Compost & Community: Garden Support from Other Growers, Compost, and Critters (Camden Talks Climate)

Spring is officially here, and minds and hearts are turning to growing. Some organized gardeners have already started seedlings and sketched out plots. If you haven’t, you can still get on board with small acts of gardening. Or you may have be looking for a gardening plot.

Join us on Thursday, April 9, 6:30 PM at Camden Public Library and on Zoom for “Compost & Community: Garden Support from Other Growers, Compost, and Critters” to answer these needs and learn exciting ways to improve your 2026 garden. Hosted by CamdenCAN and Camden Public Library.

Joelle Albury from Erikson Fields Preserve and Aldermere Farm Preserve will talk about the ways your can get your hands dirty with community gardening, including fun benefits, like regular potlucks, community work days, and just the joy of getting to know new friends at a new growing place. Joelle will be joined by ScrapDogs’ Tessa Rosenberry who will help us understand the many ways that composting your food and garden scraps can improve your life (and help the planet!).

This program takes place in person at the library as well as on Zoom. Registration is not required if attending in-person.

A dairy farm for generations, Erickson Fields has 120-square-foot plots available for $75 each. Financial assistance is available on a sliding scale. Erickson Fields, which sits on an idyllic breezy knoll, is close to the intersection of US 1 and Rt. 90.

The gardens are surrounded by a deer fence and offer water, manure, a shed for tools, and guidance. Nearby, a spirited Teen Ag Crew tends their impressive gardens. (The plots are currently filled, but we are accepting applications for anyone who would like to be added to a waitlist.)

Erickson Fields is a preserve of Maine Coast Heritage Trust, a statewide land conservation organization. The Trust maintains Erickson Fields as a working farm that annually produces thousands of pounds of produce for local food assistance programs and hosts educational programs for the community.

ScrapDogs Community Compost is a food scrap collection and composting service founded in 2018 with the goal of diverting food waste away from landfills and incinerators, while simultaneously strengthening the local food system. ScrapDogs, based in Rockland, serves a growing number of coastal communities from Belfast to Wiscasset, and along the Kennebec River from Waterville to Gardiner.

ScrapDogs’ finished compost is made with food scraps from Maine homes, schools, and businesses, as well as lobster and oyster shells, animal manures, and hardwood bark–transforming undervalued resources into gold for your garden and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the process.

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