Nurturing Your Garden With Tips On Compost

With mulch being a big concern these days as a breeding site for the coconut rhinoceros beetle, Halawa Xeriscape Garden still will offer a composting workshop for island gardeners Saturday, even as it eliminates its free weekly mulch giveaway.

The invasive scarab beetle loves to munch on coconut palms, and then it breeds in piles of mulch, local wildlife experts have discovered.

Commercial mulch, therefore, is no longer available at the Halawa garden and other Oahu sites, as state and federal teams try to eradicate the large, invasive pest.

To improve and nourish soil, compost is “the next best alternative” to mulch, according to officials at the xeriscape garden.

“Compost is mulch broken down into its most beneficial form,” they stated, and you can plant directly into it.

The Sept. 27 workshop “Soil Wealth: Composting Creates Rich Soil” is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. to noon Saturday at the garden, 99-1268 Iwaena St. in Halawa Valley.

Topics include vermicast, Bokashi, kitchen scraps, manure, inorganic methods, red and black cinder, white coral, decorative bark and traditional compost.

Fee is $5 for the public, and deadline is 2 p.m. Sept. 26.

Call Diane Moses at 748-5363. Space is limited; no beetles allowed.