UC Master Gardeners: Composting and Vermiculture for Home Gardeners

Learn from our UC Master Gardener volunteers, Joie Spinelli and Dr. Dennis Shusterman, how to turn garden waste into black gold for a healthier garden. This webinar will cover both traditional composting as well as vermiculture, composting with worms. Find out how green and brown organic materials that you already have in your yard are turned into compost and why it is an essential soil amendment.

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About the Master Gardeners
Dennis Shusterman is a semi-retired physician who has spent most of his career practicing occupational and environmental medicine. He is affiliated with UC San Francisco as a faculty member and UC Berkeley as a practicing physician. His interest in soils and composting grew from his time in Sonoma County as a premed student (and later clinic physician), and was honed by his work with Contra Costa Master Gardeners’ School Gardens group. He has most recently been exploring compost through the lens of a microscope.

Joie Spinelli, UC Master Gardener CCC 2016, RecycleSmart Compost trained, lead for compost efforts at UC MG Demonstration Garden in WC, and home gardener. Raised in the bay area, worked summers in Gridley at his family’s Peach, Olive and Walnut orchard all through college. Worked with organic garden co-ops in Tahoe-Truckee area throughout the 70’s, as well as raising milking goats for 6 years.

He has worked and trained with Steve Andrews, UC soil scientist and natural resources educator, working with different mediums to create compost recipes, as well as different aeration devices, and insulation material to maintain ambient temperatures throughout the seasons. Believes composting is the basis and a key component in soil health.