Listen to this article with our Text-to-Speech feature for a seamless, hands free experience. Whether you’re multi-tasking, visually impaired, or just prefer to listen, articles are brought to life with clear, engaging narration, improving your gardening skills wherever you are. Download MP3 file here.
As the vibrant colors of autumn start to fade and the temperature drops, homeowners and gardeners are left with an abundance of fallen leaves, garden trimmings, and end-of-season plant debris.
Instead of viewing this seasonal accumulation as waste, fall presents an excellent opportunity to enrich your soil through composting! By turning fallen leaves and garden waste into nutrient-rich compost, you can create a valuable resource for your garden that will help benefit your garden in future seasons. In this guide, we will explore the benefits of composting in fall, discuss effective composting techniques, and provide tips to optimize your composting process during the autumn months. If you’ve ever wanted to learn composting in the fall, but felt daunted by the learning curve, this article may be just what you need to get started!
Table of Contents
Why Compost in Fall?
Fall is one of the best times to start or enhance your composting efforts. During this season, gardens naturally generate large amounts of organic matter that can be efficiently transformed into compost. There also tends to be an abundance of kitchen scraps from canning and preserving, which make ideal compost ingredients. To top all this off, composting in the fall can help prepare for next year’s garden, having a rich and organic fertilizer ready to till in and up your soil’s nutrients next spring, starting your garden off on the right foot.
Some of the key benefits of composting in fall include:
- Abundant Organic Material: Fall provides an endless supply of fallen leaves, plant debris, and garden waste, making it the perfect time to stockpile materials for composting. This abundance means you have plenty of carbon-rich materials (browns) to balance with nitrogen-rich waste (greens).
- Soil Enrichment: The compost created from fall garden waste can be used to replenish garden beds, prepare vegetable plots for spring planting, and improve soil structure and fertility.
- Eco-Friendly Waste Management: Instead of sending fallen leaves and garden debris to the landfill, composting allows you to reduce waste, save resources, and contribute to a more sustainable environment.
- Prepping for Spring: Compost made in the fall will break down over the winter, so by the time spring arrives, you’ll have a rich, nutrient-dense compost ready to nourish your plants.
Essential Components for Composting in Fall
To make successful compost, it’s important to maintain a balanced ratio of “browns” (carbon-rich materials) and “greens” (nitrogen-rich materials). In the fall, you will have an abundance of brown materials, but it’s crucial to add greens to speed up decomposition and create a nutrient-rich final product.
Browns:
- Fallen leaves: A great choice for compost. Leaves are full of nutrients and can insulate your pile in the winter.
- Twigs and small branches
- Straw or hay
- Dead plants and flowers
- Wood chips or sawdust (from untreated wood)
- Paper: Non-glossy, uncolored shredded paper and shredded brown bags.
- Cardboard: Shredded cardboard that doesn’t have a wax coating, tape, or glue
- Eggshells: While they take a long time to break down, eggshells provide calcium and are a good addition to compost
- Dead Pine Needles
Greens:
Greens are a key component of compost, providing nitrogen and moisture to help break down organic materials.
- Grass clippings
- Vegetable scraps from the kitchen (keep a bin or pail on your counter to easily compile your scraps)
- Coffee grounds and Tea bags
- Manure (from herbivores like chickens, rabbits, goats, horses, sheep and cows, as well as pets like hamsters and guinea pigs. Note: Never use pig, dog, cat, or human waste in a vegetable garden.)
- Fresh plant trimmings from pruning
- Spent flowers
- Seaweed (make sure from a body of water that has not been treated with toxic chemicals)
For optimal composting, aim for a mix of about 3 parts browns to 1 part greens. This ratio helps create a balance between carbon and nitrogen, which is essential for the microorganisms in your compost pile to break down organic matter effectively.
Steps to Composting Fall Garden Waste
Follow these steps to turn your fall garden waste into valuable compost:
1. Choose a Composting Method
The first step in composting is deciding on the type of composting system you want to use. There are various methods, each with its own benefits:
- Compost Pile: A simple and low cost method is to create a compost pile directly on the ground. Designate a spot in your yard where you can create a layered compost heap.
- Compost Bin: If you prefer a more contained system, consider purchasing or building a compost bin. This will keep your compost neat and may help it break down faster by trapping heat and moisture.
- Tumbler: A compost tumbler allows you to easily rotate and aerate your compost, speeding up the decomposition process. Makes the whole process easier.
2. Collect and Shred Materials
Start by gathering your fall garden waste. Fallen leaves are the primary material available during autumn, but large leaves like oak and sycamore break down slowly. To speed up the composting process, it’s helpful to shred leaves before adding them to your compost. You can do this by running a lawnmower over piles of leaves or using a leaf shredder.
Shredding garden waste not only accelerates decomposition but also ensures a more uniform compost mix. Smaller particles provide more surface area for the microorganisms to work on, leading to faster composting.
3. Layer Browns and Greens
Once your materials are prepared, begin layering them in your compost bin or pile. Start with a base of coarse materials like twigs or straw to improve air circulation. Then, alternate between layers of browns (leaves, wood chips) and greens (grass clippings, vegetable scraps).
Make sure to keep the layers moist but not soggy. A compost pile that is too dry will slow down the process, while an overly wet pile may start to smell or attract pests. Water your pile as needed to maintain moisture, but avoid soaking it.
4. Aerate the Compost
Composting requires oxygen for the microbes to break down organic matter. Turning the pile periodically (once every few weeks) will aerate it, speeding up decomposition and preventing odors. Use a pitchfork or compost turner to mix the layers and ensure that oxygen reaches the center of the pile.
Compost tumblers make this process easier since they are designed to rotate and mix the contents. If you are using a stationary bin or open pile, make an effort to turn the pile manually to introduce air.
5. Monitor and Maintain
As your compost pile breaks down, monitor its progress. The pile should generate heat as the materials decompose, you can keep track of this with a special compost thermometer(see list below), with the internal temperature rising to between 120°F and 160°F. This heat indicates that microbial activity is occurring. If the pile cools down, it may need more greens, adding accelerator, or additional turning.
If your compost gets too hot, you can turn the pile to cool it down and introduce oxygen, add more browns to absorb excess heat, or moisten the pile a bit to cool it down(avoid too much water, though). If the temperature starts to creep back up after a few hours, add more dried leaves to slow down the bacteria. As a last ditch effort, if it doesn’t cool down…split the pile. Divide the pile into smaller piles, this will make it less insulating, and help cool things down a bit.
Keep an eye on the moisture levels as well. A compost pile should feel like a wrung-out sponge – moist, but not waterlogged. If it becomes too dry, add water. If it’s too wet, mix in more dry browns like shredded leaves or straw.
Common Composting Challenges and Solutions
Although composting in fall is a natural process, several challenges can arise. Fortunately, most of these issues can be easily resolved with a little adjustment.
- Slow Decomposition: If your compost is not breaking down quickly, it may lack nitrogen-rich greens or sufficient aeration. Add more greens like kitchen scraps or grass clippings, and turn the pile more frequently to improve airflow. You can also sprinkle in an accelerator, like those in the “Tools” section below.
- Foul Odor: A smelly compost pile is often a sign of too much moisture or lack of air. Turn the pile and add dry browns to absorb excess moisture and introduce oxygen. If your compost smells bad, add more dry browns, mix them in, and fluff it up.
- Pests: Avoid attracting pests by not adding meat, dairy, or greasy food waste to your compost. Cover food scraps with a layer of leaves or soil to reduce odors that might lure animals.
The End Result: Using Your Fall Compost
By the time spring rolls around, your compost should be ready to use in your garden. Mature compost is dark, crumbly, and smells earthy. You can use it in several ways:
- Soil Amendment: Mix the compost into garden beds to improve soil structure, water retention, and nutrient levels.
- Mulch: Spread a layer of compost around plants to act as a natural mulch, which will help retain moisture and suppress weeds.
- Top Dressing for Lawns: Apply a thin layer of compost over your lawn to boost its health and encourage grass growth.
- Seed Starting Mix: Blend compost with other materials to create a nutrient-rich mix for starting seeds.
Conclusion
Composting in fall is an excellent way to make the most of fallen leaves and garden waste, turning them into a valuable resource for your garden. By following the steps outlined in this guide and maintaining a balance between browns and greens, you can create nutrient rich compost that will benefit your soil and plants for seasons to come. With a little effort, you’ll be able to reduce waste, improve your garden’s health, and contribute to a more sustainable environment.
The info in this article is a great jumping off point. We also recommend getting a good book to help really get this composting thing right. 🙂 We recommend some of our favorites in the list below.
This fall, don’t just rake those leaves into bags for disposal – compost them instead! Your garden will thank you.
St. Clare Favorites for Composting:
Books:
– The Complete Compost Gardening Guide
– Composting Made Easy – A Complete Guide To Composting At Home
– Composting for the Absolute Beginner
Tools for Composting:
– Kitchen Compost Bin Countertop – 1 Gallon Odorless Small Stainless Steel Composting Bin
– Kitchen Countertop Compost Bin with lid – Small Compost Bin includes Inner Compost Bucket Liner
– Kitchen Compost Pail, 2.4 Gallon (larger size for the kitchen with lots of scraps, or those times when canning/preserving a bunch)
– Compost Tumbler Bin Composter Dual Chamber 43 Gallon
– Compost Bin – 246 Gallon, Expandable, Easy Assembly, Made in the USA
– Compost Tumbler Dual Chamber – Easy-Turn Composter Tumbler Outdoor for Fast Composting – Heavy-Duty Composting Bin with 2 Sliding Doors (Large capacity, and 2 chambers to keep different compost at different stages going. Love the 2 different color doors to keep track of/document which pile is which!)
– Compost Thermometer, 16 Inch Stem (Like the ones like this that have the colored zones, making it so easy to read and gauge how things are going!)
– Compost Soil Thermometer by Greenco, Stainless Steel, Celsius and Fahrenheit Temperature Dial, 20 inch Stem (A little longer for the really deep compost piles)
– Heavy Duty Digging Fork, Pitch Fork-45Inch, Forged Steel Y-Grip, Wood Handel (for stirring and turning compost pile, works much better than shovel or many other tools)
– Pitchfork,Pitchforks for Gardening Digging Composting Spading,4Tines Garden Fork witn Fiberglass Handle,43 Inches (For those who prefer a fiberglass handle)
– Compost Turning Tool Compost Stirring Tool,Compost Turning Bar 33.4inch,Manual Compost Aerator Tool Turner and Mixing Tool for Outdoor Compost Tumbler Bins (works great for compact or more upright bins, stirs /aerates a lot easier and with less effort)
– Compost Stirring Tool Attachment for Drill, Post Hole Digger, Ice Auger
– Long Garden Gloves (For working in deep piles of compost material. Like these for protecting arms from allergic plant matter.)
– Bacterial Compost Accelerator
– Jobe’s Organics Fast Acting Granular Fertilizer Compost Starter
– Soil Scoop, Plastic Garden Cultivation Scoop, Hand Scoop Soil Sifter , Garden Scoop Trowel Shovel Hand Shovel Cultivation Tool for Digging up or Transporting Scoops of Soil (great for spreading compost or scooping out of bin)
– Soil Sifter, Dirt Sifter for Gardening, Compost Sifter
– Rotary Soil Sifter Compost Sieve (be aware this is smaller than appears in first picture)
FAQ
Why is fall a good time to start composting?
Fall is an ideal time to compost because there is an abundance of organic materials like fallen leaves, garden trimmings, and end-of-season plant waste. These materials provide a balance of carbon-rich “browns” and nitrogen-rich “greens” that are essential for effective composting.
Can I compost all fallen leaves?
Yes, most leaves can be composted, except walnut, but larger leaves like oak and sycamore take longer to break down. Shredding leaves before composting speeds up the decomposition process.
What can I add to my compost in the fall?
You can add a mix of “browns” (fallen leaves, twigs, straw, dead plants, wood chips, cardboard) and “greens” (vegetable scraps, grass clippings, coffee grounds, manure from herbivores). Maintaining a 3:1 ratio of browns to greens is recommended for optimal composting.
How often should I turn my compost pile?
Turning your compost pile every few weeks helps to aerate it and introduce oxygen, which accelerates decomposition. Compost tumblers make this process easier, but even stationary piles benefit from occasional turning.
What should I do if my compost pile smells bad?
A foul odor usually indicates too much moisture or a lack of airflow. Turn the pile to introduce air and add dry “browns” like shredded leaves to absorb excess moisture.
How do I speed up composting in the fall?
To speed up composting, shred leaves and garden waste before adding them to the pile. This increases surface area for microorganisms to break down the materials. Also, ensure your pile has a proper balance of browns and greens, and turn it regularly to keep it aerated.
Can I compost kitchen scraps in the fall?
Yes, fall is a great time to compost kitchen scraps like vegetable peels, coffee grounds, and eggshells. Just make sure to mix them with plenty of browns to avoid odor and pest issues.
How do I know when my compost is ready to use?
Compost is ready when it is dark, crumbly, and has an earthy smell. This typically happens after the materials have broken down over the winter, just in time for spring gardening.
Can I compost in cold climates during the fall and winter?
Yes, composting can continue in cold climates, though the process may slow down. Insulating your compost pile with extra leaves or straw can help retain heat and keep microbial activity going through winter.
How can I use my finished compost in the garden?
You can use finished compost to enrich soil in garden beds, as mulch around plants, as a top dressing for lawns, or as a seed-starting mix for next season’s garden.
