Autumn has always been a season of gathering. We bring in the last vegetables, rake leaves from the lawn, clean up spent flowers, and begin putting the garden to bed. Yet much of what we gather need not be hauled away. Fallen leaves, vegetable trimmings, coffee grounds, and the remains of the summer garden can become something far more valuable: rich, dark compost.
If you have been thinking about starting a compost pile, fall may be one of the best times of the year to begin.
Why Start Composting in Fall?
The great advantage of autumn is simple: the ingredients are everywhere.
A good compost pile needs a mixture of materials rich in carbon and nitrogen. Gardeners commonly call them "browns" and "greens."
Browns include fallen leaves, straw, small twigs, shredded cardboard, and other dry materials. They supply carbon.
Greens include vegetable and fruit scraps, coffee grounds, fresh grass clippings, and green garden waste. They are comparatively rich in nitrogen.
During much of the year, gardeners may have plenty of one and not enough of the other. Fall brings an embarrassment of riches in the form of fallen leaves.
Instead of bagging those leaves and sending them away, save them. They are one of the finest compost ingredients a gardener can have.
Your Kitchen Produces Compost Every Day
Once you begin looking at kitchen waste as a resource rather than rubbish, it is surprising how much useful material an ordinary household produces.
Vegetable peelings, apple cores, banana peels, coffee grounds, tea leaves, eggshells, wilted lettuce, corn husks, melon rinds, and other plant-based scraps can all be returned to the soil through composting.
Keep a small covered compost caddy in the kitchen and empty it regularly into your outdoor pile, tumbler, or compost bin.
There is no need to make the process complicated. Our grandparents did not require electronic monitors and smartphone applications to turn organic matter into humus. Nature has been managing the business quite successfully for a very long time.
What Shouldn't Go Into the Compost Pile?
For an ordinary backyard compost pile, avoid meat, fish, bones, dairy products, fats, oils, and heavily greasy foods. Although some of these materials will eventually decompose, they can produce odors and attract unwanted animals.
It is also wise to avoid diseased plant material, particularly when you cannot be certain that your compost pile will become hot enough to destroy pathogens.
Weeds that have already produced mature seeds can also be troublesome. A cool compost pile may preserve rather than destroy those seeds, giving you an unpleasant surprise when the finished compost is spread around the garden.
Pet waste from dogs and cats should not be added to compost intended for vegetable gardens.
Fallen Leaves Are Garden Treasure
There was a time when fallen leaves were commonly regarded as something to be raked, burned, or hauled away. A gardener who understands soil sees them differently.
Leaves are stored fertility.
Trees have spent the growing season drawing nutrients from the soil and using sunlight to manufacture their foliage. When those leaves fall, much of that organic material can be returned to the earth.
Shredding leaves with a mower before adding them to the compost pile will help them break down faster. Whole leaves work, too, but some—particularly tough or waxy leaves—can take considerably longer to decompose.
If you have more leaves than your compost pile can accommodate, save them in a separate enclosure or pile. They can gradually break down into leaf mold, a wonderful soil conditioner prized by gardeners for generations.
Building a Simple Fall Compost Pile
You do not need a complicated formula, but diversity helps.
Begin with a loose layer of coarse brown material to encourage airflow. Add kitchen scraps or other green materials, then cover them with leaves or another brown material. Continue adding layers as material becomes available.
Think of it less as constructing a layer cake and more as maintaining a sensible mixture.
If the pile becomes wet, slimy, or unpleasant-smelling, add more dry brown material such as leaves or shredded cardboard.
If it sits for months without seeming to do anything, it may need more green material, moisture, or air.
A compost pile should generally be about as damp as a wrung-out sponge. It should be moist, but water should not pour from it.
Turning the pile occasionally introduces oxygen and speeds decomposition. If you are in no hurry, however, nature will still do the work. It will simply take longer.
What Happens During Winter?
Gardeners sometimes assume that there is little point in starting compost in autumn because winter is approaching.
Quite the contrary.
Decomposition slows as temperatures fall, but it does not necessarily stop. A sufficiently large and active pile can remain surprisingly warm inside even during cold weather. In milder Southern winters, biological activity may continue for much of the season.
And there is no harm if the process slows down.
Continue adding appropriate kitchen scraps, covering fresh additions with leaves whenever possible. When warmer weather returns, bacteria, fungi, earthworms, and countless other decomposers will resume their work with enthusiasm.
By beginning in fall, you are giving next year's compost a considerable head start.
Composting Doesn't Require Much Space
A traditional compost heap is perfectly satisfactory if you have room for one, but there are plenty of alternatives.
Enclosed compost bins keep the material tidy and contained. Tumbling composters make turning easier and can be useful where space is limited. Worm composting systems allow organic material to be processed in remarkably small spaces. Bokashi systems provide another method for handling kitchen scraps, including some materials that aren't normally recommended for an ordinary backyard pile.
Even gardeners with patios, courtyards, or small suburban lots can find a system that suits the space available.
The important thing is to begin.
Why Compost Matters
Finished compost does much more than simply "feed" plants.
Mixed into garden soil, compost improves its structure. Sandy soil becomes better able to retain moisture and nutrients. Heavy soil becomes easier to work and better aerated. Compost supports the vast community of microorganisms upon which healthy soil depends.
Spread over the soil surface, it can also help conserve moisture and gradually improve the earth beneath it.
There is something deeply satisfying about the entire process. Yesterday's coffee grounds and potato peelings become tomorrow's garden soil. Autumn leaves that might have been hauled to the landfill become nourishment for tomatoes, roses, shrubs, herbs, and flowers.
Very little is truly wasted in a well-managed garden.
Begin This Fall
You do not need to wait until spring to improve next year's garden.
Set aside a place for a compost pile or choose a bin that fits your property. Save some of those autumn leaves. Put a small container in the kitchen for vegetable scraps and coffee grounds. Then allow time and the innumerable small creatures of the soil to do what they have always done.
By spring, the pile you began on a cool autumn afternoon will already be changing—settling, darkening, and slowly losing any resemblance to the scraps and leaves from which it began.
Given enough time, what once seemed like waste becomes something a gardener can never have too much of: rich organic matter.
This fall, don't send all that potential fertility away. Keep it at home, return it to the soil, and turn your kitchen scraps and fallen leaves into garden gold.
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