Can You Compost Cherry Pits? 🍒

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So, you’ve begun the fun and rewarding project of a backyard compost heap. Congratulations! You’re reducing waste, helping enrich the soil, and involving your family in sustainable gardening. Of course, you’re tossing all your fruit scraps in the compost heap, but what about cherry pits? Is it possible to compost cherry pits, or should you throw them in the garbage?

Cherry pits can be composted if they have been softened, ground, or crushed prior. However, intact cherry pits can sit ineffectively in a compost pile for years or even sprout cherry trees. Crushed cherry pits add several vital nutrients to compost but should never be eaten or added to food or drink.

Keep reading to learn more about how to compost cherry pits safely, the benefits of adding cherry pits to compost, and how to get the most out of fruit pits in the garden and around the home.

Table of Contents

Can Cherry Pits Be Composed?

Cherry pits can be composed, but the whole, raw cherry pits will not make for fast nutrients in a compost pile. Cherry pits are incredibly tough and stony. If not correctly handled, they will do nothing for a compost pile except remain rugged and stony amid your decomposing banana peels for many years.

To most efficiently compost cherry pits, they must first be softened, crushed, or pulverized to ensure that they disintegrate properly and truly nourish your compost heap. Once the material of the cherry pit has been broken down, it is safe to add to your compost or garden and can even add unique nutrients to your soil.

What Do Cherry Pits Add to Compost?

Pulverized cherry pits add large quantities of carbon into the soil and boost your compost’s nutritional quality. In addition, flowers, trees, and plants love decaying organic matter, as this material feeds the plant through its root system and enriches the soil.

The most beneficial materials for compost heaps include

Coffee grounds

Fruit/Citrus peels
Fruit Cores
Vegetable peels

Dead leaves
Twigs, bark, and sawdust
Grass clippings

Cherry pits, being the kernels of fruit, contain plenty of nutrition for the soil. Ground or pulverized cherry pits are easily broken down in compost, releasing important fibers and minerals into the earth.

The dense and fibrous hull of a cherry pit, in particular, adds body as well as Vitamin C to compost, which makes for an acid-rich and nutritious material in which to grow a variety of vegetables, flowers, and shrubs.

Check out: Can You Compost Pistachio Shells?

Do Cherry Pits Make Compost Acidic?

Cherries are naturally acidic, with a pH of about 3 – 4, so cherry pits retain some acidity from the fruit. Furthermore, cherry pits are also rich in Vitamin C, which increases compost acidity.

Acidic compost is excellent for plants such as azaleas, blueberries, sweet corn, garlic, and chives. The more fruit pulp is retained on your cherry pits, the more acidic they’ll be. This acid helps to break down compost, feed plants, and nourish growing crops.

So, what would happen if you threw your cherry pits into the compost whole? How long would a cherry pit take to break down on its own, and can intact cherry pits harm a compost pile?

How Long Do Cherry Pits Take to Break Down in Compost?

Cherry pits are remarkably hardy little guys. They are so tough and strong that we would not be surprised if scientists someday find novel uses for them, in much the same way that uses have been found for the incredibly tough silk produced by spiders.

Cherry pits can take between three to ten years to break down completely, depending on the circumstances and soil type. Slightly acidic soil can help break down a cherry pit sooner, but they’re still remarkably dense little things.

For this reason, you may not want to add whole cherry pits to your compost. They will take a long time to break down and, in the meantime, will contribute nothing to your compost pile. Only materials that release nutrients into the soil are beneficial, and a stony tiny cherry seed can not release nutrition until it breaks down.

If you do add whole cherry pits to your compost pile, is there any chance of them sprouting?

Can Cherry Pits Sprout in Compost?

Whole cherry pits also run the risk of sprouting into seedlings. While this may sound cute in theory, sprouts in your compost heap will have to be destroyed or else painstakingly removed and planted elsewhere.

And as cherry pits are quite a bit harder than other seed varieties, they’ll last longer and resist decay, making them more likely to survive compost rotation and germinate.

What’s more, a cherry tree in the middle of your compost heap will attract a variety of animal life, such as deer, squirrels, birds, and raccoons, which will, in turn, root through your compost for even more edibles. Unless you want to be shooing skunks away from your fertilizer heap nightly, a cherry tree in the middle of your compost pile is not ideal.

So if whole cherry pits are not a good match for a compost heap, can cherry pits be safely added any other way?

How Can I Best Add Cherry Pits to Compost?

Cherry pits are best added to compost when they have been broken down or crushed—in other words, processed in such a way that they will decompose quickly and cannot sprout into seedlings.

Crushing a cherry pit allows it to integrate naturally into compost much faster, over days and weeks instead of years, and lessens the risk of animals being attracted to large seeds. You also won’t have to worry about a cherry tree sprouting in the middle of your compost heap.

To break down cherry pits for composting, soak them in water overnight and then boil them for an hour. Allow the water to cool, and place the boiled cherry pits and water into a blender. The entire mixture should blend into a smooth paste, which can be safely added to your compost later.

Cherry Pits Can Be Baked and Boiled for Compost

Another way to make cherry pits compost-ready is to bake and grind them. Place them in the oven at 350 F for half an hour. Remove the pits from the oven and allow them to cool before grinding them in an industrial coffee grinder or spice grinder. This cherry pit powder can now be safely sprinkled into your compost.

Some gardeners prefer to merely soften cherry pits by boiling them for at least one hour. This will help the tough hull to break down a bit and will allow the cherry pit to decompose over weeks and months as opposed to years. This will be considerably faster and reduces the likelihood of these pits growing into seedlings.

What about burning? Is it possible to burn cherry bits instead of grinding them?

Cherry Pits Can be Burned and Then Added to Compost

Plants love ash. The carbon-rich material is like a nutritional milkshake for growing flowers and crops, and farmers have used ash in their gardens for thousands of years. Ash is fine, easy to spread out, and easy to dispose of, too. It doesn’t smell, leak, or need to be turned to break down.

If you don’t want to go through the ordeal of soaking, boiling, baking, and grinding your cherry pits, consider burning them instead. It’s always fun to burn things, and fire does an efficient job of breaking down cherry pits with minimal effort required by you.

Toss your cherry pits into your next extremely legal brush fire and get all the benefits of wood, leaves, and fruit pits all in one heap of ash. Once it’s cooled, transport this ash to your compost heap for extra fertilization and to help reduce compost odor. Incidentally, ash also makes excellent soap.

Now that you’ve learned how to grind and burn cherry pits for composting, are there uses for cherry pits in the kitchen? Can you safely eat them?

Can I Eat Cherry Pits Instead of Compost Them?

It would be best if you never consumed cherry pits or the pits or hearts of other stone fruits. This is because the pits of cherries contain small yet significant amounts of amygdalin, which the human body converts to cyanide. This amygdalin is released when the cherry pit is crushed or chewed.

Swallowing a pit or two accidentally won’t cause any damage, but snacking or chewing on cherry pits can make a person seriously ill and may even cause death. This makes crushed or ground cherry pits especially dangerous, and you should never incorporate cherry pits in any form into your food or drinks.

Symptoms of moderate to severe cherry pit poisoning (yes, that’s a thing) include

Dizziness
Headaches
Vomiting

Kidney failure
Unconsciousness
Death

While there has been some talk in health circles about the alleged benefits of stony fruit pits, these seeds remain quite dangerous for routine human consumption, especially if they are chewed or ground. The risk of poisoning far outweighs any questionable health assets; at the end of the day, ground cherry pits are not fit for human consumption.

Cherry pits should be kept away from pets, as well. They can obstruct a pet’s digestive tract and cause animal poisoning. So if they’re no good for eating, what else can you do with cherry pits?

What Can I Do with Cherry Pits Besides Compost Them?

This may sound incredibly simplistic, but one fun use for cherry pits is the cultivation of new cherry trees. That’s right! You can potentially grow your very own little cherry grove in your yard with some patience.

Cherries also thrive on manure and compost, meaning that your ground-up cherry pits can help feed your new cherry trees. Be sure to grow the trees away from your compost heap to avoid attracting too many animals. Pruning and care will need to be taken, as cultivated fruit trees tend to revert to wilder forms quickly, leading to smaller, tougher, more sour fruit.

Still, if you’re up for the project and love fruit trees, your cherry pits can give you years of enjoyment, tasty fruit, and shade in your garden for many years. Picking the mature fruit can also become a fun annual activity for you and your family.

The pits can also become fun and useful projects around the house.

Cherry Pits Make a Weirdly Effective Heating Pillow

If you have hundreds of cherry pits lying around and are looking for a fun, old-fashioned project, you can use dried cherry pits in a heating pillow.

Just dry out your cherry pits and stuff them into a pillowcase. Then, sew the pillowcase shut, and pop your weird, neat little cherry pit warmer in the microwave for a uniquely effective heating pad.

Cherry pits are surprisingly adept at retaining heat, and you can use them to keep warm in winter, ease cramps or sore muscles, and keep hands toasty after shoveling snow.

Conclusion

You can safely add cherry pits to compost heaps after they have been softened, pulverized, or ground up mechanically. Boil or bake the cherry pits before blending or grinding or boil them for an hour to soften them. You may also burn cherry pits to make fertile ash which is excellent for compost health.

If tossed into a compost heap, raw cherry pits can take up to ten years to properly decompose and can sprout into cherry trees. Properly treated cherry pits can add acidity and nutrition to the soil, and raw cherry pits can be grown into new trees or used to make old-fashioned heating pads for cold winter nights.

Never consume cherry pits, especially if they have been ground or broken. Cherry pits contain a compound that the human body converts into cyanide, which can make a person seriously ill or even kill them. Pets should also avoid cherry pits, as these seeds can block the digestive tract and cause serious illness or death.

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