(Article taken from USEPA – Composting at Home (https://www.epa.gov/recycle/composting-home) and Ohio EPA Citizens Guide to Composting - https://epa.ohio.gov/portals/47/facts/citizens_guide_to_composting.pdf )

During this unusual and challenging year many of us have looked for new hobbies to fill our time. Composting is a hobby that is not only fun, but it is beneficial to the soil and your wallet! Composting is nature’s way of recycling leaves, grass clippings, kitchen scraps and other organic wastes by converting them into a valuable soil amendment called compost. By composting at home, you’ll enjoy the financial benefits of free soil enrichment, reduce the amount of solid wastes sent to landfills and conserve resources.
Compost is organic material that can be added to soil to help plants grow. Food scraps and yard waste together currently make up more than 28 percent of what we throw away, and should be composted instead. Making compost keeps these materials out of landfills where they take up space and release methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Composting at home is very easy and practical. Once you learn the basics, you’ll be turning out lush piles of rich compost in short order. Using compost yields faster-growing, stronger plants. The chief value in using compost is the beneficial effect on soil structure. Incorporating compost into the soil improves aeration and drainage and makes the soil loose and easy to work. Compost increases the organic matter content of clay and sandy soils, allowing them to better retain water and nutrients. It also helps control erosion, proper pH balance and plant disease.
All composting requires three basic ingredients:

• Browns - This includes materials such as dead leaves, branches, and twigs.
• Greens - This includes materials such as grass clippings, vegetable waste, fruit scraps, and coffee grounds.
• Water - Having the right amount of water, greens, and browns is important for compost development.

Your compost pile should have an equal amount of browns to greens. You should also alternate layers of organic materials of different-sized particles. The brown materials provide carbon for your compost, the green materials provide nitrogen, and the water provides moisture to help break down the organic matter.

What To Compost

• Fruits and vegetables
• Eggshells
• Coffee grounds and filters
• Tea bags
• Nut shells
• Shredded newspaper
• Cardboard
• Paper
• Yard trimmings
• Grass clippings
• Houseplants
• Hay and straw
• Leaves
• Sawdust
• Wood chips
• Cotton and Wool Rags
• Dryer and vacuum cleaner lint
• Hair and fur
• Fireplace ashes

 
What Not To Compost and Why

• Black walnut tree leaves or twigs
  - Releases substances that might be harmful to plants
• Coal or charcoal ash
  - Might contain substances harmful to plants
• Dairy products (e.g., butter, milk, sour cream, yogurt) and eggs
  - Create odor problems and attract pests such as rodents and flies
• Diseased or insect-ridden plants
  - Diseases or insects might survive and be transferred back to other plants
• Fats, grease, lard, or oils*
  - Create odor problems and attract pests such as rodents and flies
• Meat or fish bones and scraps*
  - Create odor problems and attract pests such as rodents and flies
• Pet wastes (e.g., dog or cat feces, soiled cat litter)
  - Might contain parasites, bacteria, germs, pathogens, and viruses harmful to humans
• Yard trimmings treated with chemical pesticides
  - Might kill beneficial composting organisms

 
Selecting and Building your Composting Site

• Select a dry, partial sunny spot near a water source for your compost pile or bin. Please take note that full sun locations can quickly dry out a compost pile and keep materials from breaking down. Alternatively, if the pile is in a very shady location, the contents will not breakdown quickly.

• Add brown and green materials in layers as they are collected, making sure larger pieces are chopped or shredded.

• Moisten dry materials as they are added.
• Turn pile once a week for two or three weeks, then once a month until compost is ready to use.
• The optimal size of a compost pile is 3’x3’x3’ or one cubic yard.

• Once your compost pile is established, mix grass clippings and green waste into the pile. Bury fruit and vegetable waste under 10 inches of compost material.

• Optional: Cover top of compost with a tarp to keep it moist. When the material at the bottom is dark and rich in color, your compost is ready to use. This usually takes anywhere between two months to two years.
  

Compost can be made in just two or three weeks during the summer if the leaves and other materials are finely ground or shredded, turned frequently to provide good aeration and supplied with sufficient moisture and nitrogen.
For more questions regarding Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District programs and/or technical assistance on water or soil questions, visit http://warrenswcd.com or call, 513-695-1337.

Products in our homes and garages that are flammable, toxic, corrosive, or reactive are considered household hazardous waste. Products such as pesticides, paints, pool chemicals, CFL light bulbs, cleaners, oils, automotive fluids, thinners/strippers, acids/bases, and batteries require special care when disposing of them and can catch fire, react, or explode under certain circumstances.

Why is household hazardous waste a problem? Household hazardous waste poses many dangers ranging from personal exposure to the substances during use, to contamination of water resources from improper disposal of chemicals down a storm drain or into a ditch, where they can be transported directly to bodies of water. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average home can accumulate as much as 100 pounds of hazardous waste! That’s 100 pounds of household chemicals with labels that say: poison, corrosive, toxic, flammable, or keep out of reach of children/pets, in your home.

Paint is one of the most common household wastes and can be the most confusing to deal with.  First, read the label and identify whether the paint or stain is water-based or oil-based. Water-based products can be disposed of in your regular trash, but must be hardened first using kitty litter or other paint hardening product. Be sure to leave the lid off the can so your waste hauler can confirm the product is dry or else they may refuse to collect it.  If the product is oil-based it is considered a hazardous waste and should be taken to hazardous waste center where it will be properly recycled or disposed. Warren County has a latex paint only recycling drop-off location in Lebanon.  This is open weekdays and is for Warren County residents only. Questions regarding the drop-off site should be directed to the Warren County Solid Waste Management District, 513-695-1209.
What should you do with household hazardous waste if you have it or plan on using it?

• Before purchasing hazardous chemicals, have a plan for the excess or only buy what you know you will need. Some left-over products could be donated to neighbors, family or friends to use.
• Handle household hazardous waste carefully to avoid injury to yourself or the environment.
• Store wastes in their original container with the labels intact.
• Save household hazardous wastes until it can be properly disposed of at a certified disposal facility.
• For lists of local recycling and disposal sites, check the Warren County Solid Waste Management District website - https://www.co.warren.oh.us/solidwaste/ or email solid.waste@co.warren.oh.us for specific questions.”.

For more questions regarding Soil and Water Conservation District programs and/or technical assistance on water or soil questions visit, http://warrenswcd.com  or call, 513-695-1337.
 
Additional Resources:  

• Warren County Solid Waste Management District - https://www.co.warren.oh.us/solidwaste/
• Ohio State Extension Pesticide Education Program - https://pested.osu.edu/disposal
• Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District - https://www.warrenswcd.com/

 

In the last few years we have experienced record rainfall events. While rainfall (otherwise known as stormwater) is a natural occurrence, unfortunately our environment is not always in a “natural” state. In other words, we have developed areas such as roads, sidewalks, roof tops, parking lots and other impervious surfaces where stormwater does not have a chance to soak down into our soil. This stormwater becomes runoff and picks up pollutants from our lawns and streets (examples - vehicle emissions, oil residue, grass clippings, pesticides, leaves, and pet waste) and enters our lakes and streams by way of storm drains thus causing water pollution and impairments within our local bodies of water.

Stormwater runoff is the number one threat to our water quality according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. How can we help? Below are some simple management ideas that could be implemented within the landscape to help store and clean some of this stormwater thus lessening the amount of water entering our stormwater sewer systems. 

Utilizing Rain Barrels
Rain barrels connect to downspouts to collect rain water. The collected water can then be used to water gardens, and be used as grey water for washing outdoor items.  Water collected from rain barrels is not for human consumption, however.  Some of the other benefits of rain barrels include:

• Safely and efficiently reducing water use and water bills.
• Protecting our local water ways by reducing the amount of rain that enters drains during major storms.
• Potentially improving plant health because stormwater does not contain chlorine as municipal water sources do.
• Using less water in our yard conserving limited freshwater resources in the future.

Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District will be offering a free online webinar on Tuesday, June 23 @ 2pm.   Register for this event at https://www.warrenswcd.com/rain-barrel-webinar.html

Creating a Rain Garden
Rain gardens are a unique feature that can be added to the landscape and is disguised as a flower garden. They have many benefits that include: providing wildlife habitat, providing nectar and pollen sources for pollinators, transforming rainfall runoff into a resource rather than a nuisance, and improving storm water quality as it is infiltrated and redistributed through soils.

Rain gardens are purposefully located to maximize the amount of stormwater runoff that flows into the garden rather than off the property. It is important to note that it is not just a garden bed. Garden size, depth, slope, soil amendments and drainage all need to be considered before putting a shovel into the ground.
Plants that thrive in your landscape and in southwest Ohio should be considered. Native plants are good choices because they tend to offer more benefits to pollinators and have better survivability in native soils.

To help prepare your rain garden’s site, check out the following resources:

• Central Ohio Rain Gardens - http://www.centralohioraingardens.org/
• Blue Thumb Planting for Clean Water - https://bluethumb.org/raingardens/
• Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District - https://www.warrenswcd.com/rain-gardens.html

For more detailed information on building a rain garden, Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District will be offering a free online webinar on Tuesday, July 28 @ 12pm. Register for this event at https://www.warrenswcd.com/operation-rain-garden.html
Before putting any of these water management strategies into place, please check local ordinances to make sure you understand what is allowable. For more questions regarding rain barrels and rain gardens, contact us!  513-695-1337.

Having a nice lawn is something that many people think about, especially during the summer. By targeting several management strategies, lawn care can become more environmentally friendly and help keep our water clean.

Leave the clippings on your lawn. Over time the action of mowing and taking away the clippings can deplete the soil of valuable nutrients. Leaving the clippings returns these nutrients to the soil and can promote less fertilizer usage over time.
Mow high. Adjust your lawn mower to mow in the 3 to 4 inch range. In general, grass should be in the 4 to 4.5 range at its longest. The health of the grass significantly increases when you can leave more green growth on the plant. Healthier grass means that your lawn will have less instances of disease, insect and weed issues.
Keep your lawn mower blades sharp. This ensures that you are not tearing/shredding the blades of grass. Continuously tearing and/or shredding the plant can hurt the crown of the plant and ultimately kill the grass. Check at your local hardware store as to who in your local area can sharpen your blades.
Fertilize in the fall. Fertilizer applications should always be based on a soil test. Fertilizing without a soil test can easily lead to over-applying fertilizer, which can cause problems for our environment such as algae blooms in our local waterways. If you choose to fertilize, a late fall application in September and then in mid to late October is the best time.  Adding a fertilizer application again in mid- to late May helps keep the lawn green and healthy throughout the summer. Do not add fertilizer during or right before an expected rain event as that is throwing money away, and adding nutrient pollution to local waterways.
Consider letting the grass go dormant in a dry summer. If the summer is dry, you may decide to save water and not irrigate your lawn. If you choose this option, the grass will go dormant and turn brown. Don’t worry, the grass is not dead. It will revive when cooler weather and rain come back in the fall. Grass generally does not die until you have 4-6 weeks of very dry weather. Choosing to water is your personal decision but know that you should water deeply and infrequently rather that quickly and often. As a general rule apply a half-inch of water every four weeks after the lawn turns brown. Also, it is important to minimize traffic on a dormant lawn to reduce possible damage.
Rethink your lawn. Did you know that we can thank pollinators for 1 in 3 bites of our food? Unfortunately, grass does not offer the nectar or pollen sources that pollinators need to survive. Consider turning part of your landscape into a pollinator garden or admiring the beauty that clover, violets and dandelions provide in a sea of green. It is important to do your research on local ordinances especially if you choose to make your yard a “pollinator lawn”. To check out more information on pollinator lawns, go to Michigan State University, https://pollinators.msu.edu or the Blue Print Partnership, https://bluethumb.org/ .

For additional questions on conservation minded lawn care, contact the Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District main office at 513-695-1337.

Additional Resources: 

• Soil Testing for Ohio Lawns, landscapes, Fruit Crops, and Vegetable Gardens- https://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/hyg=1132
• Ohio State University Extension, Natural Organic Lawn Care - https://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/hyg-4031
• Blue Thumb Partnership – https://bluethumb.org/
  
• Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District- https://warrenswcd.com
• Purdue Extension, Taking Care of Your Yard (HO-236-W) - https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/HO/HO-236-W.pdf
• Michigan State University, Pollinator Lawns - https://pollinators.msu.edu/resources/pollinator-planting/pollinator-lawns/