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Autumn Composting

Clearing the leaves and twigs from the garden can make Autumn a very busy time for your compost bin. The materials you compost now can help your garden bloom in the Spring.

Top Autumn Composting Tips

• During the frosty autumn and winter months, give your compost a 'turn' (mix with a stick) about every two weeks - this will give it some air, which helps the rotting process.
• Remember to keep combining the “green” ingredients like kitchen peelings and the “brown” ingredients like leaves, twigs and shredded paper to ensure you get a good quality compost.

Too many leaves for your compost bin? Why not have a go at making leaf mould?

Autumn leaves can take a long time to compost down so you should only add small amounts of to your compost bin. If you have large amounts of leaves why not gather them up and make leaf mould from them. Making leaf mould is an easy and free way of creating a great soil improver. It can be used to condition your lawn and even added to compost when sowing seeds.

Here’s how to do it:

• Collect autumn leaves together that have fallen from the trees. All sorts of leaves can be added but do not use evergreen leaves such as holly, laurel and conifers.
• Water the leaves if they are very dry. Better still – collect them after it has been raining.
• Put the leaves in a suitable container. You can either put leaves into black sacks, tie them up and make holes in the sides or, if you have the room, you can make a wire cage for the leave mould using chicken wire and supporting stakes.
• Pile the black sacks out of the way or, if using a wire cage, cover the leaves with an old piece of carpet.
• Be patient - leave them for a year or two.

What happens next?

After one year the leaf mould will have composted down and can be used as mulch or dug into borders as a soil improver. If the leaf mould has been left for two or more years then it can be mixed in with garden compost when sowing seeds.

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