If you’re not already composting, now is a great time to start planning to give your garden the gift of homemade organic soil nutrition. You’ll save money you’d spend on chemical fertilizers, and you’ll keep food waste out of the landfills and sewage treatment plants.

Composted kitchen scraps become nutrient-rich soil additive. (Photo credit: Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District)

The Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District is offering Backyard Composting seminars at locations throughout the county during the 2013 growing season. These hour-long seminars include an extensive introduction to composting — what to compost, how and where to build a compost pile, problems to watch for and how to solve them — followed by a question-and-answer session.

For a list of seminar locations and dates, as well as a set of downloadable documents covering backyard composting, vermicomposting, and backyard food digesters, see the Solid Waste District web site. You’ll also find instructions for obtaining free horse manure to enrich your compost pile.

The Solid Waste District also offers for sale two sizes of compost bins and a kitchen collection container. These are available for purchase at the seminars and at the Waste Management District at 4750 E. 131 Street in Garfield Heights.

Composting: turns waste into food … keeps it out of the waste stream … keeps it out of the landfill.