CompostGal: Consulting, Landscaping & Education

04/01/2026

We’re excited to host our annual 🌱 Plant Sale in partnership with the Berkeley Unified School District Climate Fair!

Join us on Saturday, April 25th from 10 AM–2 PM to stock up on plants for your home garden, shop Edible Schoolyard swag, or simply enjoy the beauty of spring in the garden 🌸

Explore hands-on learning stations throughout the space featuring ways to care for our planet—like growing your own food, planting native plants, composting, using natural dyes, mending clothing, and more 🌍

Proceeds from the plant sale and merchandise support the Edible Schoolyard Project, helping us provide edible education in the kitchen and garden classrooms for all King Middle School students. Our program nurtures food knowledge, climate stewardship, and a strong sense of belonging—while sustaining a vibrant green space for our community.

Thank you for your support! 🌷

✨ Pre-order your plants online the link is in our bio 🔗
🚚 Limited home delivery options available

🌱

03/30/2026

🌿How do you know when your cilantro is about to bolt? 🏃🏾‍♀️

When it starts to go from rounded leaves to frilly thin leaves. To keep it from bolting pinching off of the frilly leaves helps, but it might be something you do everyday as the weather gets warmer.

03/21/2026

😍😍😍😍

Merritt College Horticulture Spring Plant Fair

Merritt College Landscape Horticulture Department is having a spring plant sale! It will be held at our recently renovated site. We now have larger classrooms, state of the art greenhouses, and newly landscaped grounds. Spend the day walking around the department and gardens, listening to music, eating delicious food, and shopping for plants!

Saturday, May 2, 2026
9a.m.-5p.m.

* ANNUAL VEGGIES * CA NATIVE PLANTS * HERBS * INDOOR PLANTS * ORNAMENTAL PLANTS * PERENNIAL EDIBLES * SUCCULENTS

~ VENDORS ~ ~ MUSIC ~ ~ FOOD ~

Merritt College
Landscape Horticulture Department
12500 Campus Drive
Oakland, California 94619

We hope to see you there!

03/18/2026

Ok I’m watching this!!! Zack knows what’s up!!!

03/12/2026

Republic Services will be hosting a Free Compost Giveaway for Martinez residents on Saturday, March 21st at the Martinez Marina/ Yacht Club Parking Lot (111 Tarantino Drive) from 9 AM to 1 PM! Residents can collect up to 40 gallons or eight five-gallon buckets.
Limited slots are available, and appointments are required.

For instructions and to sign up, go to RepublicServices.com/MartinezCA.

Please remember to bring your containers, government-issued ID with your Martinez address, and follow guidelines from Republic Services. Happy Composting!

03/02/2026

I love companion planting for so many reasons!!! Here are some suggestions for your gardens!

Small Garden, Big Harvests: 9 Synergy Pairs to Maximize Your Raised Bed! 🌱🍅
Maximize every inch of your raised bed and grow healthier, more productive plants with the power of synergistic planting! The visual guide breaks down nine specific pairings that fight pests, improve soil, and boost growth—all without chemicals.
Discover why these simple matches are the secret to abundant, easy-to-manage small-space gardens:
9 Powerful Synergy Pairings for Your Raised Bed:
* Tomato & Basil: Basil's potent aroma cleverly masks the scent of tomatoes, confusing damaging pests like whiteflies and aphids so they leave your tomatoes alone.
* Primary Benefit: Pest Protection
* Bonus: They grow perfectly together in identical sun and water conditions.
* Carrot & Onion: Onions act as a natural, scent-based repellent, driving away carrot rust flies. While carrots send roots deep into the soil, onions' shallow roots are completely ignored, allowing them to share space without competing for nutrients.
* Primary Benefit: Pest Repellent & Space Saving
* Bonus: Perfect companions for one square foot.
* Lettuce & Radish: Radishes are fast-growers—harvestable in just 25 days! As they grow, their strong roots naturally break up compacted, crusty soil, creating a looser environment perfect for lettuce roots following close behind.
* Primary Benefit: Soil Improvement & Sequential Planting
* Bonus: Use the same space for two consecutive crops.
* Cucumber & Dill: Flowering dill is a magnet for beneficial insects like predatory wasps and hoverflies—the natural enemies that love to eat damaging cucumber beetles.
* Primary Benefit: Biological Pest Control
* Bonus: Both thrive in the same warm, wet conditions.
* Bean & Corn: Beans are nitrogen-fixers, pulling essential nitrogen from the air and adding it to the soil—exactly what nitrogen-hungry corn is constantly pulling out! Corn also serves as a strong, living trellis for bean vines to climb, saving you from building support.
* Primary Benefit: Nutrient Fixing & Living Support
* Bonus: Traditional, powerful "Two Sisters" combo.
* Pepper & Spinach: Low-growing spinach acts as a "living mulch," perfectly shading the shallow roots of pepper plants to retain moisture and suppress weeds during summer heat. It naturally bolts and finishes its lifecycle just as peppers are growing larger and need full sun at their base.
* Primary Benefit: Living Mulch & Microclimate Control
* Bonus: Natural succession planting.
* Kale & Garlic: Garlic's powerful scent is a super-deterrent, confusing and repelling cabbage loopers and aphids that otherwise love to target kale plants. Since garlic has shallow roots, it stays completely out of the way of kale's deeper feeding roots.
* Primary Benefit: Pest Deterrence & No Root Competition
* Bonus: Perfect companion for one square foot.
* Strawberry & Borage: Beautiful borage flowers are an absolute bee magnet, drawing critical pollinators that ensure your strawberries have maximum fruit set. Plus, its long taproot reaches deep into the subsoil, bringing up valuable minerals to the surface where shallow strawberry roots can easily access them.
* Primary Benefit: Pollinator Attraction & Mineral Accumulation
* Bonus: A delightful and powerful garden border.
* Squash & Nasturtium: Bright nasturtiums are the perfect "living decoy." Aphids and squash bugs are naturally more attracted to nasturtiums than to your valuable squash plants. They'll sacrifice their leaves to keep your squash vines clean and productive.
* Primary Benefit: Decoy Planting & Natural Pest Protection
* Bonus: Edible flowers add color and flavor to salads.
How to Plan Your 4×4 Bed:
Want to put this strategy into action? Follow these simple layout rules:
* ☀️ Sun First: Give tomato and basil the north side so their height doesn't shade everything else.
* 🧱 Corner Crops: Beans and corn are a team and can use a corner all to themselves—remember, corn gets tall fast.
* 🌿 Edge Work: Shallow-rooted strawberries and borage are a perfect choice for a permanent border along one side.
* 🤫 Shadow Dwellers: Tuck lettuce and radish into the slightly shadier edges created by your taller plants.
* 🔄 Rotate Rest: Every other pair is a perfect fit for a single square foot, so rotate the remaining combinations based on what you love to eat most!
Grow smart, not hard, and enjoy a healthier, more bountiful harvest this season!
What's Your Favorite Synergy Pair?
Have you tried any of these combinations? What's your secret weapon for growing amazing vegetables in a small space? Share your tips, experiences, and questions in the comments below! 👇

02/17/2026

What: Work Days @ Laurel Community Garden with ReUnion
When: Saturday & Sunday, Feb 28th & March 1st, 9am-4pm
Where: 3868 Maybelle Ave., Oakland, CA 94619
Register: https://forms.gle/EMRmsx3Cf27tzr7FA

We need help with:
Weeding
Sheet mulching & compost laying
Organizing & labeling tools, equipment
Repairing the chicken coop & trellising
Other Info: The garden is located down a long driveway behind 3870 Maybelle. Parking can be found along Maybelle as well as Bayo. The High St & MacArthur bus stop is about a 10min walk.
Gloves, tools, snacks and water provided but feel free to bring your own gloves, water bottle & plastic-free snack to share.

Laurel Community Garden aka "The Garden" has long been a sanctuary in East Oakland maintained and visited by homeschool groups, foragers and neighbors. It is home to native and introduced plants, pollinators, and animal relatives. Its existence is a testament to what can happen when people choose to care beyond the concept of owning land. Recognizing its legacy and the need for spaces like it to preserved, and continued, we are asking for folks to help us make The Garden's functions intentional and recognizable.

ReUnion is a project that provides safe spaces to remember the ancestral traditions and technologies that allow for collective wellness. We envision a present and future where interdependence is practiced and humans no longer participate in systems that are sustained by extraction and violence. While all community members who share our vision to participate in offerings and co-create activities that nourish abolition, healing and zero waste are welcome, we prioritize supporting Black and Indigenous families in this work and spaces.