AUTUMN COMPOSTING TIPS

Autumn is a great season to gather materials for composting. The wealth of carbon-rich matter will benefit your compost all year long.
Most people who begin home composting usually have plenty of nitrogen rich materials to add throughout the year - from kitchen scraps, fruit and vegetable peelings, coffee grounds, to grass clippings and other fresh materials. However, the carbon-based materials are more difficult to gather. These include leaves, vines, shrubby prunings, straw, dead leaves, wood chips and other items which are plentiful in autumn but less available the rest of the year.

The following tips will help you make the most of autumn's offerings. These simple practices will keep you in steady supply of compost all year, and by starting now you'll have finished compost for early spring gardening. The key to successful composting is maintaining a balance between brown carbon rich and green nitrogen rich materials in the compost bin. A healthy compost pile should have about 50:50 carbon (brown) materials and nitrogen (green) materials. The carbon-rich materials provide substance to your heap which aids aeration to speed up the composting process, eliminate odours and help produce a light, fluffy finished compost.

~ gather leaves
 
Leaves are one of the most valued compost materials because they are carbon-rich and small enough to be easily incorporated into the compost. Deciduous leaves are best;  as opposed to evergreen leaves such as holly, laurel and conifers. Wait until the leaves start turning brown before raking them up. (Some leaves can be left under trees and shrubs where they will compost themselves. This helps to reduce the amount of new mulch needed to cover the areas surrounding your trees and shrubbery.) 

~ too many leaves?
 
If you have too many leaves you can simply rot down the pile of leaves on their own to make leaf mould.  The pile should be damp enough but a piece of plastic sheeting over the pile will keep it from getting totally waterlogged.  Leaf compost is best used as an organic soil amendment and conditioner; it is not normally used as a fertilizer because it is low in nutrients.

~ collect the skeletons of finished annuals
 
Annuals from your vegetable garden which have finished fruiting and are now dying back can be set aside for composting. Large-bodied plants like tomatoes and brocholli can be chopped a bit smaller to make it easier to compost, but it is not advisable to put the root mass into the compost. Also, avoid composting any plants which have disease or mold problems. In theory, the heat from the composting process will kill disease spores, but in practice not all compost piles attain maximum heat potential. 

~ add leaves in small batches to avoid matting
 
The composting process speeds up when the materials are well mixed. Add just a few handfuls of leaves at a time to the compost bin; if you add too many leaves they will mat together into a soggy mass and slow down the process
 
~ store excess leaves for future composting
 
If you have a glut of leaves this autumn and dont want to make leaf mould you can simply store dry autumn leaves in sacks for future composting.  Come the summer when there is more of the lush 'green' materials available you can use the leaves to compliment the summers grass cuttings and other leafy green plant growth. This helps balance the green materials, stops your compost going soggy and provides structure which helps areate the compost heap for faster results.
 
~ save wood ash
 
If you have a bonfire this autumn for dealing with excessive amounts of leaves and woody tree branches and prunings save the ashes and once they cool add them to the compost bin. A top tip is to sprinkle the ash onto compost to avoid clumping.   
 
For more information on composting visit  www.shropshire.getcomposting.com