I have no idea which is 'better' but I also have a wet climate 12 months of the year. I just spread compost whenever it is ready all year round. I need the space in the bins for the constant supply of new materials and there really isn't any question of hanging on til some theoretically optimum time. I don't think it really matters that much.

Whenever my compost cools down, I put it around my plants for mulch and topdressing. The beauty of compost and organic fertilizers is that they are broken down gradually, so you don't have to worry about them "washing away" as you would with fast acting inorganic fertilizers. In mild climates, the soil microbes will be active throughout the year, although slowed down during cool weather. All three of your ideas are excellent ways to maintain your soil. Cover crops are perhaps the most beneficial, but require a bit more work than the others.

In the fall I pile all of the leaves from my yard and many of my neighbors' yards onto my raised beds. I mix a few shovels of compost in with the leaves as I pile them up to inoculated the leaves to accelerate decomposition. In zone 7 in East Tenn, my 6 foot piles of leaves are reduced to about a foot of leaf mold in about 5 months.

I'm not sure there is a "better" but one consideration for me would be that if I empty the bin(s) in the fall I could re-fill them and get them working over the winter (if your climate allows winter composting, sadly, mine does not). It may also allow the soil microbes a 'headstart' in the spring while waiting for the warmer temperatures.

Lloyd

Lloyd - I suspect my climate's similar to the OP's and, yes, I certainly do compost all year round. I don't hot compost because I just add whatever I have until the bins are full so there is not usually the right mix for heat. But I find any bin that is filled in October/November is pretty much ready to spread by March/April. There is a constant supply of material from the garden since I overwinter many crops which then go on the heap in Spring. So making and spreading compost goes on continually. (I have 5 bins in various stages.)

Flora - Good for you.

Lloyd

P.S. I can guarantee that the OPs climate is nothing like mine! ;-)

The nutrients in compost are fairly stable, they do not easily leach out requiring bacterial activity to make them available to the plants. Spreading compost on the garden in the fall means the nutrients will be available for plants in the spring while spreading the compost in the spring may not get the necessary nutrients to the plants until later in the growing season.

Thank you all for contributing your thoughts. I'll try different approach in different places

Manitoba - a resonant name. I can still remember the series of Provincial flower stamps I got from my relations in BC as a kid. I believe you are Pulsatilla vulgaris? I always loved 'Saskatchewan' too. Can you imagine a small English girl attempting to read that word? I can still visualise their lily. It's amazing how things stick in a bored child's mind.

I really didn't know what our provincial flower was until I looked it up. Don't ever recall seeing one.

I only recently began to 'love' Saskatchewan (potash company investment $$), other than that, it just blocks the way to get to Alberta and B.C. ;-)

I had some relatives like that too, they couldn't remember what happened in the last week but they could tell you everything about when they were five.

Lloyd

P.S. Sorry BG, I sorta drifted off topic, again. Sometimes us old folks have trouble with maintaining a train of thought. :-)

Manitoba's provincial flower is the Prairie crocus, or pulsatilla patens. P. vulgaris is a lovely garden perennial, though, and quite similar.
Lloyd, though I've lived in Mb all of my 60+ years, it's only in the last few that I've found the crocus in my area. It is a lovely plant and worth seeing in person. It comes with its own fur coat to withstand our variable spring weather, and for that you have to admire it.

d. Work compost into soil in fall. Add more in spring and summer as a mulch.

The trouble with the average home compost pile is 'there's really never enough'. So if the need is greater in spring than at other times, hold onto what you've got and use it wisely and when you apprecitate it more.

Speaking of provincial flowers, my brother was born in Saskatchewan, grew up in Ontario, joined the Canadian Navy and was ready to retire to Nova Scotia where his wife of 65 years was born and raised.
He has a flag pole like a ship's mast and flies three emblems...for Saskatchewan, for Ontario and for Nova Scotia.
One day, in his postal box, he was left a message by some illiterate....who suggested he stop flying flags of foreign countries.

Boy was he mad! He left a note hoping the person would come back and leave something and maybe find something for him...a picture of all the flags of the provinces and their provincial flowers. No, the guy didn't stop by which still infuriates my brother.

Occasionally he flies the flags of Canada and the U.S....we have a sister-in-law from Brewer, Maine and he is most proud when he flies the Navy flag, the White Emblem....red cross on a white field with the Jack in the corner.
He's waiting for the guy to leave another message about flying the flag of the U.K.

In my area of Virginia we have cool to sometimes cold winters, more total percipitation than the PNW, but not as consistant and very hot humid summers. Our Spring and Fall are on the cool to warm side with a decent amount of rain and the summer is either wet or bone dry like a desert...depending on the year. My compost can generally be made all year round too, except in the summer it breaks down very, very quickly and I never seem to have enough. I do try to empty out the bins somewhat in mid-Fall and fill them up with lots of leaves and the frost burned stalks of my banana plants, depending on the species, are dug up and taken to the basement, or cut down to the ground and mulched to re-emerge in Spring. I keep the extra bags of leaves under our deck and use the leaf mould in the Spring that is half the volume it was when I put it away in the Fall. BTW: US, UK, Canada and the other English speaking countries around the World are with out question the best gardeners. Three cheers for all of them! :' )

Here in the cornfields of Iowa, this week; I emptied both of my one cubic yard compost bins. It's a "Ben-Gay" job I usually do in early September.

The unfinished stuff on the top of the bin goes on a tarp and the finished stuff on the bottom goes on a flower bed.

I had 9 wheelbarrows of "finished" compost to spread.

The unfinished stuff from the tarp went back in one bin mixed with some fresh grass clippings and it's deja-vu all over again.

I now have an empty bin for the fall cleanup after the 1st frost which is probably 4 to 6 weeks away.(*sigh*)

In Iowa it may frost sooner than that, but let's hope not. We are looking at about 7-9 weeks away for the first frost and killing frost can follow shortly thereafter. The Fall is beautiful here, but it is also a time of death for many of my plants. Luckily, the Eucalyptus trees, palms, gardenias and magnolias are evergreen so there is some winter interest....that is if we don't have 2 feet of snow again this year.

goren - just to be a little pernicketty it's the White Ensign, not Emblem, for the Royal Navy.

Now I think someone should start a new thread to design an international compost symbol and flag for composters the world over to fly on Global Compost Day. Any ideas?

Here is a link that might be useful: White Ensign