Grow Youngstown announces upcoming events

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Grow Youngstown has announced upcoming events and programs.

On Grow Youngstown will offer an organic composting class Saturday and Aug. 13, 16 and 20, at Fellows Riverside Gardens, 123 McKinley Ave., in Mill Creek Park from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays and 4 to 8 p.m. Wednesdays.

The four-day class will take participants through various methods of composting, national organic standards, the actors in compost, importance of temperature and the nitrogen cycle.

The class will be lecture and hands-on, making and monitoring windrows and backyard piles over a 15-day period. To register, visit www.growyoungstown.org.

From 1 to 4:30 p.m. Sept. 11, the organization will offer a free Compost Business Opportunities and Stakeholder meeting, also at Fellows Riverside Gardens.

The meeting will convene Mahoning Valley stakeholders and Northeast Ohio experts for education and collaboration addressing the abundance of food, farm and landscape waste that is underused.

The goal is to gather private and public players to make it possible for more of the organic-waste stream to be recycled profitably and made available to the new farm community that needs rich compost.

Experts in commercial composting will share business techniques, regulations and profitability. Businesses on both ends of the waste stream will articulate their needs, interests and resources.

Grow Youngstown also has announced its Compost Campaign Awards, of which there will be nine possible winners.

For information and an application, visit grow-youngstown.org.

The compost campaign is a joint effort of Mill Creek MetroParks, Goodness Grows, Grow Youngstown, Ohio State University Extension Service and Mahoning County Soil and Water Conservation District.

For information, contact Meagan Tehua at 330-549-9408 or Elsa Higby at 330-286-0688.