Pathfinder
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heating up compost without manure, possible ?!?!?

Hello Gardner, Experts

I just started composting 3 weeks ago because I noticed poor plant growth in my big pots due to clay soil !!

however, I do not have access to any kind of animal manure and I am doing green and browns only, some people told me that you won't be able to raise the temp of your pile without manure.

I have access to Grass, Nettles and Kitchen Scraps obviously, I also learned that cheese mallow leaves ( MALVA NEGLECTA ) are also high in " inorganic " form of nitrogen ( meaning nitrate and ammonium)

so getting a big amount of those leaves could it get my compost pile to heat up ?! because whenever I touch it, it feels cold even though I do cover it with a plastic insulator turn it quite often and it is in the shade under a tree.

I live in a Mediterranean country and the lowest temp I get is 11-10C (51 F) at night. My pile is not that big, since I am experimenting on a small scale before I try a big pile.

Another question would be, can I mix the finished compost into clay soil in my pots to make it loamy / loose ?!

Thank you

tomc
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You are starting composting just after the solstice. So even with manure additions your new pile will be slow to heat up.

Yard & kitchen waste can be enough to heat up and get going as compost. Manure is a resource not an end point of compost.

I don't think turning a compost will get it to spontaneously heat up till sun on your pile acts as the starter your hoping for. Keep piling waste on, in March or April its volume and warming in general will become the tipping point.

Pathfinder
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Thank you very much for your contribution, do you suggest that it is necessary to move the pile into direct sun ?!

Thanks.

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rainbowgardener
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I am in a similar situation. I compost just materials from my (urban) property. That includes kitchen scraps, yard wastes of various kinds, fall leaves etc. And my compost pile is in the shade. It does not heat up very much most of the time. If I really want it to heat up, when things are not frozen, I skim duckweed off of our pond. The duckweed is also quite high in Nitrogen and heats the pile up while decomposing. If you have access to grass clippings, that might also act the same, although too much grass clippings can mat up and get slimy from lack of oxygen.

But it doesn't really matter, all the materials get broken down into finished compost, whether it heats up or not. In my cold composting more of the work is done by earthworms and other macro-creatures. In fact there is a bit of a paradox - the people who are putting manure in their piles have to really work to be sure they heat up, because there could be pathogens in the manure. Nothing I am putting in my pile would contain pathogens like that, so there's less reason for me to care whether it ever heats up.

You said your pile is "not very big." Give us a little better idea of what that means. The smaller the pile, the harder it is to get it to heat up.

But if what you are looking for is soil for your containers, compost by itself is not going to be your answer. Better than clay based garden dirt, but compost is still pretty heavy and dense and tends to compact down while sitting in pots. To get good results, you will need some (probably purchased) amendments to it, to help loosen it it, keep it fluffy with channels for air circulation and water drainage. The traditional ones would be peat moss or coconut coir and perlite or vermiculite, like 1/3 compost, 1/3 coir, 1/3 perlite. If you want to avoid purchasing exotic ingredients, leaf mould (the dark crumbly stuff at the bottom of a pile of leaves that have been sitting around, I.e. leaves that were composted by themselves, without other ingredients) can be substituted for the peat/coir as an organic ingredient with a very crumbly/fluffy/light texture that allows air circulation. Coarse sand, rice hulls, pine bark, crushed pumice, crushed LECA (the clay balls they use for hydroponic media), etc can be substituted for the perlite as an inert ingredient to lighten the mix and provide lots of drainage channels. But somehow you are going to have to loosen your compost up to use it in containers.

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I wood add some blood meal. Just sprinkle it on the pile as you add other things! They also make a compost starter.!

tomc
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The new composter makes themselves worry too much. Your yard and kitchen waste is going to rot. I expect due to impatience you will probably not give a first year pile the extra year it takes to fully decompose compost into unrecognisable humus. Use it anyway. A leaf stem or eleven isn't going to hurt anything.

Heat in compost is caused by presence of nitrogen in ingredients. Manure is not mandatory. Oils will slow compost action. So moderation (and variety) in all things is a good idea. A handful of tangerine and lemon peels won't choke off your compost, but a fryalator full of tallow might...

Collect all you can. Trash day leaf bags are a good thing. Ask first if it makes you feel better.

I expect peace between thee and your neighbors is a bigger deal than sunlight on your compost. Hide the bin and keep happy neighbors.
Last edited by tomc on Wed Feb 12, 2014 1:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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In order to build a hot compost pile, you have to balance the browns and greens and the pile needs to be at least 3ft tall and wide. It also helps to cover the pile with cardboard or burlap to keep the heat in and it would help if the outside temperature was higher or have the pile in the sun.

https://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/compostingathome.pdf

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Manures are not essential for hot composting. As imafan states, a balance of nitrogen and carbon is the key, and a large enough volume to retain the heat is another key.

I got my information from https://sarasota.ifas.ufl.edu/compost-info/about.shtml

I have been seeing my compost pile reach 150 degree F and stay there for the third week now. There is no manure of any kind in the compost.

I'm in the second month of a first time compost pile. It started as leaves (carbon) and coffee grounds (nitrogen), and I have added vegetable scraps after it heated up. The pile is contained by plastic garden fence into a circle about 5 feet in diameter and is about 3 1/2 feet tall. I estimate I have 6-10 big bags of leaves and something like 300 pounds of coffee grounds collected from Starbucks coffee shops. The vegetable scraps are maybe 10 lbs., so they are not the reason for the heat. I'm in Northwest Florida, so temperature are supposed to be about 55F daytime and 40-45 nighttime. There's been days with temperatures in the 20F (lowest this winter was 18F) at night and 35-38F that day. Pile core stay at 140F to 150F the entire time.

So I have first hand proof that manures are an not essential for hot composting, just a big source of nitrogen, and a good size pile.

Pathfinder
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Thank you all for your input, glad to hear that manure is not that essential. Actually I was inspired by Mike McGrath, saw his video on YouTube



I started composting the next day but on a small scale just to test. My pile is 60 cm (2 ft) wide and 20 cm (0.6 ft) high but as I read your replies, I should make it bigger for it to heat up. Well yeah maybe I am impatient as a beginner and was worried I am wasting my time cause my relatives are telling me so but what the heck I have nothing to lose, I'll see where things will go.

Mind you I remember Mike words so much that, I collect fall leaves, grass clippings, kitchen waste and I cut them on my cutting board before adding them to the compost and I turn my pile every 2 days.

There was a fence between me and my neighbors, long before I even knew about composting, so they removed the fence and started to build a wall, I told them you'll block 2 hours of sun to my garden, it's not like I will reach my hand over the high fence and steal your land !! but no answer !! maybe they thought I was one of them white walkers and winter is coming :()
So I wouldn't worry that much if they smelled some of my compost perfume !! :mrgreen:

Just so I can calibrate my browns and greens need help identifying what I have for now (Green or Brown):

- onion bulb peel ?
- potato peel ?
- citrus / orange peel ?
- top of tomato ?
- Eggplant skin ?
- top of chilli ?
- mango peel ?
- carrot peel ?
- egg carton ?
- egg shell ?
- fallen citrus leaves?
- dead vine leaves ?
- fallen fig tree leaves?
- un-cooked noodles scraps ( those scraps that get thrown away along with the plastic bag)
Again, thanks for your contribution, I will start looking for materials you've suggested.

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rainbowgardener
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Wow... you are working really hard at this composting thing. I just throw stuff in there and let it happen.

At the top of this Composting section is a big thread about greens and browns and which is what, ideas for more browns.

Pretty much everything on your list is green. The cardboard egg cartons would be a brown. Egg shells aren't really green (nitrogen) or brown (carbon). They are just a slow release calcium source.

Not sure about these:

fallen citrus leaves?
- dead vine leaves ?
- fallen fig tree leaves

autumn [tree] leaves are browns because the tree, being thrifty, takes back the green parts before it lets go of the leaves, leaving mainly the more carbon rich leaf structure. Citrus is evergreen and therefore the leaves haven't been through that process, so probably still count as a green, as (probably) are the other leaves you mention.

Browns include besides the autumn leaves, shredded paper, straw, woody plant stems, corn cobs, corn stalks, sawdust, peanut shells, twigs and hedge trimmings. Many of the hard browns like the corn cobs and corn stalks break down a lot faster if run through a chipper. I often throw whole corn cobs in my pile. What I find is that a few months later when I am turning the pile, they are still whole, but softened up and frequently with earthworms in side them. At that point they are easy to break up by hand. By the next time I turn the pile, the broken up pieces have disappeared.

You are in a warm climate, so probably don't have much of the autumn leaves which are my mainstay brown. I stock pile them for use later. But in the summer when I have run out of fall leaves, I buy a bale of straw and just feed it gradually into the compost pile as the main brown. A bale of straw is handy to have around the place as it is also good mulch. But you can also use any paper/ cardboard products, including paper towels, shredded junk mail. My office shreds a ton of paper, since we deal with confidential info, so I can bring home all the paper shreds I want. You might look around for similar situations where you are.

tomc
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Pathfinder your going to drown in trivia.

"If it was alive, it will rot" is all the details you really need to know about the ratio between nitrogen and carbon in things that were alive.

It is probably going to be year three or four before you totally catch up to your need for compost. No matter how much you collect, layer, or turn it.

Sift or demand perfectly homogenous compost only for those things that need that degree of esthetic. And that is mostly to sooth your visual harmony. A little bit of lignin or brush is actually good for airation...

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rainbowgardener
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It may help you with the green/brown issue if you don't think of it that way. I always thought it was unfortunate choice of labels, since in this system, manure is very "green," not "brown." :?

Think of it as soft/wet vs. hard/dry. So all your stuff like potato peels and even the evergreen leaves is soft and has moisture, so "green."

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I read a book about composting once and found the most valuable information was in the first chapter. It said something like "Instead of hot composting, you can cold compost; just pile everything up, wait a couple of years, and you will have compost." The rest of the book sounded like a lot of hassle.

I guess if I had really limited space, I might work hard at getting a hot pile, but I have lots of room, so I just keep making new piles and using the old ones when they start looking like soil.

Pathfinder
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billw, exactly I am looking for a hot compost, I wanted to know info about my available material being green/brown so I could get hot composting going.

Well the reason, I have to show my relatives the magic because they think I am collecting trash and nothing will happen, my mom is getting furious to see a " pile of trash " near her house. :D

So yeah hot composting !! show them nature's magic and show them the difference between compost amended clay soil in pots and pure clay soil growth in pots ... because I see those videos on you tube, with healthy big foliage of green leaves and big fruits using made organic compost

RainbowGardener, are you saying that leaves that the citrus tree drops are still considered as greens ?!
Sorry I meant Loquat tree fallen leaves that have brownish color not Fig tree
Image

The paradox in my mind, is that how come a green material like grass clippings or stinging nettle that are generally wet can heat up a pile ?!! I thought browns what makes a pile heat, aren't greens juicy ?!

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grass clippings heat up a lot. I can't score them often, but occasionally I get to find some. be careful of the methane they release though. when the weather is really hot they will decompose so fast and hot they release gas.

that said, I personally need more sources for browns, and perhaps you do too. I can't offer any good tips not mentioned, as I am usually on the mostly green side of compost -- kitchen scraps. I don't really have access to much else, though I did score leaves late last year between some frost and snow when it warmed slightly. My parents needed their leaves raked, so I did this and had the bags hauled to my place, which saved them having to pay for the pickup, and they can reuse their yard waste bags that also cost money.
usually I just mix my green stewed stuff in with soil to keep stink down, and lay off much water if I can. it is slow going, and not perfect, but do what you can with what you have available. my compost is a basically part of my small garden, as I really don't have any other option. I have a tiny yard here and can't build some 3 cubic foot compost bin (sourcing the untreated wood frame issues not withstanding). I have always had the same when I can even have a garden. I just designate one end or 1/4 to a compost that gets turned in on itself, and usually is just greens. slow, and needs little watering, but eventually works.
I also acquired a smallish tote worming bin late last year to help make worm castings. I am still getting the hang of it. It is doing okay in the basement, but has acquired tiny spider mites. If you can get some sort of cheap opaque tote, you can drill holes in it and make a worming bin. I was given the tote with red wrigglers in it, too, which was nice, but people often use native worms from outside their own area, regardless of how much better some types may work.

a source of browns that is cheap is straw, but a pain to get w/o a car. last time I got some on the bus line, at the transfer in downtown, one bus driver wouldn't let me on a bus with a bale. it was late, near end of service, it started raining and was cold. after spending 5 hours on buses and transfers, using the last money I had on the bus and bale, I thought I would have to leave it downtown and walk home in the rain. fortunately a close-ish bus line was still running, and that driver was not nearly so intolerant.

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RE : "that how come a green material like grass clippings or stinging nettle that are generally wet can heat up a pile ?!! I thought browns what makes a pile heat, aren't greens juicy ?!

Sorry, you have it all backwards. Yes greens are juicy (as I said soft/wet). But GREENS are what heat up your pile through the nitrogen decomposition. Browns slow it down.

Here's a nice article about home composting https://urbanext.illinois.edu/compost/process.cfm It notes:

If the pile has more brown organic materials, it may take longer to compost. You can speed up the process by adding more green materials or a fertilizer with nitrogen (use one cup per 25 square feet).

When they say speed up as in finish faster, it also means heat up. But if you have plenty of GREENS, you shouldn't need to add fertilizer.

And re: "RainbowGardener, are you saying that leaves that the citrus tree drops are still considered as greens ?! Sorry I meant Loquat tree fallen leaves that have brownish color "

COLOR has nothing to do with whether something is a "brown" or a "green." Like I said before manure is a green. Whether your loquat leaves are brown or green depends partly on the process. Like I said, deciduous trees that drop their leaves in fall, reclaim the nitrogen and other nutrients before they let go of them, so what is left is mostly the carbon structure of the leaves. It is the same difference between hay (a "green") and straw (a "brown"). Both of them are stems of grain plants, it could be the same kind of plants. But hay is cut while the plant is still green and growing. Straw is cut after the plant is finished, when it has reclaimed the nutrients and dried out.

So what makes compost piles hotter is: oxygen (which is why we turn it, sounds like you are doing plenty of that), smaller particle size (which lets more surface be exposed to the oxygen, it's why you are chopping things, sounds like you are doing plenty of that), more "greens," and moisture.

We haven't talked about that. If you are in a warm dry climate, you may need to water your compost pile. I water mine, any time it is dry enough that I need to water the plants. The compost pile shouldn't be wet or soggy, but it should stay just damp, all the way through. If it completely dries out, it stops composting and just sits there. Not a disaster, as soon as the rain comes back it starts working again.

The other thing a compost pile needs are the micro-organisms that do the composting work. Someone mentioned compost starter earlier. That's what compost starter is. But the micro-organisms are present in any healthy soil that hasn't been treated with chemicals. So if you just scatter a handful of soil over the pile now and then when you are adding things, it may help. It doesn't take much, I really mean handfuls, not bucket fulls.

Re your parents: It is NOT a trash pile! Trash is what goes to landfill, mainly plastic. It is a compost pile, full of wonderful rich organic materials, that are going to turn in to a beautiful soil amendment. In my mind, that is the "magic" of compost -- all those kitchen scraps that might have gone down the garbage disposal turning themselves into rich black crumbly sweet smelling earth. Doesn't matter how fast or hot it works, it is still garden magic!

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One of the cheapest things you can add to a compost to add nitrogen is Urea. Agway sells it by the pound really cheap like a $1 a pound. Just a hand full is plenty for a compost> Its just like throwing salt on ice. That is all osmacote is made up of and marked way up in price just for the coating over the urea. Urea is pure white and heats up a compost fast. Too much will kill the bacteria so use it in small amounts!

Ammonia is a by product of a urine type additive. Cow and horse manure in a barn has a ammonia smell and can cause fires if heaped up with a pile of straw. That is a very hot compost! They inject ammonia into the ground in areas where tomatoes is a main product.! A large pile of mushroom manure when first mixed with manure will give of a lot of steam for a week or more till it cools and them is used to grow mushrooms! The brown in mushroom manure is usually peat or ground up corn stocks or cobs and straw..

Pathfinder
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when grass clippings turn from green to yellow in the compost pile do they become browns or still greens heating the pile ?!

here's a few pics of my compost pile (click to zoom), sorry if they offend you, tell me what you think/suggest:

Image
Image
Image
Image

Pathfinder
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@rainbowgardner, thanks for your last input, plenty of info in your post indeed, helped me visualize things now.
yeah I can smell little ammonia odor from the pile, earth like smell nothing irritating.

Finally my mom gave up, every time she prepares food to eat, she puts the scraps in a bag and throw it in my face and I thank her for it .. lol, I even noticed there's no foul odor coming from the kitchen anymore ^___^ that's how I convinced her.

@Bobberman, I don't want to use manure whatsoever, don't want to raise suspicion and I have plenty of access to grass.

is it better to put the greens in the center of the pile or on top of the pile to make em heat quicker ?! right now I just mix them

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rainbowgardener
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It is a very small pile and hard to get a pile that small to heat up. Look around for more materials. Often Starbucks or other places that serve coffee will give away their used coffee grounds for free. Since "green" and "brown" in composting have nothing to do with color, coffee grounds are a green and high in nitrogen. And whatever color your grass is, it is still "green."

It helps to have some kind of containment to keep your pile piled. This can be a simple wire circle like this:

Image
https://cultivatorscorner.com/wp-content ... st-bin.jpg

or any kind of a frame:

Image
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lOGenyhzMwE/T ... Closed.JPG

But having it contained, allows it to be piled up more, which allows it to heat up in the center more.

I would take the tarp off, since what heats it up is contact with air/oxygen.

Mixing is good.

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4 - 4 foot pellets make a nice compost. They throw them away behind lots of stores like Big Lots.

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rainbowgardener
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pallets

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Ya Pallets. You can put chicken wire around the pellets and you will be surprised how nice peas or climbing beans grow around your compost! If you take 6 pallets you can make a hexagon of pretty nice size that looks good also!

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Yeah, but if you look at pathfinder's pics, he (?) does not want "nice size;" he wants small. Pathfinder needs a compost bin that can be made small enough to contain his little bit of compostables and keep them piled up. Wire is more flexible for that than pallets, which are the size they are, period.

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Wire is fine and it does work great. Actually the pallets can be cut in half and make a smaller compost or one not as high! The problem with pallets as with all wood it will rot in 4 or 5 years then you can burn them and get some wood ash compost! Even a 50 gallon drum plastic or metal will also work and that also can be cut in half to make one 2 feet high! The drum can be set up on a few bricks so you can shovel the composted finished mix out from the bottom! Some people like to use a 50 gallon drum sealed with lid and turn it over every other week! Adding a small amount of garden soil will make it work faster and give a better working mix! Pine needles are also good for aeration!

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thanks for the input, I'm a he by the way, and thanks for bringing up the aeration issue, which is what I have been thinking about those couple of days, I think this will be the last bogus issue for me.

If oxygen contact what makes the pile heat up and compost work faster then it is better to keep it uncovered.
The cover, I think is only for worms right ?! even though each time, I bump into one, I bring it and put it on my compost pile then put the cover because worms need darkness.

Bu then again, worms do not break the compost, they eat the scraps and throw castings right ?

I was thinking about the method, raibowgardener posted in the first pic, though I bump into pallets a lot whenever I go.

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rainbowgardener
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I don't know what the cover is for, since I don't use one. Some people might cover their pile, if it is open to the rain and they are getting lots and lots of rain, keep it from getting waterlogged or washed out.

But the worms don't need it. They like darkness, but they just burrow in to the middle of the pile and are fine.

Re: " worms do not break the compost, they eat the scraps and throw castings right " I don't know what break the compost means, but yes they are part of the composting process, they eat the organic stuff, not only kitchen scraps, but anything else soft (green leaves) in there, they aerate the pile by moving around in it making tunnels, they mix stuff together and they throw castings.

But they are opposite goals. If you really get your compost cooking, it will be too hot for the worms. It's ok, as long as your pile is sitting on the ground, the worms will just go down in to the cool ground and come back when the pile cools down.

Pathfinder
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I went to add some egg cartons today to my pile for browns and I found out a lot of ants in my compost pile.
I think my pile isn't hot enough and the ants are stealing the scraps instead of being composted. :evil:
I also found a snail moving to hide inside the pile and something tiny and green I thought it was a snake cause it moves in an unusual way (vertical loop arc shape) as if it was taking steps maybe it is a different type of worm ?! very tiny and thin, I got worried so I dropped it from my finger

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The ants probably can't steal enough of the scraps to make a difference. But their presence their suggests the pile is not hot and is staying pretty moist. If you just turn/mix the pile, they will probably go away.

Your worm is one of these little guys?

Image
https://humanitreeservice.com/wp-content ... b]inchworm[/b].jpg

they are the caterpillar of a moth in the Geometer family.

Just another little worm in your compost pile. They eat leaves and grasses and veggies. With all this life in your pile, things will get composted, whether or not the pile ever heats up.

I think the biggest single factor for getting it to heat up is that you would just need a lot more volume of materials. Sometimes that is easier in the spring. Do you have a garden? Will you have pulled weeds, grass clippings, yard trimmings etc? If you have a bunch of that kind of stuff, and you find a good source of browns to go with them, presto! large compost pile. I collect bags of fall leaves to last through the winter and spring. When that runs out, I buy one bale of straw. So if you don't have the leaves, you could just get a bale of straw.

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I couldn't agree more on the volume because I think the C:N ratio I already put into that small pile of mine is near 30:1 but still there's no heat, I put my finger and I can feel no heat, yet the volume shrinks but really slowly, I even didn't water it but a few drops.

So I decided, to build a bin around my small pile that looks like yours using "canes" in order to get the hot composting going on, I never though 4x4x4 would be that big of a space, haven't filled it yet but I am thinking if I am going to fill it, how will I be able to turn such a huge heap without scattering the materials around.

If you notice in my previous pics there's a tree and this is the only possible location I can build a 4x4x4 however the direct sun doesn't get there because of the tree and the building behind it, the location is bright during the day but no direct sun light. will that be an issue related to heating even when having 4x4x4 ?!

thanks

yes a worm like this one, I thought it was a snake lol ... but it was more tiny than the one in the pic

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It's a close up of the inch worm, a little bigger than life size.

30:1 C:N is a bit high if what you want is to heat it up, remembering that being high on the C end slows it down. Here's some good info about that kind of thing, with C:N ratios of different compostables: https://www.planetnatural.com/composting-101/c-n-ratio/

30:1 is at the top end of the recommended range. For heating it up, you could add greens until it is 20 or 25:1.

Shade is OK, the heat doesn't come from the sun, it comes from internal decomposition processes.

But as we have been saying the size of the pile is really critical, needs to be about a cubic yard.

I'm sure everyone has their own methods, but for me easiest way to manage turning is to have two compost spots. So I don't so much turn it as turn it over. Move the whole pile from one spot to the other (next to it), starting at the top, so the top of the old pile becomes the bottom of the new. For working on heating it up, best would be to take everything from the old pile, throw it in a wheelbarrow or something and mix it all up, then dump it in the new spot. At the bottom of the old spot will be your finished compost.

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thank you for the turning/aeration tips, I will start filling it tomorrow 4x4x4 that's going to need a lot of materials :eek: I am glad that direct sun light is not necessary. I added some water to the small pile an hour ago and checked on it just now, it felt cold so I guess volume is the key ... but could you remind me what is the purpose of watering a pile if it is already in the shade ?

Pathfinder
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I went to the sea today and collected a small bag of these, I will add them to my pile tomorrow to see if they make a difference, does anyone know their C:N ratio ?!

Image

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rainbowgardener
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Just be sure you rinse the salt water off first. Salt is not good for the compost pile.

The point of watering a pile is that all the little micro and macro organisms in the pile need water to live and do their work, just as you and I do. :) It doesn't need to be wet. They always say as damp as a wrung out sponge. But if your pile gets bigger, it does take more water to be sure the inside of the pile is damp. If it dries out, it stops working. You can think of your pile as a living thing. To keep living/ working, it needs food, air and water.

Pathfinder
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Thank you very much for bearing with me. One last thing I need to know, are potato peels more green or more brown ?! I am aware of the sprouting eyes/blight but I cut them before throwing them however, they don't seem to get composted quickly compared to other scraps .. do you have an idea about their C:N ?!

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rainbowgardener
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They are green. Remember soft/moist and nothing to do with color? The only things that really count as browns are tree products (autumn leaves, shredded paper, sawdust) and hard dry stems (like straw, corn stalks, and stems of perennials that get woody).


You can over think this stuff though. If your pile is getting slimy or stinky, it is too green. Add some browns and mix everything. If your pile is sitting there and not doing anything, it is too brown. Add some greens and water and mix everything. I really don't pay any attention to C:N ratios, just make a visual balance of soft/moist stuff and dry/hard stuff. Since I mostly have a lot more greens, I keep a stash of browns and just make sure I add a bunch of brown on top of every time I add green.

But my pile doesn't heat up much. Since it composts anyway, I don't really care, but if you do care, then maybe you have to pay more attention.

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Gary350
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Here is a trick I learned in Tennessee 30 years ago for making fast compost.

Cut both ends out of a metal 55 gallon drum. Paint it flat black and set it in full sun. You don't want a tight lid or the barrel to seal air tight to the soil so wiggle it a little every few days. Fill it up with compost material then lay a flat black piece of metal or plywood on top. Summer days are in the 100 degree range, late June, July and August the sun heats it up and you have compost in 30 days.

This only works fast in hot weather.

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rainbowgardener
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I just recently turned my no-manure compost pile over. It sits in the shade and we have only had a few really spring like days as of when I was doing it. The outer part of it was cold, but when I got to the center it was warm and steamy. It wasn't hot-hot like burn your hand and I don't have a compost thermometer, but it was definitely warm and cooking.

So that was with no manure and the pile hadn't been turned since last fall.

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ElizabethB
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Pathfinder - you are really over thinking this composting business. Make a couple of bins from scrap lumber and chicken wire - 4'x4'x4' adjacent to each other. Start tossing stuff in. Mulched leaves. The only tree I have is a live oak which sheds in March. G puts the 3 bin bagger attachment on his mower and mulches the leaves. Most are bagged and stored in back of his shop for year round additives to the compost bins. I do add raw, unseasoned vegetable kitchen scraps, coffee grounds and filters, tea bags, rinsed, crushed egg shells and thin layers of shredded newspaper and shredded cardboard paper rolls. We periodically add grass clippings. I have access to cured horse manure. If you do not have access to cured horse or cow manure query rabbit breeders in your city. You will find breeders who will be happy to have you show up with a shovel and 5 gallon buckets to scoop the poop. The beauty of rabbit manure is that it is a cool manure and does not have to cure before adding to your compost or garden.

The video made the point that even if you only have shredded leaves you will have a successful compost pile.

Composting like all aspects of gardening, landscaping, lawn care and horticulture is an on going learning process.

My one comment is on size - 4' x 4' x 4' x 4' bins with air flow. Your pile will compost in the shade but it will get really hot and cook quicker in the sun. A well maintained compost pile does not stink. It smells like fresh earth. If your pile smells bad then something is wrong.

Chill - Don't worry - be happy.

Composting should be fun not a stress factor.

Good luck

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rainbowgardener
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Elizabeth, your compost bin is a tesseract? :)



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