AUTUMN is the ideal time to start composting. We are all clearing back the gardens, cutting down shrubs and trees, doing the final cuts on the lawn and preparing for winter. So make the most of your garden waste.

To make a healthy compost you need about two thirds of “brown material”, such as leaves, shrubs and twigs, and a third of “green material” – such as kitchen scraps, fruit and vegetable peelings and grass clippings.

Usually, you have no problem supplying the green material, but it is the brown material that is more difficult to find. However, the situation is reversed in autumn when leaves, shrubs and twigs become plentiful.

Building up your compost bin in autumn means you are stockpiling your brown material. This carbon-rich material will benefit your compost all year long.

You may find it difficult to fit all the leaves in to your bin, but there is a solution. Compost them separately outside the bin covered in plastic sheeting. However, the pile might take six months to compost.

Alternatively, keep them in a sack beside the compost bin ready to add to your vegetable, fruit and kitchen scraps to increase the carbon content of that compost layer.

As it gets colder, the composting process is a lot slower. Some home composters line their bins with cardboard or heap blankets over the pile to help retain heat.

Coffee grounds can help – they make an excellent addition and help to sustain high temperatures. They can also improve soil structure and attract worms. See if your local coffee shop will provide them for free.

Of course, for a commercial composter like Premier, retaining the heat is not such a problem – our compost rows contain about 450 tonnes of plant material. The sheer bulk of material creates and retains the heat we need to achieve great compost.

In the world of commercial composting, we see an increase in the amount of plant material coming to our sites as people do a final clear out before winter. We also see an increase in the amount of compost leaving the site as commercial gardeners, landscape architects, farmers and horticulturalists prepare for next year.

By the end of the month, we will have made 12,000 tonnes of compost this year from 20,000 tonnes of raw plant material.