Your composting system: the season review and the compost notebook
Review the system against your plan after its first stretch, adjust it for the seasons, put the year's tasks on a calendar and export the compost notebook.
- Start here: the essentials
- Review the system against the plan
- Adjust what the review shows
- The year's tasks by season
- Changes to watch for
- The compost notebook
- Scaling up or down
- See it: Tomás and Noor review
- Practice: review, adjust, calendar, export
- Your system
- Check your work
- Knowledge check and scenario
Start here Essentials
This chapter does not add a method. It asks you to read what you recorded against what you planned, change one thing, put the next season's tasks on your plan and save the notebook as a file. The plan is yours, and so is the judgment.
- Read your logs against your plan. Scrap log, bin or worm log, problems sheet and the plan's own lines (review the system).
- Write one thing to keep and one to change. The plan has a line for each (adjust).
- Put the next season's tasks on the plan. Start from the seasonal calendar (the year's tasks, seasonal calendar).
- Export the compost notebook. Save the file somewhere you will find it (the compost notebook).
Minimum time: one sitting for the review and the plan lines, plus the moment it takes to export. Done when: the plan's review section is filled in and the notebook file is saved.
Review the system against the plan Understand
A review is a set date on which you compare what the system did with what the plan said it would do, using your own records. The date matters because a system that nobody checks drifts: the browns run out, a container goes unemptied, a method stops fitting a week that changed. Choose your system promised a review date for exactly that reason, and the system plan has a line for it.
When? The review schedule is this manual's convention. Convention For a method that produces something to check quickly, such as a kitchen routine, a worm bin or a hot pile, four to twelve weeks after the start is a reasonable first stretch. A cold bin's first harvest comes much later: EPA says a well-maintained pile is usually ready in about three to five months, and a pile left untended may take a year (EPA's Composting at Home page). Review the routine on the early date and the harvest on the date in your plan's "first check for finished compost" line.
What to read
The review is five questions, each answered from a record you already keep.
| Question | Where to look | What a gap looks like |
|---|---|---|
| What went in? | Scrap log and the greens and browns columns of the bin log | Totals far from what the plan assumed, or a material that was meant to stay out and went in |
| Did the browns hold out? | The materials inventory and the browns calculator | Bags of leaves or cardboard used faster than the plan allowed, or a pile that turned wet and smelly |
| Did the routine hold? | The plan's kitchen container line and your own memory of who emptied it and when | A container emptied late, a fruit fly trap that stayed up, a drop-off trip that slipped |
| What went wrong, and what fixed it? | Problems sheet and the symptom table | The same symptom in two rows, or rows with no result written |
| Does the method still fit? | The plan's method line and Choose your system's three questions | A method that asks for more attention, space or permission than you can give |
The browns question has arithmetic. EPA's rule of thumb is at least two to three times as much browns as greens by volume. At 2 to 1, one gallon of scraps needs two gallons of browns; at 3 to 1, three. Take your scrap log's weekly total, multiply by the ratio, and by the weeks since you started, then compare it with the bags you have left. Leaves settle and shred, so count what is in the bags, not what you remember stacking.
The review is your own judgment against your own records. We give the questions; we do not give a passing mark. The seasonal calendar later in this chapter is this manual's convention, built from a source where one gives a timing, and local weather sets the real dates. If your records are thin, the review's finding is that you need to log more, and that is a result.
Adjust what the review shows
A review ends in two sentences on the plan: one thing to keep and one thing to change. Pick one change, for the same reason as in Troubleshooting: you cannot tell what worked when several things moved. The table below lists the usual changes and where each is taught. It lists the changes that fit what households find, not a source's list. Convention
| If the review shows | A change to consider | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Browns ran short | Store more leaves or cardboard in the fall, or find a second source; reduce what goes in until the browns return | Leaves, grass and yard, The slow pile |
| The bin filled faster than it finished | A second bin, so one fills while the other finishes | The slow pile |
| The kitchen routine slipped | A different container, a different size, a freezer, or a different emptying day | Kitchen and collection |
| The method cannot take something you make | A second route for it: a drop-off, a bokashi bucket or the trash | Kitchen and collection, Bokashi and burying |
| The same symptom came back after two changes | A different method | Troubleshooting, Choose your system |
| An answer about permission or a program changed | Update the plan's permission, program and stays-out lines | Site and bin |
Two points about methods. First, combining methods is allowed and common: a bin for scraps and a cage for leaves, or a worm bin for most scraps and a drop-off for meat. The plan can carry two methods, and the review is the right time to add the second after a first stretch with the first. Second, changing method is not a failure of the first. The review exists so that the plan can say "this fit for the first twelve weeks, and this changed."
Write the result on the plan's lines for what to keep and what to change, and write a new review date.
The year's tasks by season
A system lasts across seasons, and most of the changes it needs follow the weather. The seasonal calendar lists the year's tasks by month for four climates (the ground freezes; frost but rarely a freeze; little or no frost; hot and dry summers), each marked as a source's timing or this manual's convention. This section describes the tasks by season, with the source for each timing. Months vary by place, so ask your local extension office what your dates are. Ask the authority
| Season | Task | Timing: source or convention | Chapter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fall | Stock the year's browns: stockpile leaves in a separate pile or in bags | Penn State advises stockpiling the leaves that do not fit your bin, then transferring some into the bin in spring and summer as browns (Penn State's Leaves Are Treasure, Not Trash) | 9 |
| Add finished compost to garden beds while plants go dormant | Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County says late fall use lets compost finish curing over the winter (CCE Tompkins' Testing for Finished Compost) | 11 | |
| Check the bottom of a cold bin for finished compost | Convention: on the date in your plan | 11 | |
| Winter (where the ground freezes) | Keep adding and covering, or let the pile rest | Penn State says a pile goes dormant in winter and begins to decompose again when air temperatures rise above about 50°F (Penn State's Home Composting guide) | 5 |
| Insulate: a bigger pile, or a one-foot layer of leaves on the top | New York State's guide describes building larger and covering the top with a one-foot-deep layer of leaves, or adding straw bales or bagged leaves (New York State DEC's Home Composting Guide) | 5 | |
| Trenches and drop-off schedules change | The University of Saskatchewan's site says trenching is difficult in winter and suggests storing scraps frozen outside until spring or using an indoor method (University of Saskatchewan's trench composting page); a drop-off program can change its site or day, so check the program | 8, 3 | |
| Spring | Check moisture as the pile restarts; top-dress beds with finished compost | NC State Beaufort's gardener article suggests top-dressing vegetable beds in early spring (NC State Beaufort's Compost 101 article); Penn State's 50°F figure above marks the restart | 11 |
| Ask what any lawn service or outside supplier sprays before you take clippings, hay or manure | Convention: before the first load of the season | 9 | |
| Summer | Water the pile in hot, dry weather, and shade it | The University of Arizona's guide says that in the hot summer months a pile may need watering weekly, and that covering slows evaporation and shade helps (University of Arizona's AZ1632) | 5 |
| Keep a worm bin out of direct sun and within its temperature range | Oregon State says worms thrive between 55°F and 77°F and that an outdoor bin needs protection from extreme temperatures (Oregon State's Composting with Worms) | 7 | |
| All year | Log visits, harvest when the signs and the test agree, and hold the review on its date | Convention | 12 |
Put the next season's tasks on the plan's winter and summer lines, and copy the dates from the calendar's column for your climate. If you do not know your climate, the calendar says where to ask. Only the winter and summer lines have a place on the plan; the other seasons can go in the notes you attach to this page.
Changes to watch for
The system sits inside things that change without asking you. Four to watch, each of which sends you back to a chapter.
- A new food scrap program, or a changed one. Every program sets its own list, liners and hours, and they change. Re-read the program's page (Kitchen and collection).
- A new landlord, lease or association rule. The answer to who decides was true on the day you asked. Ask again and keep the new answer in writing (Site and bin).
- A move. The notebook exports as a file, and the plan's site and permission lines start over in the new place.
- A new supplier of leaves, grass, hay, straw or manure, or a new lawn treatment. Ask what was sprayed, and run the pea or bean pot test for vegetables (Leaves, grass and yard).
The compost notebook
Your compost notebook is this manual's name for everything you entered: your setup answers, the system plan, the scrap log, the materials inventory, the bin, worm and problems logs, the harvest sheet, your notes and highlights, and which chapters you marked done. It lives in this browser. The compost notebook page exports it, imports it and prints it.
- Export. The page's export button saves everything as one JSON file. Keep it in a place you back up. Nothing is sent anywhere; the file is made on your device.
- Import. The page's import button reads a file back, on another device or after clearing the browser. The file imports only into this manual.
- Print. The page's print button renders every sheet that has something in it, in contents order. Empty sheets are skipped.
Browser storage is convenient and fragile. It is cleared when you clear site data, it is empty in private browsing, and it is not shared between browsers or devices. Export after any session in which you typed something you would hate to lose, and print the sheets you rely on. The share link in your setup carries only your setup answers, not your sheets, so it is not a backup.
Four sheets are the essential ones: the system plan, the scrap log, the materials inventory and the bin log. The rest can wait until the method needs them: the worm log for a worm bin, the problems sheet when something goes wrong, the harvest sheet at the first harvest.
Scaling up or down Go deeper
A first stretch can end with the system either too small or too big for the week. Three ways to scale up, and two to scale down, each pointing to the chapter that covers it.
- A three-bay system. New York State's guide describes multi-bin systems for slow and fast composting, and Washington State's Master Composters ask whether you have at least one cubic yard of material and will turn the pile weekly before you choose a hot system (WSU Whatcom's backyard composting brochure). The hot pile covers the decision.
- A neighbor's leaves. More browns can solve a short supply. Ask what was sprayed on the lawn they came from, and see Leaves, grass and yard for the check.
- A community garden or community composter. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance keeps a map of community composters (ILSR's Map of Community Composters). Their rules are theirs. Running a community site is outside this manual.
- Down: a drop-off in winter. If the pile goes dormant and the browns run low, a drop-off for the winter months and a bin in the other seasons is a combination, not a retreat.
- Down: a simpler routine. If the review shows the routine slipping, a freezer container and a drop-off may fit better than a bin. Kitchen and collection covers it.
See it: Tomás and Noor review See it
Tomás Reyes is a fictional person, and every fact about him here is invented for this manual. He is 34, lives alone and rents the downstairs of a duplex in a northern city where the ground freezes from December to March. His enclosed plastic bin of about 11 cubic feet sits in the back yard on 1/2-inch hardware cloth. His first fall's maple leaves filled 9 thirty-gallon bags, which is 270 gallons. His first week's scrap log was 1.5 gallons.
Known: the bags, the first week's log, the winter pattern (the bin freezes in January, and he keeps adding and covering; it thaws and shrinks in April). His assumptions: scraps stay near 1.5 gallons a week, browns go in at 2 to 1, and the bags hold what he stacked. Open: whether the browns hold out, whether the routine holds, and whether the raccoons his neighbor mentioned come. His bin log settles the first two; the lid with its latch is his answer to the third.
The browns arithmetic under these assumptions. At 1.5 gallons of scraps a week and 2 to 1, he needs 3 gallons of browns a week. Over 52 weeks that is 156 gallons, and 270 gallons of bagged leaves cover it. At the review, twelve weeks in, he would have used 36 gallons and 234 would remain, if the bags still hold what he stacked. Leaves settle, so his review counts the bags.
What his review writes. He reads the bin log and the scrap log against the plan, and writes one thing to keep and one to change, in his words. The case stops there, because the log settles it. His calendar for the year, copied from the ground-freezes column of the seasonal calendar, has these lines: in the fall, store the leaves; in winter, keep adding and covering; in April, the bin thaws and shrinks; the following October, check the bottom of the bin and run the germination test (Finished compost).
Noor Haddad is a fictional person, and every fact about her here is invented for this manual. She is 28 and lives alone in a fourth-floor apartment with no balcony. She keeps her scraps in a lidded 1-gallon container in the freezer and empties it each Saturday at a farmers market drop-off 0.8 miles away, May through November. In winter the program moves to a library branch on Wednesdays. She decided in Worm bins to wait one season on a worm bin; the calculator gave about 1 square foot of bin.
Known: the program's schedule and what it takes; her first week's log was 1 gallon. Her assumptions: her scrap volume stays near that, and her apartment stays between 64 and 72°F. Open: whether the freezer-and-drop-off routine held through the change of venue and day, and whether to add a worm bin. Noor settles both at her review, from her own notes.
What her review reads. The freezer container and the Saturday trip, then the switch to Wednesdays. Her winter plan line has one entry: the drop-off moves to the library, on Wednesdays. For the worm bin she asks the question she set aside: whether the routine held without it, and whether she now wants a bin. If she does, she follows Worm bins's decision steps; if she does not, she writes "no worm bin" and the reason.
Free references that show a household reading its own system, fetched on 2026-10-26:
- New York State DEC's Home Composting Guide: begins with planning questions and ends with troubleshooting.
- WSU Whatcom's backyard composting brochure: the decision questions behind a choice of method.
- Oregon State's EM 9475: methods ordered by attention.
Practice: review, adjust, calendar, export Practice
Minimum: read your logs against the plan, write one thing to keep and one to change, write a review date, and export the notebook. Time: about 30 minutes, once, and again at each review. Materials: your system plan, scrap log, the logs you keep, and the seasonal calendar; a place to save the exported file.
- Read the plan and the logs side by side. Open the system plan and the logs. Go through the five review questions in the review table.
- Write one thing to keep and one to change. Use the plan's "What to keep" and "What to change" lines. If a change needs a chapter, name it.
- Add the next season's tasks. Open the seasonal calendar, find your climate's column, and copy the tasks into the plan's winter and summer lines.
- Set the next review date. Write a month and year on the plan's "Review on" line.
- Export the notebook. On the compost notebook page, export the file and save it where you will find it.
Print the notebook. Use the page's print button for the plan and the logs you rely on, and keep the printout with the bin or bucket.
Your system Your system
Check your work Check your work
Criteria
- Does the plan have a "What to keep" line and a "What to change" line, each with one item?
- Is there a review date on the plan, and is it a future month and year?
- Are the winter and summer lines filled in for your climate?
- Is the notebook file saved somewhere other than the browser?
Worked example
Tomás's plan has a keep line and a change line in his own words, a review date, a winter line (keep adding and covering) and the following October's check for finished compost. Noor's plan has the Wednesday drop-off on her winter line and a dated decision on the worm bin. Both export the notebook. Each passes. A plan whose change line reads "do everything better" would not, because the next review cannot compare it with anything.
Common mistakes
- Reviewing from memory. The logs hold what you did. Memory holds what you meant to do.
- Changing three things. One change makes the next review readable.
- Treating the calendar as exact. It is a convention built from sources; your weather sets the dates.
- Leaving the notebook only in the browser. A cleared browser empties it.
- Letting the review date pass. Write a new date at each review.
What is still unresolved
Whether your system keeps working is settled by running it another season. The dates of your seasons are settled by your local weather and your extension office. Whether a program, a lease or a lawn treatment changed is settled by asking whoever runs it.
Knowledge check and scenario
What five questions does the review answer, and from which records?
How do you check whether the browns held out?
Why make only one change after a review?
Which tasks does this manual mark as a source's timing, and which as its own convention?
What does the exported notebook contain, and where can it be imported?
(Go deeper) Name one way to scale a system up and one way to scale it down.
Checklist
Have you just done what this manual teaches? If it is still fresh, we would like to hear about it. We are looking for volunteer guides to add a few short passages from their own experience to this manual. Write to guides@learnthings.online for the details.