apples with cut apple spread out on board - can you compost apples and apple cores?

Can You Compost Apples or Apple Cores?

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What You'll Learn

Can you compost apples if it’s an apple that has gone bad or the entire core?  In fact, you can, and, like many other fruit, they make a wonderful addition to your compost. 

Apples are a great organic material that you can add to your compost. 

Boy holding apple core

How to Compost Apples and Apple Cores

You can add apples and cores whole to your compost.  If you want to speed things up, you might want to cut them into small pieces.  This will help the decompose faster.

If you add a lot of apples at once, you might see a lot of fruit flies in and around your compost pile.  This isn’t the end of the world, but it’s annoying.  To help reduce the chance of the fruit flies finding you, cover the apples with a layer of brown material like leaves, paper, straw, or nut shells.  As a rule of thumb, you can add about twice as much brown material as apples to get started.  Then as they decompose, you can use your senses to determine what adjustments you need to make.

In addition to fruit flies, a lot of apples may also attract wasps.  These are certainly more annoying than the fruit flies. The good news is that the same measures also work to keep the wasps down.  Of course, wasps at your compost mean fewer wasps bothering you away from your compost…your choice.

Of course, you want to turn your compost regularly to keep it aerated and spread the moisture in your compost.

Wasp Eats Apples on Fallen Fruit
Wasp Eats Apples on Fallen Fruit

Can I Compost Apples and Apple Cores

Yes, you can compost apples and apple cores, and you should. They are an easy addition, are a good source of nutrients, and have few downsides.  You can add apple cores or apples that have gone bad.