By Dell Alann, Assignment Producer, NBC WeatherPlus

Ok, in case you haven’t noticed, it is fall. This is one of my most favorite times of the year. I can turn off the air conditioner. It’s a time when an open window won’t make me sneeze and the frequency of constant perspiration drops off considerably. And I’ll let you in on a little secret. The best thing about fall, other than the spectacular foliage show, is getting that hour of sleep back. The drawback to autumn is the need to rake leaves.

With the fall comes the leaves.

The painstaking task of raking your yard before the limited daylight leaves you in the dark can be a bit much. You hate doing it. I did. When my parents used to make me clear the yard of the leaves after school I would go cold as ice. Every year, I would look at the 20 trees across our yard stomp my feet and throw pine cones. Unfortunately, we weren’t as earth friendly 15 to 20 years ago as we are now. After structuring what I deemed were well-crafted towers of maple, oak, elm and pine straw, I would set fire to them until they were just flatten heaps of ash. Please forgive me earth…

Last year I worked on a fall gardening story and learned about joys of composting. That piece to date is the most mind-opening earth story I’ve had the pleasure of working on. The idea of cramming leaves, scraps from the kitchen, and plant clippings into a container and then using the organic waste, as nourishment for gardens and plant beds made me wish for those wooden giants in my parent’s yard. Ok, not really.

A good compost can go a long way.

Creating a compost pile is relatively easy. Here’s a perfect way to dispose of those fallen leaves. It’s better to compost them than to have them carted off to the county landfill, or worse, up in smoke.

You can do this in the corner of your backyard or in a large bin. You want to pile material in a cone to capture rain. Moisture is a key ingredient in the decomposition process. How else would you encourage the worms, good bacteria, and fungi to get to work and make your compost pile the rich, earth nutritious mass it can be? Work the dry material toward the center where it can break down in a conducive center core.

Must Adds:

• Grass clippings: Degrade rapidly


• Kitchen scraps: Rinds, orange and banana peels, tea bags are delicious elements for compost piles


• Coffee grinds: Worms love this stuff

Don’ts:

• Meat and fish scraps: Attracts scavengers and creates disgusting odors


• Animal droppings: May contain disease organisms


• Bones and grease: Encourages rodents and you don’t want them


• Ashes: Taken from or patio chimney…suppresses composting

Once you have the nutrient-rich heap you want, add some to your potted plants, gardens and flowering beds as natural fertilizer. Compost is a viable option to chemically produced substances that have no place being exposed to our drinking water or environment at all.