Make every day Earth Day

What if you could give back to the earth every day?
Composting your kitchen organic waste in your own yard instead of suffocating it in a plastic bag in a landfill just may be simpler than you thought.

Due to low density zoning, most Tri-Citians have gardens, where kitchen scraps (excluding meat and dairy) can be easily turned into a great soil amendment. And for the apartment dwellers, you can compost in a box or in a pit in one of the various community gardens in town.

Why is backyard composting better?

Many cities and municipalities have introduced curbside organic waste pick-ups. This requires extra hauling, causes odors and emissions around large operations, and according to a King County Organic Materials Management report (2019), commercial composting involving the acceptance of food has resulted in a contaminated, less desirable compost end product. So just taking care of it yourself will reduce emissions and keeps soil cleaner.

Tri-City Gardeners on Facebook

For people who have not said goodbye to Facebook yet, there is an excellent group, Tri-City Gardeners, you can follow with very experienced local gardeners.
A poll about composting shows Tri-Cities gardeners are taking their organics back to the earth in many different ways, from blending it to a ‘soup’, using it to feed the chickens, or adding it to tumblers and worm bins.

On the right (below for web version) is a Japanese composting method inspired by an article, The Compost by My Couch: How (and Why) I Started an Odorless Bin at Home, in the New York Times.