Hi lonmower, Congrats on your Fava bean. Glad to see you back and reporting on your fall cover crops. As you know, I have been of the opinion that as of MID OCTOBER, it was too late to start any cover crop from seeds.But I could be proven wrong. I mixed some fall leaves in my beds and covered them with plastic, to keep the rain our and hopefully to keep it warmer for the micro organisms to stay active. I won't remove the cover untilll April 014. Anyway, we have had one of the coldest Decembers on record around PNW. However, October and November were normal. Our weather is good for cold crop, BUT I think you have to start them early so they can get them established by early October. Otherwise they will just hang in there. I am looking forward for spring cool crop. And for that I have built a cold frame where I can germinate seeds early. This is going to be a new experiment for me here. It is quite a challenge to germinate seeds in cold soil. But once the cool crops germinate(indoor , cold frame ..), they will grow in cool spring weather.

I'm impressed at the size of your garden. My entire lawn is only about 4000 sq ft. As a general rule, you can add anything that has lived to a compost pile. That includes all of the items you listed. Shredding stuff will speed the process, but in the end, it will all compost. The easiest way to start compost is to just start piling the things in the same place. If you can shred first, that will help, but it isn't necessary. I use a plastic bin, but many people build bins with pallets or fencing. Some people just use free standing piles. I use a shovel and a bulb auger to mix my compost, but I've got a fairly small bin (about 10-15 cu ft). If you have a large bin/pile, you may want to use some kind of attachment on the tractor to turn it (I have no experience in this, but I'm sure there's something that would work for you). You want to keep it moist (but not wet). I wouldn't cover it with plastic unless you have a lot of rain and it is getting too wet. In that case, I might cover it loosely. But you don't want to restrict airflow. If it starts to smell, it is probably either too wet or it has too much nitrogen. The solution for either of these is to add more high carbon matter (such as leaves, shredded paper, cardboard, sawdust, etc) and to turn it. If it isn't heating up, it probably needs more nitrogen (manure, coffee grounds, green leaves). And/or it needs to be turned. And/Or it is either too wet or too dry. I've had batches of compost finish in a couple of weeks and I've had batches that took months. When I was a kid, we had sort of a perpetual compost pile. It was never turned and we just dug compost from the bottom when we needed some finished stuff.

The items you mention could be used as a "sheet-mulch" if the larger pieces of the pumkins, etc. are chopped up. In the spring they could be dug in or placed in a compost bin or pile. Or covered with grass clippings, finely shredded bark, sawdust, used coffee grounds, etc. This may not be an overly decorative way to deal with compostable materials but they will eventually decompose and provide nutrients for your garden. Do you already have a compost bin or pile? All the things you mention can be easily composted. All vegetable matter can be piled high and allowed to rot. It will turn into really nice stuff which is very nutritious for your garden. You really only need to pile it up and wait for the decomposition process to do the work. There are various ways to speed this up and there are many threads here which will help you do this. You could still do a cover crop next spring in between the rows or in areas that are not heavily planted. Many cover crops can be easily pulled and dug in so can be valuable even in small areas.

Al, you plant your cover crop in November??? Are you planting an annual or perennial cover crop? I am going with annual which is why I was scared I was running out of time. Thanks. MM