Learn to clean your own ground.
Workshops and an eight-week course for people who live near the burn, with a stipend for residents of the burn area. Course graduates get first call on paid crew work.
Coming up.
Seats left update as people sign up. A course drops off this list the day it starts.
Soil practitioner course
Field and lab, from the first core to the second test. A certificate at the end, and first call on paid crew work.
8 Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., 17 October to 5 December · Free, with a stipend · stipend for burn-area residents
Mushroom straw workshop
Make a bed of oyster mushroom straw and take a bag of spawn home.
Saturday 9 a.m. to noon · $15, or free if you ask
Reading a lab sheet
One hour on what the columns mean and who to ask about your own numbers.
Tuesday 6 to 7 p.m. · Free
Seed collecting walk
Collect native grass seed on the ridge for next year's sites.
Sunday 9 a.m. to noon · Free
Making char
How we turn cleared brush into char in a low-smoke kiln, and why it matters in soil.
Saturday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. · $10
No fee stops anyone.
Every paid workshop is free if you ask, and the long course pays residents of the burn area to take it.
Open now.
A job leaves this page the day after it closes, so nobody applies to a post that is already filled.
Field technician
Takes cores, lays straw and wattles, and leads volunteer crews on site days. A driver's licence and a willingness to work in coveralls and a respirator.
Full time, $26 to $29 an hour, benefits
Lab intern
Prepares and logs samples, keeps the greenhouse trials going. Course graduates are encouraged to apply.
20 hours a week for six months, $20 an hour
Winter planting crew
Plants willow stakes and native grasses on creek and trail sites through the rains.
December to March, 3 days a week, $22 an hour
About sixty neighbours help.
- Field days: laying straw, planting, pinning wattles
- Soil sampling on test days, after training
- Lab work: sieving and logging samples
- Seed collecting on the ridge
- Office help, writing and translation