the local problems they face, and may have insightful and unique solutions to solve these issues, but lack the funds to put their ideas into practice. Through our Solano Gardens program, we have encountered many informal groups of interested citizens needing support for smaller urban agriculture projects who lack funds, materials or planning support to get their project off the ground.

Sustainable Solano is applying for an Urban Agriculture grant from the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Farm to Fork office. This grant would support the continuation and expansion of the Solano Gardens program, which focuses on creating, renewing and supporting community gardens in Solano communities to create more access to healthy, seasonal produce. The program is currently funded through Solano Public Health.

The CDFA grant would also allow us to give small, flexible funding to local urban ag projects, which could include a variety of needs, including the creation of a new community garden, revitalizing garden beds, adding chickens or creating a seating space within a community garden. It would open up new opportunities for organizations or groups of individuals that need materials and support. We envision creating a simple, straightforward application and approval process to make it easy to reach out to Sustainable Solano for the help needed to support urban agriculture in your communities.

This is why we want to hear from you! We want the best possible picture of what types of urban ag projects, what resources and what support your organization or community could use. This will inform our own grant application and help us to create a database of the urban ag needs we could serve through the expanded Solano Gardens program.

Share Your Ideas & Needs

Please send your needs, project ideas, questions or suggestions to patrick@sustainablesolano.org with “CDFA Urban Ag Needs” in the subject line.

Tell us about your proposed project or support needs, who you are, where your project might be located, and anything else you’d like for us to know.

SuSol Seeks to Engage Indigenous Voices in Our Work

May 22, 2023

By Sustainable Solano

Sustainable Solano works with local communities here in Solano County and honors the lands that we are lucky to do that work on. As this land originally belongs to the Patwin, Miwok, Karkin, Muwekma, Confederated Villages of Lisjan, and Ohlone peoples, these indigenous communities continue to hold and steward this land as they have for time immemorial. We thank the original peoples of this land with the utmost gratitude for their stewardship of this beautiful Earth and their resistance to its destruction past, present, and future. Because it is our mission to nurture initiatives for the good of the whole, we recognize that true equity arises when we intentionally engage and empower communities who historically have been mistreated by the systems in place.

It is our intention to get our resources into communities that are not regularly afforded access to these resources, but we have realized that we have not been making enough effort to invite indigenous people to the table. As an organization we seek to counter the harm these systems perpetuate with action, one way being through opening up our platform to directly uplift indigenous voices.

We are actively looking to engage with more indigenous community members in our work. SuSol team members have been in communication with representatives from local tribal communities, and we want to see how we can support the identified desires of indigenous groups and individuals in ways that intersect with our mission.

As a part of many of our programs, we are always seeking people to teach classes to the wider community. This is paid work, where we look to bring people together in gardens and beyond to learn more about permaculture, sustainability, resilience, waterwise gardening, farm-to-table cooking, and connecting with love for and solidarity with our Mother Earth. We acknowledge that we have a responsibility to make these jobs especially accessible to indigenous communities, whose knowledge is the foundation for so many permaculture practices and ways of connecting with the Earth, our non-human relations and each other.

This is a starting point for working together. If you are an indigenous community member and are interested in partnering with us, please contact info@sustainablesolano.org 

Our goal is to open up a space to share your knowledge, foster community connections, and to come together to support increasing access to land. We wish to uplift our communities by prioritizing connections based on equity and decentralization, while learning together how to live in harmony with our neighbors of all species.

Pure Black Gold: A Love Song to Compost

Apr 21, 2023

By Alana Mirror, creator of This Wonderful World: a musical reality-show where love for ourselves, each other, and the Earth become one
We introduced Alana and her This Wonderful World project when she attended the Pollinator Pathway garden installation and created a series of three songs from that experience. Since then, she’s done a series of songs about the installation of Peace of Eden community garden at City Church Fairfield, and a series inspired by the Vallejo People’s Garden. This blog comes from her reflections from one of her songs inspired by the composting going on at Vallejo People’s Garden. We appreciate reposting it here with her permission.

No doubt something magical happens to life when we embrace the process of turning “what has been” into “what will become.” This is the mirror of composting.

Making this important soil amendment can be a smelly, dirty and all together gross process, but only when it’s out of balance. Healthy compost plies, in fact, don’t smell much at all. The microbes who break down the compost into soil need a balanced diet, just like the rest of us. You gotta work with it. If it starts getting smelly, there’s probably too much nitrogen-rich material (like kitchen scraps). But it’s an easy fix: all you gotta to is add some carbon-rich material (like dried leaves). If there’s too many insects, it probably just needs to be mixed a little better. If it’s taking too long to break down, it might benefit from a little more moisture. With attention and care, the transformational process of turning “what has been” into “what will become” doesn’t have to be gross. But, if it is, there’s always a way to correct it.

At the Vallejo People’s Garden, Ravi Shankar has been the head composter for 14 years. Trained as a “master composter,” I’ve never met anyone more enthusiastic about roly polies, worms, and microbes! Every week Ravi spends a few hours tending the compost, and he’s all in, literally! In his 60s, he jumps right into the compost bin as he uses his pitch fork to mix and turn it all up. He assesses what it needs to be balanced by gathering materials from the garden and by organizing the larger community’s contributions (such as shredded paper from a local office, coffee grounds from a local coffee shop, grass clippings from the neighborhood lawns, and even some folks’ kitchen scraps.) He absolutely loves it and swears that the work he does with the compost is the secret to what’s keeping him so fit, and so happy.

But he’s not the only one that benefits from his compost magic: the garden loves it! In fact, the compost is one of the Vallejo People’s Garden’s main tricks to growing so much good food for their community. It’s such magical stuff they sell this “Black Gold” to other gardeners.

It’s a reassuring metaphor for me as someone who’s going through my own personal transformation. In our rapidly changing world, it seems like every day I’m realizing parts of my life that aren’t serving the same purpose that they were meant to anymore. But, to have such a joyful metaphor of composting helps me to remember that change can be a process that enlivens and enriches life. Ravi’s enthusiastic leadership helps me to jump right into the transformational process where stinky and buggy doesn’t mean failure, it’s just a call to adjust. Everything that we’ve done in our lives (even the bits that we regret ) can serve a larger purpose when we embrace the messy process of change with the same vigor that Ravi takes to his beloved compost. No doubt change can hurt sometimes, but at least there’s hope in what can come of it.

May we all find the gifts in our discarded bits.

Follow the Vallejo People’s Garden on Instagram here and on Facebook here

This Wonderful World is the latest production from Alana’s greater work, called The Living Mirror Project, a creative practice that generates peace by seeing ourselves in everything.

Learn more about This Wonderful World here
Watch the whole series here
Sign up for Alana’s newsletter here
Contact Alana at thelivingmirrorproject@gmail.com if there are any service events that you think should be celebrated in this series, or for more info on booking a live musical show.

2023 Benicia & Vallejo Tour: Featured Gardens

Apr 3, 2023

Scroll through the list below to read about the Benicia and Vallejo gardens that are featured on this year’s tour, and to learn about special offerings at some of the gardens!

Register for the April 22 tour here!

Benicia Demonstration Food Forest Gardens

The Curious Garden

Mature front yard food forest has mostly fruit trees and native plants that attract pollinators year-round. It has a laundry-to-landscape greywater system.

The garden is designed for a young family, including space to enjoy the outdoors and hidden forts. It also has a very steep hill, which presents its own unique issues.

Greywater Action’s Andrea Lara will be giving a talk and tour of the laundry-to-landscape system at 11 am and 12 pm.

Learn more

Greyhawk Grove

Greyhawk Garden after installationAn 8-year-old established food forest with two swales that are dug out and refreshed every 2-3 years, laundry-to-landscape greywater to fruit trees, and chickens. The drip irrigation system was removed three years ago and the garden is thriving! Annual beds are hand-watered once a week during the growing season. Greyhawk Grove is a “high-traffic-survival-of-the-fittest-have-three-young-children garden”. There may be lemonade and baked goods for sale by children, as well as products from the garden to give away (dried calendula, lavender, herbs, eggs, fruit, etc.).

Learn more

Redwood Guild

Food forest garden and greywater system installed as part of Sustainable Solano’s 2021 Permaculture Design Certificate course, with students transforming the front lawn with rain-capturing swales and planted berms and converting the sprinkler system to drip irrigation. The side yard is watered by a laundry-to-landscape greywater system and also includes edible plants and native pollinators. This home has its own redwood grove, and certain plants were selected that do well in the unique conditions created by redwoods. The food forest keepers are using that knowledge to add other plants to the garden that will thrive alongside the redwoods.

Designer Scott Dodson of Scotty’s Organic Gardening will be on-site to guide tours, describe the permaculture principles and offer advice.

Learn more

Wild Cherry Way

Southern slope food forest focused on pollinators, shrubs and native plants. It also includes fruit trees, perennial and edible plants, swales and a laundry-to-landscape greywater system.

Permaculture Consultant Ron Kane will be on-site to offer tours and answer questions.

Learn more

Yggdrasil Garden

A new and evolving food forest garden and greywater system installed as part of Sustainable Solano’s 2022-23 Permaculture Design Certificate course. Students transformed the front yard with a rain-capturing swale and planted berms in holistic workshops. The east side yard (in development) is watered with both a rain-capturing swale and a laundry-to-landscape system and will have an aquatic garden and feature scented contributions to the edible landscape. The west side yard raised bed and climbing vines are watered by a laundry-to-landscape greywater system and include edible plants and native pollinators. The monarch butterfly-hosting back gardens were supported by a Sustainable Solano irrigation class and are watered by both a rain-capturing swale and greywater and nurtured by specially prepared compost on-site. A rear patio and herb spiral (in construction) were created with bricks repurposed from the chimney of the circa 1850s historic home, retaining walls from pieces of historic on-site stables. Displays feature the historic aspects of the home; its background and ongoing tradition of art, design, and healing; soil cultivation with worm habitats; information about the Ohlone Sogorea Te Indigenous Land Trust and rematriation of Carquin land; the influence of the garden’s stewards; and the garden’s first tree guilds: yuzu persimmon, apricot, and meyer lemon.

Michael Wedgley, Regenerative Landscape Designer and Soil Consultant from Soilogical, will be touring a working compost system that includes worm composting and a thermophilic (hot) compost pile at 10:30 am and 11:30 am. There will be a raffle for an in-ground worm composter.

Inspired Garden

This homeowner attended our tours and was inspired to transform his yard! This brand new garden, designed by Michael Wedgley, is a unique opportunity to tour a stunning and sustainable backyard that showcases the beauty and abundance of permaculture. This eco-conscious backyard features a rainwater catchment system that can harvest up to 3,500 gallons per year, helping to restore the on-site water table, and providing an abundant source of water for this permaculture food forest.

The carefully designed irrigation system utilizes drip irrigation, which not only lowers water usage but also promotes water conservation. Despite being only two months old, this new garden already boasts over 80 different species of perennial plants, many of which are edible. You’ll be amazed at the variety and richness of the plants that are flourishing in this environment.

Vallejo Demonstration Food Forest Gardens

Colibri Ochoa (Hummingbird Ochoa)

Front yard food forest garden has a laundry-to-landscape greywater system, a swale, repurposed logs to create planting areas and a variety of plants to provide food for people and pollinators. On the day of the tour there will be a laundry-to-landscape greywater education in Spanish and a translator on-site.

Sustainable Solano partnered with two other organizations to install this garden in 2021 and begin to provide resources in Spanish. Planting Justice partnered with Sustainable Solano on a Spanish-speaking installation. They offer permaculture services and also have an organic nursery in Oakland that sells rare and heirloom varieties. Club Stride translated an educational program about Patio Sostenibles and created a food forest video in Spanish, Entrevista de Patio Sostenible. Both organizations are doing incredible work to reduce inequities. Check out their websites to find out more on how to support their work. 

Greywater Action’s Rahul will give a talk and tour of the laundry-to-landscape system at 2 pm in Spanish and 3 pm in English.

Learn more

First Christian Church

Two separate gardens, one is a peace garden with mostly flowers, cactus and trees and the other is the vegetable garden, called Johnson Ranch. The vegetable garden was revived through the Solano Gardens program. The food grown is donated to the local food pantries (Faith Food Fridays, Amador Hope Center, etc.).

Learn more here

Enchanted Cottage Garden

Front yard lawn replaced in May 2017 with two swales, above-ground rainwater collection and a variety of fruit trees, grapes, herbs, and year-round pollinator plants mixed with annual vegetables. There is a path through it with seating for anyone who walks by. The food forest concept extends to the back garden. This yard has inspired several neighbors to transform their landscapes. Produce from the garden is used in the food forest keeper’s small home-based restaurant and they donate excess produce.

Learn more

Loma Vista Farm

The Food Forest Garden is an extra special garden at the Farm. It provides a beautiful demonstration to the many thousands of people that visit each year on how to plant their own yard in a variety of fruit trees, perennial vegetables, herbs, native plants and pollinator plants. Volunteers will be available to show visitors the Food Forest Garden. The Farm will close promptly at 4 pm.

The tour will be on the same day as Loma Vista Farm’s annual Spring Open House, making it an extra special day to visit. The Farm event begins at 11 am and ends at 3 pm. Please come before 3 pm if you would like to enjoy both events.

As part of the Farm event there will be a plant sale in the greenhouse of natives, herbs, vegetables, and pollinator plants. The students from Loma Vista Environmental Science Academy produce these plants as part of their weekly farm science lessons.

For more information check out: Lomavistafarm.org.

Learn more

Morningside Botanical Bounty

Morningside Botanical Bounty food forest was created as part of the Resilient Neighborhoods Program. This backyard garden has a laundry-to-landscape greywater system, fruit trees (pruned to keep them short and easy to harvest), swales, drip irrigation, bee-friendly plants, native plants and shade trees.

Native plant information will be available.

Learn more here

Pollinator Pathway

Pollinator food forest garden filled with a variety of California native plants that support the habitat of butterflies, bees, moths, wasps, hummingbirds and so much more. This garden was just installed in February 2023 as a collaboration with a variety of organizations including Vallejo People’s Garden, Vallejo Project, Solano Resource Conservation District and Monarch Milkweed Project. Alanna Mirror wrote three songs inspired by the installation, featured in her Pollinator Pathway Lawn Transformation Mini Series!

Designer John Davenport of Cali Ground Troops will be at the site from 12-4 pm to tour and educate on how this 3,000 square foot lawn was converted into a native pollinator garden. The tour coincides with Vallejo People’s Garden Earth Day Celebration, 11 am-4 pm, which will include food trucks, live music, artisans, hand crafted goods, education, free seeds and garden classes.

Terraza Dominicana (St. Patrick-St. Vincent Catholic High School)

SPSV Food Forest comprises six planting guilds, each with a central tree and underplanting on a steep hillside. It is used as a living laboratory for students to explore soil health, water conservation and pollination. The food forest highlights design features to address erosion control as well as techniques using repurposed materials for terracing a hillside. The garden space also includes a beautiful meditation labyrinth for reflection and contemplation.

Students from SPSV’s Urban Farmers club will be sponsoring a plant sale, and Scott Dodson, the owner of Bee Tribe Honey Farms, will be educating about bees and hive maintenance and selling his raw honey.

Learn more

Vallejo Unity Garden (Vallejo Project)

Vallejo Project’s Unity Garden initiative restored an abandoned lot that was once filled with sand and garbage and turned it into a multi-level food forest with internationally influenced farming techniques and 10 chickens. This garden is focused on urban agriculture.

There will be seeds, plants or art from the garden for sale.

Vallejo Project imagines a Vallejo strengthened by new generations of youth and young adults who are inspired to give back to their community as role models, advocates, entrepreneurs, and leaders; who are able to efficiently articulate and implement solutions to challenges in the community based on their learned experience and knowledge gained through youth development programs.

Learn more

We are incredibly grateful for the generous support of our funders. The first seven food forest gardens were made possible through funding from the Benicia Sustainability Commission; the Solano County Water Agency continues to support the Sustainable Backyard Program throughout the county. Solano Sustainable Backyard Program short videos: Waterwise and Building Gardens and Community. Occasionally we combine funding from other programs to make larger projects possible.

2023 Benicia & Vallejo Demonstration Food Forest Tour is April 22!

Mar 29, 2023

By Nicole Newell, Sustainable Landscaping Program Manager

The Redwood Guild garden in Benicia during the 2022 tour

We will be opening up our demonstration food forest gardens in Benicia and Vallejo for the annual tour on April 22, and are thrilled that it coincides with Earth Day! Come celebrate spring with us and enjoy time in the gardens connecting with each other after this long, rainy winter. Learn about the gardens here.

Each garden offers ideas and inspiration on how to use water efficiently while creating a lush thriving garden that supports life and provides food and habitat. Some of the garden sites will have education and information on bees, honey, Monarch butterflies, laundry-to-landscape greywater, compost, Food is Free stands, native plants, local food, guided tours, spring festivals and so much more. We will also have laundry-to-landscape greywater education in English & Spanish! All of the gardens will showcase plants that thrive in Solano County.

This year SuSol formed a new partnership with the Vallejo People’s Garden and together installed the Pollinator Pathway native plant garden on Mare Island. It was a true collaboration that highlighted the amazing work that can be done when we partner together and remember Our Worthy Place in the garden! Our deepest hope for this year’s tour is that people get energized and inspired to take action and become caretakers of the land and each other.

Read below to find out more about the day’s events and what to expect in each garden so you can plan out your day!

Register here

This program is made possible by the generous support from the Solano County Water Agency.

Plan Your Day

Learn about each garden you can visit here

How It Will Work

You can choose to tour for the whole day or for half a day.
Learn about the gardens here
Benicia Demonstration Food Forest Gardens will be open 10 am-1 pm
Vallejo Demonstration Food Forest Gardens will be open 1-4 pm

Register here

Itinerary pickup and special events:

9-11 am: Itineraries will be available at Avant Garden in Benicia (400 First St.). This itinerary will include all of the demonstration food forest gardens in Benicia (open in the morning) and Vallejo (open in the afternoon).

9 am: Author and designer Joshua Burman Thayer will give a talk at Avant Garden on California Food Forest Gardens. He will have his Food Forest for First Timers book available for purchase.

12-1 pm: Itineraries for the Vallejo garden sites (open in the afternoon) will be available at the Global Center for Success (1055 Azuar Dr/BLDG 733).

12 pm: Designer John Davenport of Cali Ground Troops will give a talk on Lawn Conversions for Water Savings and offer a guided tour of the Pollinator Pathway garden.