Hi Everyone,
Perhaps some more experienced composters can advise me on this...
We pretty much gave up on the drum composter, and out of that frustration discovered that we did, in fact, have an out of the way spot on the side of the house that is exactly the right size for a real compost heap.
So far the results are encouraging but I'm a little worried about the temperature which as of today, hit 155F with the compost thermometer buried to the hilt. This reading repeats all over the pile, with it going as low as 152F about 4-6 inches down from the top.
We built it on Saturday last (4 days ago). It's 4'x4'x3' tall today. It was almost 4' tall when built. The location gets about 4 hours of morning sun then it is shaded the rest of the day. It's uncovered, but I am questioning the wisdom of that (flies).
We layered a repeating mix of ingredients and watered it along the way - lots of spoiled hay chopped up by the lawnmower (I don't know what kind), horse manure that's about 2-3 months from its departure from the horse, shredded cardboard and paper, straw, a lot of coffee grounds (I have discovered a local Starbuxx with virturally no limit on how many spent grounds I can acquire on a daily basis), kitchen scraps, lawnmower-chopped shrub trimmings, some dried maple leaves, not much grass since I saved that for mulch and I don't have much to begin with, some unfinishing compost same from the drum, and a sprinkling of local dirt.
For the airy layer on the bottom we used unchopped hay - just pulled apart the flakes - and some unchopped deaddried rosemary bramble, and some fresh bramble-style shrub trimmings. The top layer is a blanket of straw.
Moisture seems about that of the proverbial "wrung out sponge," but I didn't dig deep - just down about 4 inches or so.
If it gets to 160F I've read I should turn it to reduce the temperature - would you agree?
If it stays in the 140-159 band, should I turn it anyway - would that make things better/faster - or should I wait to turn it until the temp drops below "somenumber" ?
Did I do this right? Or did I put in too many greens?
All advice and admonitions welcome!