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Gardening & Composting - Home Composting

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1. What can I compost?

Yard waste, such as fallen leaves, grass clippings, weeds, the remains of garden plants, and kitchen scraps make excellent compost. However, care must be taken when composting kitchen scraps. Meat, bones, and fatty foods (such as cheese, salad dressing, and leftover cooking oil) don't belong in the bin and must be put in the garbage.

2. How do I start composting?

Composting can be practiced in any home, apartment, or townhouse. While you need some space to backyard compost, anyone can compost with a worm bin.

For backyard composting to take place, you will need four basic ingredients: nitrogen (such as lawn clippings), carbon (like fallen leaves), water, and air.

For worm composting, you just need a comfortable place for worms, the worms themselves, and kitchen scraps.
Compost bin sales

3. Where can I buy compost?

Compost can be purchased from garden centers at most hardware and home improvement stores. To buy bulk compost at competitive prices, please call Allied at (408) 262-1401 (select option 1, "Material Recovery Facility") or Zanker Road Resource Management at (408) 313-0444.

4. What is worm composting?

Worm composting, or vermicomposting, uses red wiggler worms to break down kitchen scraps into a super-rich fertilizer.

5. What is grasscycling?

Grasscycling is the natural recycling of grass by leaving clippings on the lawn when mowing. They decompose quickly and release valuable nutrients back into the soil. More information on grasscycling

6. What happens to the yard trimmings collected in San José?

Yard trimmings are collected by Green Waste Recovery to be recycled into high-quality soil amendments, compost, mulch, or wood chips. Some of compost is used in our City parks and community gardens while the balance is sold for agricultural use and to local nurseries and soil yards.