Never Compost Your Plant If It Has This Specific Problem

Compost is made up of decomposed organic matter that enriches your soil and provides food for your plants. If you're a dedicated composter, you need to be very careful about what goes into your pile, especially when adding plant material. When a plant dies from a disease or is overrun by pests, tossing it into the compost bin might seem like the most responsible thing to do, but it's a big mistake that could contaminate your entire compost pile. While backyard composting is an excellent way to break down food scraps and yard waste, it's very common for disease-causing organisms and pests to survive the process. These include bacteria, fungi, viruses, or even insects and their eggs.

This means that they can spread once you use the compost around your plants. To prevent any type of contamination, it's always best to not compost any plant debris and soil that came from plants with pest or disease problems. Instead of adding this material to your compost, you should tie it up in a trash bag and throw it away to make sure the infection doesn't circulate. Composing diseased plants is only a safe option when the material is processed by a commercial composting plant, which is designed to reach and hold the high temperatures for a long enough time to kill anything harmful. Even if you're learning how to make your own DIY compost for the first time, remembering this rule about avoiding diseased plants will help you maintain a healthy compost pile.

The way to kill harmful diseases and pests, like fungal spores or insect eggs, is by having a specific temperature within the compost for a certain period of time. To get rid of most plant diseases, a compost pile needs to hold a temperature of around 150 to 180 degrees Fahrenheit for at least several days. These high temperatures are created by thermophilic, or heat-loving, microorganisms that work to break down the organic matter. Many home composting setups, such as small bins or piles, often don't reach such a high temperature. 

The internal temperature of a typical backyard compost pile tends to hover in a lower range, which works to break down basic plant material, but it's not high enough to affect pests and diseases. Understanding what you should and shouldn't add to your compost can help you keep your garden healthy. That means if you compost an infected plant, like a tomato that's struggling with blight or a cabbage plant that has clubroot, the diseases can go dormant while in the compost pile. When you spread the finished compost around plants and flowers in your garden, you risk reintroducing the diseases to new, healthy plants. For this reason, many gardeners choose to throw away any plants that are infested with bugs or have any type of disease rather than risk contamination. 

Since composting any plant that has issues with pests or illness isn't recommended, you should rethink adding diseased plants to your compost pile and learn the proper way to dispose of them. The best way is to remove the plant from your property. This involves digging up the infected plant, including its roots and any surrounding soil or debris, and sealing it in a plastic bag. 

It's important that you avoid leaving any diseased leaves or other parts of the plant behind on the ground, which could infect other nearby plants. Once the plant is bagged, it should be tied up and thrown away in your trash can. If you have a large amount of tree cuttings affected by a disease and burning is allowed in your area, that can be another way to get rid of the material. Always clean your tools after touching infected plants so they're clean and ready the next time you need them.