Can you compost in winter?

Composting creates nutrient-rich soil for your garden and helps reduce landfill waste. If you want an easy way to shrink your carbon footprint year-round, consider composting. It’s perfectly fine to put food scraps in your compost bin in every season, even winter.

Surprising advantages
Although the cold weather will slow and sometimes halt decomposition in winter, it’ll also quickly freeze any kitchen scraps you add. This means you don’t have to worry about the smell of half-rotted food attracting flies or critters. Plus, freeze-thaw cycles actually help break down organic materials, which will allow them to decompose faster in spring when the warm weather returns.

Additionally, the process of maintaining a compost pile is much simpler in the winter. In fact, it’s best not to stir or water it since any disruption allows heat to escape and slows decomposition.

Finally, be sure to layer green and brown materials within your compost pile or bin. This will maximize the amount of heat generated by the mixture and facilitate decomposition. Green materials refer to kitchen scraps, whereas brown materials include pine needles and dead leaves.

Pro-tip
After you rake your yard in the fall, keep a bag or two of leaves in your shed to ensure you have brown materials on-hand all winter.