LEBANON, Ohio — Marvin’s Organic Gardens is a full-service nursery, landscape design company, retail and garden center. Organic, natural and safe gardening practices are the heart of the company.

Marvin’s also has a compost facility that accepts much of the manure from the Cincinnati Zoo, referred to as Zoo Doo. “I started composting about 40 years ago,” said Marvin Duren, who owns and operates the company with his son, Wes. “I take everything that once lived and convert it into a high-quality finished product called compost.

“It is a very useful product. We make mulch with organic waste we have left over, or any organic or animal waste like the zoo’s ‘Zoo Doo.’ We take all of that and add it into the compost.”

The zoo sends tons of organic matter to Marvin’s every week, bedding and manure from the elephants, rhinos, zebras – everything but the monkeys and felines because veterinarians warn their waste could be a health hazard. The company also takes leaves from the Ohio cities of Mason and Lebanon, organic waste from several prison facilities, racetracks and a miniature donkey farm and Walmart’s and Sam’s produce, floral and bread waste.

“We take that product and we mix it into the compost,” Duren said. “Within 24 hours it goes into batch number one; it’s like a brew batch where everything is commingled in the back area. We’ll mix it there for several weeks with a huge loader; it’s got nearly a five-yard bucket. I do what is called static piles; that is a method of composting.”

Duren is at least 10 years ahead of his need for compost, so he doesn’t have to rush the product. The static pile method is slower but more energy-saving than other composting methods. He turns it five or six times, then lets it rest.

“This is a great way for a farmer to do because it doesn’t require constant and continual turning to make it work,” said Duren, who frequently lectures on composting.

“You just pile it up in a nice big pile and it heats up inside the blend; it makes the organisms break down into a finished product.”

While many experts advise against putting meat into compost, Duren disagrees. He said it makes a wonderful amendment and should not go into the landfill. All meat and vegetable matter are “wonderful,” he said.

Duren sells the compost at the garden store by the garbage can or truckload, but not by the bag, since compost has to be cured just right to be bagged.

“We use it in our own landscaping – we don’t even think about doing a landscape job without compost because our plants live so much better with our compost,” he said.

“We topdress it on gardens, we can do large fields with it, where somebody has a nutrient issue with their soil, a deficiency. I have more than a million cubic yards of product.”

Duren’s composting site is located on acreage two miles south of the retail store. Five batches of compost are “working” three-quarters of a million yards.

Duren has big equipment to use for making compost. A 600-hp grinder grinds stumps up to 30 inches wide. The grinder is fueled with biodiesel made from recycled kitchen waste.

An extra-reach loader loads the compost onto stacks. A screener, which sells for about $239,000, separates the finished product from the “overs,” the pieces that are too big to go through the screen. The overs are re-composted.

Duren is a disabled veteran of Vietnam who was shot seven times. He came home “a little different,” he said – he felt as if he had been spared.

Duren returned from the war with a love of plants and an interest in the environment.

He was concerned about how food is grown. He found he didn’t have a need for pesticides, fungicides, herbicides and synthetic fertilizers.

“I just decided never to waste a limb, leaf or faded flower, nor anything that once lived,” he said.

Marvin’s Organic Garden retail store is located at 2055 U.S. Route 42 South, in Lebanon. Phone 513-932-3319 or visit www.marvinsorganicgardens.com