This time of the year, I pile a lot of the abundant browns somewhere out of the way and use them later as mulch or as browns when greens are abundant. For winter compost piles, I will either use fresh horse manure or urea fertilizer as the green component.

If you are willing to scavenge a bit UCGs are a good N material.

I go about it similar to rayzone7 above. Within a few weeks winter rye and other cold season plants can be mowed and caught for greens.

Animal manure, Blood Meal, Used Coffee Grounds (UCGs), fertilizers (synthetic or organic) are some sources.

kimmq is kimmsr

Kitchen scraps, save em all winter and layer them with leaves stored in a leaf bin next to your compost pile.

Leaves will also begin to break down slowly by themselves over the winter. In spring, when grass clippings are abundant, I make compost with the remaining leaves. It gets hot fast and I have compost by early summer for use in the garden.

Are you just looking for a nitrogen source now, so you can mix it with carbon materials for compost?

If you go the UCG route, check your local Starbucks. They started a program a while back called Grounds For Your Garden. However, not every location participates, so you'll have to inquire within or call ahead to save you an unnecessary trip.

O for winter I normally put the kitchen scraps in an empty garbage can til spring when more greens or grass clippings are avail.

This year I started a worm bin but doubt the eisenia fetida worms will be able to compost everything.

bacteria will pull nitrogen from the air, if given time. but kitchen scraps are domestic sources, as is urine.

Like klem1 said, a cover crop(though if you cut it down in the fall it wouldn't be serving as much of a cover crop) can be sown for nitrogen purposes. You would just start it earlier than normal, if you plan to use it in the fall.

I'm using winter vetch this year, but in my case I will be overwintering it and cutting it down in the spring. Vetch is an excellent source of nitrogen, being that it is a legume....especially when first inoculated.

Urine and kitchen scraps - particularly there is really no other good place to use urine from late fall through winter (don't want to give any plants a shot of nitrogen when cold). Urine can be used elsewhere once it starts warming up in spring.

roadkill was not mentioned......just loaded with all kinds of minerals too. This time of year they don't smell so bad.

Soon there will be many pumpkins available.

tj

Been a while since it got down to the essentials. I suppose winter bordom is closeing in fast.

glib said " bacteria will pull nitrogen from the air, if given time. " Often overlooked even by veteran gardeners but imo a very important consideration. Tox mentioned the result and regularly advocates treating browns as compost apposed to holding them in a bag until N become's available. I do it all the time and am pleased with outcome. In a seprate thread someone was recently talking about buying alfafa for composting,not me. I'm no purest by any measure but half the incentive is diverting material from landfills to become something benificial. I'm not quite there with road kill but havn't ruled it out. While passing dumpsters,it's getting hard to tell composters from the homeless.

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