What happens when landscaping students, environmental architects, and soil health researchers team up? At Humber Polytechnic, the answer is a thriving collaboration that’s transforming soil from the ground up!
Students in Humber’s Landscape Technician Program have partnered with Jocelyn’s Soil Booster, featuring Worm Manure products from Wastenot Farms, to explore the regenerative power of vermicompost and compost-based soil amendments.
Jocelyn’s Soil Booster is a regenerative line of all-natural soil amendments developed by Wastenot Farms, a Canadian women-led business, founded by Jocelyn Molyneux. With a mission to reduce landfill waste, sequester carbon, and restore ecological biodiversity, Wastenot Farms transforms organic residuals into biologically rich soil amendments that support Canada’s circular economy.
Through hands-on trials, they are learning how these natural treatments, sustainable alternatives to synthetic fertilizers, improve soil structure, moisture retention, and microbial activity, all key indicators of long-term soil health.
A Partnership Rooted in Sustainability
This project, a joint effort between Humber’s Research Faculty and Jocelyn’s Soil Booster, aims to explore how soil health can be enhanced through compost and vermicompost amendments, and how these practices can be applied across diverse urban settings to address current real-world environmental challenges.
"This research is a good example of Humber teaming up with an industry partner on a project that benefits both parties. We're hoping that the research will yield qualitative and quantitative data and provide evidence that supports the use of their product as a superior soil amendment,” said Gino Teolis, professor in the Landscape Technician Diploma Program.
“In turn, our student assistants get to learn about how research works and play an important part in the process. This can help them in their careers or furthering their education. Our Landscape Technician program also benefits by being known as a program that offers research opportunities in addition to theoretical and practical training."
Students applied their course theory to practice and began laying out the experimental plots to reflect a range of urban conditions, including rooftop garden beds, indoor greenhouse plants, outdoor planters, and turf grass installations. With training and support from Jocelyn’s Soil Booster team, data collection began in early October.
Michelle Gauthier is a student in the Landscape Technician Diploma Program.
“It has been nice to learn from the company what they get to do on a daily basis as a business that isn’t involved in landscaping itself, but gets to work in tandem with them, as well as the experience they are bringing to the practical elements of this industry and seeing how everything works together,” said Michelle Gauthier, a student in the Landscape Technician Diploma Program. “It has been interesting to see what the world is like in the landscaping industry outside of school and the different opportunities, we get to dive more into the science, and underneath the soil and not just the landscaping itself and what’s on top.”
This year-long trial will investigate the biological and physical impacts of these all-natural amendments on soil and plant health, offering insights into how regenerative practices can be scaled across urban landscapes. By comparing results across various environments, this research hopes to uncover scalable strategies for developing resilient, living soils that support sustainable cities.