After thinking that we would have a quick autumn due to lack of rain at the end of summer, instead we had a lovely long display with early reds and late yellows. Now the leaves are coming down and it's time to put them to work. Gather them up and store them where they won't get wet and matted together over the winter. They provide the carbon that will fuel your compost pile next spring.

Carbon is both the fuel and prime building block in your compost pile. During composting, bacteria and fungi transform carbon compounds into a type of glucose they use for energy. The heat they give off drives the composting process.Decomposers need carbon for reproduction as well as energy.The major decomposers in your compost pile are bacteria. They feed on all the organic material you put into the pile. Unlike bacteria, the fungi we all want to encourage in our compost pile are mainly decomposers of wood compounds. The most abundant wood product we have is falling all around us right now.After carbon, the next most important element is nitrogen. Save your coffee grounds. They are your second big free composting bonanza. Don't forget that coffee grounds are actually seeds. They contain ample nourishment for the embryo inside the seed, and all we remove when we make coffee are the water soluble compounds. Coffee grounds so rich in nitrogen they can be used as a compost starter instead of manure.Best practices tell us to postpone garden cleanup until spring because plant debris gives some beneficial insects a place to winter over. It's tempting to clean up and toss the plant debris into the compost pile, but we have butterfly cocoons and other tiny pollinators to protect. Some of them hide in hollow stalks of dead plants and in fallen leaves.The exception to this rule is diseased plants. Many pathogens overwinter on dead plant leaves. If you were plagued with powdery mildew and leaf spot, now is the time to bag or burn the plant debris. The same is true of blighted tomato plants and other infected crop residue.If you compost to use up your vegetable and fruit peeling scraps, bear in mind they very wet and also attract both aerobic (good) and anaerobic (not so good) bacteria to the compost pile. Theses scraps belong to the greens, so you need to raise the ratio of browns when you toss them into your compost pile. Dead tree leaves help soak up some of the extra water, and the cellulose and lignin in wood creates a spongy structure that lets oxygen travel through the compost.It is important to get the compost pile up to 150 to 170 F if you are adding diseased plant parts, food scraps or weeds with seeds. That way you can be sure all the weed seeds and pathogens are killed by the heat.Usually your compost will heat up early in the composting process, and then cool and mature over a couple of months. If that doesn't happen, your compost pile may be too small to retain heat or you may need a high nitrogen starter.The first line of decomposers give off a lot of heat when they feed and multiply. Then when things get too hot, the thermophiles take over. They take advantage of the heat-weakened chemical bonds tying up much of the carbon. They are active anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks depending on what is in the compost.The long, slow cooldown gives beneficial fungi time to enter the pile and work on the stubborn molecules such as cellulose and lignin. Earthworms move in to devour organic bits laced with microorganisms, and they leave valuable worm castings behind. Predators such as centipedes come after the mites and other little bugs attracted to the feast. Finally little mammals like mice dine on the insects.Your job during this transformation is simply to keep the pile moist but not wet, and keep it aerated by turning the pile every few days. This is especially important when the pile is hot since that is when the most oxygen is consumed.Start this week. Collect and save your leaves. You can accumulate leaves in brown paper leaf bags, available in hardware departments. Fill the bag two-thirds full and crimp the opening tightly. Leave the bags piled up together over the winter in an inconspicuous spot, perhaps behind a shed or garage. In spring, add the leaves and torn pieces of the bags to your compost pile.Alternatively, you can rake your leaves into a pile on a tarp and throw another tarp over them to keep them dry. Be sure you weight down the edges of the cover so the wind doesn't send it sailing.Start putting your used coffee grounds in a garbage can for your spring compost pile. Clear out diseased plant debris, but leave the good stuff as a winter home for the beneficial insects and pollinators. When the snow melts and the ground begins to warm up next spring, you will be ready to start making compost.Compost tipsCompost piles need a mix of both browns (carbon) to greens (nitrogen) to complete the process.Browns:NewspaperCardboardSawdustWood chipsLeavesGreens:Coffee groundsVegetable and fruit scraps, cooked or raw, provided they are without the addition of butter, oil or other fatsEgg shells that have been rinsed and crumbled can be added, too.Do not compost meat or dairy scraps as those additions will invite critters.The generally accepted ratio of browns (carbon) to greens (nitrogen) is four to one.You can raise your ratio of browns to greens to 5:1 or 6:1 when you are adding vegetable and fruit scraps.For more information on composting, contact the Penn State Extension office at 529 Lentz Trail in Jim Thorpe. Call 570-325-2788 or email

CarbonExt@psu.edu.