OGS home vermi-composter on display at Earth Day events in San Antonio

Last week we had the opportunity to partner with the Bexar County's Texas AgriLife Extension Service to educate people on the many benefits of vermi-composting at a series of Earth Day Events. Our home worm composting kit made another appearance at the Master Gardeners display tables to show people how easy it is to start your very own worm farm at home and turn your kitchen scraps into worm castings. For anyone not familiar with the Master Gardeners program, they are part of the Horticulture department at Agrilife and it is a phenomenal educational opportunity for anyone from beginners just looking to start their first garden, to the seasoned veteran who wants to take their horticultural skills to the next level. Anyone who is interested should check out their website here.

The 3 day series of events were held at the UTSA main campus, StandardAero, and the UT Health Science Center. Thanks again to David Rodriguez at Agrilife for making the connection, and of course to Margie Noonan for doing pretty much all the leg work!

OGS Display in Viva Botanica at the San Antonio Botanical Gardens

Last Saturday OGS joined the Alamo Sierra Club table at Viva Botanica to show attendees how easy it is to set up your very own worm farm at home. We made a quick home scale bin to bring, which is a much smaller scale than we deal with now, but it reminded me of when we first started doing this in bins just like that in the living room of Raja's apartment. Many of the adults we talked to said they had considered diversifying their home composting with some Red Wigglers and were happy to see how easy it is, while the kids ... well, let's face it, they were just excited to play with some worms!

The Sierra club had a really cool workshop on plant cuttings, which involves clipping small sections off of established plants and transplanting them into a new pot. The cutting then begins to grow its own root structure and eventually becomes its own full-size plant. We've actually seen some of the local nurseries around town, like Beull's Wholesale Growers, doing it. Their workshop let people take cuttings off of some plants they had brought in order to transplant them and take them home. Some of the kids came over to our side of the table to fertilize their cuttings with some of our worm castings. We think they'll be surprised by how fast those little plants will take root and start shooting up towards the sun!

Thank you Peggy Day, for asking us to be a part of your display, and thank you Bob for the great advice you shared with us. Thank you David Rodriguez, over at the AgriLife Extension for putting us in touch.

OGS Texas teams up with the San Antonio ISD FFA

Last week OGS had the opportunity to visit an FFA class at Burbank High School in San Antonio. Co-Founder Ben Ryan came in to talk to the students about the many benefits of having a diverse population of microbes and beneficial fungi in your soil can be and how worm castings, compost, and compost tea play such a crucial role in keeping the soil healthy.

We also brought along a sample of some OGS Vermi-Brew to use on some newly planted tomato and pepper crops the students planted the previous week. They had three rows planted of each crop and decided to leave one row each untreated as a control and see what the difference was after a few weeks of growth. We're looking forward to seeing the results over time!

From the Earth back to the Earth. Recycling Mother Nature

Organic Gardening Supply is a group of family and friends dedicated to making the world a better place by recycling food waste into environmentally friendly and sustainable products. We started our company in 2010 with the humble goal of recycling 10 percent of the waste generated in the United States. While we acknowledge that the goal is optimistic, we are an optimistic company and believe that with some good old fashion hard work, fair business practices, and help from the community we will accomplish our goal. To realize that goal we have started working with local grocery stores and food distribution centers collecting and recycling their waste.

Every day a typical grocery store throws away between one hundred and two hundred pounds of produce. That adds up to approximately 55,000 pounds of produce waste generated annually per store. We recycle that waste turning it into natural soil amendments using a process called vermi-culture. This process involves feeding spoiled organic material to earthworms which convert it into a solid and liquid material called worm castings and worm tea. Both products are rich in nutrients needed for plant growth, but the major benefits come from the abundance of microbial life that is essential for soil fertility and sustainability. As a healthy, organic, earth friendly and effective alternative to chemical fertilizers, the worm castings and tea are ideal for lawns, gardens, potted plants, sports fields, and golf courses.

If you are interested in learning more about our company and what we do we can be reached at the following;

Website: www.organicgardeningsupplyinc.com

Email: organicgardeningsupply@gmail.com

Phone: (808) 348-0345