Backyard Composting

Introduction

Introduction

Part 1:
Composting basics

Part 2:
How to make compost

Part 3:
Health and safety questions

Part 4:
Using compost in your yard

Composting coffee grounds

Gardeners have long made and used compost because of the way it improves garden soil. Today, we also compost plant and vegetable matter because it is an important way to reduce the amount of waste that is burned or dumped in landfills. Yard wastes and vegetable scraps can make up as much as 20% of our household garbage. Composting effectively recycles that waste.

Composting and the environment

Backyard composting reduces the flow of wastes to landfills or bum piles, and produces valuable organic matter for the soil at the same time. Composting does all this using a process fueled by the solar energy captured in plant tissue. These benefits are the same whether we compost in carefully tended hot piles, or in neglected slow piles. Backyard composting is a simple, yet important way to improve our communities and the environment.

Methods of garden composting - from left to right:
tumbling unit, worm bin, holding bin, stackable unit,
at Closed Loop Park in Thurston County

Composting is easy

Part 1: Composting basics

More information about this topic is available through your local Cooperative Extension Office

Source: Washington State University Cooperative Extension - Publication EB1784 - Backyard Composting in the 1990's; Published August 1994, Reprinted February 1995
By Craig Cogger, Ph.D., Washington State University Cooperative Extension Soil Scientist, WSU Puyallup; Dan M. Sullivan, Ph.D., WSU Assistant Scientist, WSU Puyallup; and Susan K. Duncan, M.Ed., WSU Cooperative Extension Area Agent, Lincoln-Adams County.

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