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Turning Waste Into Wealth: Mastering Professional Composting + A Look Ahead to Our Final Fall Class

  • tenisio seanima
  • 3 days ago
  • 3 min read

By teniso seanima | Fresh Oasis Community Garden at ArtsXchange


In every thriving garden, there’s one secret that lies beneath the surface—literally. Healthy soil is the foundation of abundant harvests, resilient plants, cleaner ecosystems, and truly sustainable homesteading. And this past weekend, our “Garden Like A Boss” community dove deep into exactly that.


At Nature’s Candy Farms, surrounded by steaming compost and the rich scent of living soil, participants joined master grower and sustainability leader Khari Diop for a hands-on training in Professional-Quality Compost Production. What unfolded was more than a workshop—it was a reclaiming of ancestral agricultural wisdom paired with the best of modern ecological science.


Composting: The Engine of Regenerative Gardening

So often in urban spaces, organic “waste” is seen as…well, waste. But in the right hands, it becomes power.


During the field trip, Khari broke down how compost isn’t just decomposed material—it’s a living ecosystem, teeming with microbes that:

  • Restore depleted soils

  • Improve water retention

  • Reduce plant disease

  • Support nutrient-dense food production

  • Lower our dependence on synthetic fertilizers

Participants learned how to build compost piles the right way—balancing carbon and nitrogen inputs, understanding the critical role of temperature, oxygen, and moisture, and how to transform everyday materials (leaves, food scraps, coffee grounds, livestock bedding) into black gold.


You don’t feed the plants—you feed the soil, and the soil feeds everything else.

That was the heart of the message, and the energy was undeniable.

Hands plunged into warm compost. Thermometers went deep. Questions flew. Lightbulbs turned on.


This is urban homesteading at its finest—skill-building, empowerment, and community all working together to build a more resilient food system.


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Looking Forward: Tree Grafting — Reviving a Dying Art

With soil mastery under our belts, we turn now to the final class of our Fall 2025 series—and it’s one you won’t want to miss.

Tree grafting is one of the oldest horticultural techniques on Earth, yet today it risks becoming a lost skill. For centuries, people used grafting to:

  • Clone the best fruit varieties

  • Repair storm- or pest-damaged trees

  • Create multi-variety “fruit cocktail” trees

  • Preserve endangered heirloom genetics

  • Expand orchards without starting from seed

And on December 6th, we bring this knowledge home.



Garden Like A Boss: Urban Homesteading

Theme: Tree Grafting — Reviving the Dying Art

Guest Instructor: Niamke Shropshire-Boykin of GlycoSponge

📍 ArtsXchange, 2148 Newnan St., East Point, GA 30344

📅 December 6, 2025

🕚 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM

🔗 Register / Get Tickets


(Walk-ups welcome!)

Niamke—an innovative grower, researcher, and agricultural storyteller—will guide participants through:

  • The science of why grafting works

  • Tools and techniques for successful graft unions

  • Choosing rootstocks and scions

  • How to save damaged trees

  • How to produce your own custom fruit varieties

  • Hands-on practice with real grafting demonstrations

This is a rare opportunity to learn a dying craft that has shaped food cultures around the world. Whether you’re a backyard grower or developing an orchard, this workshop will boost your confidence and your harvests.


Why These Classes Matter

Urban homesteading isn’t just a trend. It’s a movement toward independence, resilience, health, and community. Every class—from foraging, to composting, to grafting—helps us reclaim skills that generations before us relied on for survival.

As we reach the end of the Fall 2025 series, we celebrate the growers, families, elders, youth, and newcomers who continue showing up, ready to learn, build, and cultivate something meaningful. Together, we’re nurturing not just land, but legacy.


Final Thought

Soil is the beginning. Trees are the inheritance.


With every workshop, every garden bed, every restored landscape, we’re writing a new chapter of community wellness and land stewardship.


Join us for the final class of the season—and let’s keep growing, grafting, and homesteading like a boss.


Presented by Nature’s Candy Farms, ArtsXchange, Partnership for Southern Equity & Greening America’s Cities.


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