Fall Reminders: Harvest Your Compost!

 It's tiiiiiiiimmmmmeeeeeee! 

If you are hearing Mariah Carey in your head right now, I’m not referring to Christmas time: It’s time to harvest your compost! The mornings are getting chillier, and your garden is starting to prepare for the winter. This means that your annuals are looking a little sad, and your perennials are channeling all their energy into their root systems to prepare to come back next year. You’ve likely been adding food scraps and browns to your compost bin all summer, so near the bottom of your bin, you will have some finished compost, ready to go. This is your reminder to pull it out and use it!

Here are some reasons to harvest your finished compost in the fall:

You don't want to harvest in the winter!

Winter compost processes are already slower due to the weather change slowing down microbial activity. Pulling out some of the good microbes from your compost at that time can make that process even slower, and expose your pile to the cold elements. This is also why we don’t encourage a lot of turning, if any, in the wintertime. Plant activity is low, so they may not benefit as much from your compost as they will at other times of year.

You'll get the best quantities.

During the summer months, compost is cooking quickly with the added heat plus all the nutrients in your summer scraps. At the end of the summer, you’ll be able to harvest the most compost. You could wait until spring of course, but then you risk your compost bin filling up during the winter, when the composting process slows down, and then you’d have to find an alternative for your food scraps in the meantime.

You want your garden to be Spring-ready!

By applying your compost in the fall, you are giving nutrients to the plants that are going dormant for the winter. Applying in the fall gives plenty of time for the nutrients to absorb into the soil, so your soil should be at its best when the plants are depending on it for regrowth next Spring.

Not sure how to harvest and apply your used compost? Check out some of our previous blogs here:

Compost Harvest Time

How to Harvest Compost: A Pictorial

Compost Blogger: Sam Goubeaux