STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

Learn everything you need to know about composting when the Hailey Public Library presents an interactive workshop on the subject tonight—Tuesday, Sept. 29.

The workshop, which comes just as gardeners are pulling the remainders out of the ground, will be held at 5:30 p.m. via Zoom. To participate, RSVP to Kristin.fletcher@haileypubliclibrary.org.

Master-gardener Manon Gaudreau and local food advocate Amy Mattias, who is with the Sun Valley Institute, will teach the class. They will address what and what not to compost, how to compost and the pros and cons of hot and cold composts. They’ll also address making compost tea and vermi, or worm, compost.

“We all have kitchen, yard and sometimes garden waste and it can all be recycled,” said Kristin Fletcher, the adult program coordinator at the library. “Composting reduces the amount of trash we produce and returns plant residue back to the soil as a fertilizer or mulch, enhancing the microbiome.”

• Both Gaudreau and Mattias will also lead a Fall Garden Workshop and Harvest Exchange at the new Grange Garden in Hailey on Saturday. The workshop will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 609 S. Third Avenue a couple doors down from The Senior Connection.

They will construct a three-bin composting unit from pallets. They’ll harvest potatoes that have been growing in a tower. And they will prep the Grange garden for winter.

They will start the composting operation with the straw in the potato, adding weeds, vegetable and plant clippings, dry leaves, manure. They will finish by inoculating it with mature compost containing earth worms.

Participants who would like to add biodiversity to their home compost can mix and exchange home compost. Participants are also encouraged to bring seeds and vegetable harvest they’d like to share with others, the Wood River Seed Library or community gardens.