If you’re a gardener, Mollie Mangerich and her crew at the city of Lawrence’s recycling division want to help your green thumb along.

Starting today, they’ll be at the city’s composting facility on East Eighth Street for four days, giving away tons of compost.

“It’s great stuff,” Mangerich said. “Gardeners love it.”

Last year, about 750 people took part in the giveaway. Mangerich is hoping for at least that many this year.

“We can handle that many, easily,” she said. “People should be able to take as much as they want.”

A front-end loader will be available to load compost onto pickup trucks. Those without a truck will be free to fill buckets or boxes with as much as they want.

The giveaway is intended for private use by residents – not for resale or commercial use. City officials reserve the right to limit quantities.

The compost is the byproduct of the more than 6,000 tons of grass clippings and leaves that city crews collect throughout the year.

Though the city’s Parks and Recreation Department routinely taps the compost pile for its landscaping needs, there’s plenty left over.

Monday morning, there were at least three rows, each about 15 feet high and 70 yards long.

“We want all of it to go,” Mangerich said.

This winter, the 2 1/2-acre composting facility will move to a 10-acre site on East 11th Street.

Using a Windrow Turner machine to toss up a long mound of compost, Carl Herd, senior maintenance worker with the city of Lawrence, drives through the heat and steam off the compost. Herd was turning the piles Monday at the city's compost facility, 901E. Eighth St.

The new site, she said, will let city crews pick up and recycle woody debris and small branches.

“We’d like to do that now, but we don’t have the room,” Mangerich said.

In their compost, gardeners will notice the remains of only a few, if any, of the plastic trash bags that once held grass clippings or leaves. That’s because city workers separate each bag from its contents before it’s dumped.

It’s a time-consuming process, one that Mangerich would like to see go faster.

“We’re really trying to get people to use the paper bags – they don’t have to be cut open and set aside,” Mangerich said. “For us, it makes things more efficient, and that’s important because Lawrence is growing and we’re already hard-pressed to get the routes done on time.”

Paper yard bags are available at Westlake Ace Hardware, Cottin’s Hardware, Wal-Mart and Earl May Nursery and Garden Center.