Hi Veronica,
The only tip I would give you is... cover your piles when you are encountering massive doses of rain,,,,, but ,things happen ;-)
So... when they do,what you did was great,to alleviate the problem.... let it dry out a little and keep feeding the beasts...

I took this pic this afternoon for you... keep thinking "smoking hot babyyyyy" ;-)

{{gwi:291019}}

{{gwi:90902}}

Thanks, Jon. (I have compost envy.) Smokin' system you have there :D (sorry :P )

Checked temps today and Bin 1 (rawest) is at 95, 2 is at 90, and 3 is at 75, a day after adding greens. I might add more to Bin 3.

The nesting red tail hawk tried to decapitate me as I walked to the bins today. I live in suburbia, mind you.

-v

(It's at 130 degrees now :) I'm so very pleased!)

-v

Alright showoff! lol We've seen your pics of your steamin' hot piles! :)
Mine don't get THAT steamin'! I had steam, but wow!
You'll set the place on fire! lol

Ok, now I'm frustrated :(

I let it dry out (a lot, not completely), I layered new greens in to get it cooking again, and it sustained about 130 degrees for about 3 days. Then it dropped to 110. So, I thought, "time to flip it"

I flipped it into another bin, layering that which was on the outside toward the middle, and that which was in the middle toward the outside. When it was full (4 foot diameter circle in chicken wire, about 3 feet tall after shrinkage and flipping) I poked holes in it with rebar and poured a gallon of urine on it (yes I've been saving this for a few days.)

Result: NOTHING. It's about 70 degrees. That's actually lower than ambient temperature.

Please help and offer suggestions. It's not done composting yet. There are still some greenish grasses in it and I can still differentiate many of the components. Yes, they are cut into small pieces. I can't think of what I'm doing wrong :( It's not too dry.

Thanks for your time and your brain for picking.

-v

Hi veronica

What did you use for browns?

Lloyd

Hi Lloyd. I've read a lot of your posts. You make me laugh :)

I have varied browns in it ... every paper towel we use in the house (which is a lot), some cardboard including insides of TP and paper towel rolls, lil bit of sawdust, a bunch of small sticks, kleenex, small boxes from foodstuffs torn up, some paper plates. There are probably some dry leaves in there, but not a ton.

Whatcha thinkin? Not enough browns? Too many browns?

I probably have 2/3 greens and 1/3 browns. It was more half and half before it petered out the first time and I relayered it with fresh grass clippings to get it cooking again. It's just so short lived each time I've tried to get it going :(

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

(isn't the urine supposed to help get it cooking again?)

-v

'Mornin v

I make me laugh sometimes too! ;-)

I'm thinkin the browns may have been too 'tough' for easy and fast digestion by the microbes. I have had difficulties with using wheat straw as an exclusive brown and somebody posted a link that mentioned straw has a very high lignin content. I'd get an initial high temperature but I couldn't keep it up (wink wink) after a couple of days.

This lignin stuff is apparently tough to digest, so when used in a pile, the microbes go to town on the easy stuff, generate some heat and then hit the proverbial brick wall when they are left with the lignin. Is paper/cardboard similar to straw? I don't know and I've never been a fan of using a lot of paper in the 'post due to low nutrients so I don't use a lot of paper.

Anyways, just a thought.

Lloyd

I may be wrong, but I think paper is high lignin since it's made mostly from sawdust. But maybe the processing from sawdust to paper breaks the lignin down some.

Veronica, remember, compost will only reheat for so long. After it goes through that hot phase it needs to go through a cold phase to finish. I wouldn't add anything to bin #3. You have to let it sit and finish at some point or it will never be "finished". A final cold composting period is normal and good.

Karen

Here is a link that might be useful: Cornell composting

Thanks for the lignin thought, Lloyd. What browns do you tend to use now and how long are your piles hot these days? (I love inuendo. It keeps us young :P ) ... My question wasn't inuendo, though ... lol. I meant yours from before. I seriously want to know :)

Karen, I used compost I'd been creating for a few years from mostly yard waste, and it was this beautiful, soft, fluffy, earthy stuff that I used in my beds with some mushroom manure that a friend gave me because he ordered too much on top of my rich, but very clay-ie soil. Everything is growing great (now that i've found BT to kill the cabbage lopers ... grrrr) but this compost pile I've been working on for the last couple of months doesn't look ANYTHING like the pretty compost my garden is growing in, and this one actually DID have two hot cycles.

It's still lumps of ... stuff.

Does this stuff break down during the cold finishing phase?

(You wouldn't even add high nitrogen "natural" fertilizer?)

It really looks like it has more cooking to do :(

-v

My favourite brown is leaves. I normally only build the windrows in the fall when I can get the most varied plant materials coming out and there are usually a lot of leaves as well. For composting during the spring/summer using the tumblers, I stockpile some leaves and use them.

With the non-stop rain this year I've had to fall back on building windrows using last years wheat straw with the grass clippings. On any given week I get over 20 tons of clippings that are supposed to go directly onto a field and worked in. For now, I am windrowing with the intention of using the manure spreader to take them out to the field later if it stops raining.

The fall windrows can stay hot (120+) for all of Oct, Nov and into Dec before they start to cool off due to extreme cold up here (-30C). They will re-heat in the spring and with turning they can stay 120ish well into July. Yesterday they were at 125 on average and need another turning. These windrows won't be used until next spring.

Lloyd

I want to visit :P The whole process sounds fascinating to me. I'm going to go stalk your profile now to see if you have photos of the whole operation. I saw pics of your shed with the recycled washing machine etc. the other day and thought it was VERY cool.

I'll tell you how successful my stalking is. lol.

-v

(and then she glances back to the -30C comment and asks her partner Chris "where the hell is Manitoba?" :P )

Actually Manitoba is just up the road from hell! ;-)

First find Canada, you know, that tundra area up above y'all. In the centre of Canada is the province of Manitoba. In the south central area of Manitoba is our capital city called Winnipeg (some call it Winterpeg for good reason), 'bout 20 miles north of Winnipeg is a small community called Stonewall and 1 mile (us Canucks usually use kilometres but I'll convert for ya) east of Stonewall is the hacienda. Just north of the hacienda in the field, are piles of leaves/yard trimmings dumped by garbage trucks. The town of Stonewall pays me to take 'em.

I have lots of pics of compost stuff, us whackos take lots of pics of our compost, right Jon?

Lloyd

The nesting red tail hawk tried to decapitate me as I walked to the bins today.

That's why Davey Crockett work a coonskin cap - to give the hawk something to snatch off.

Veronica, when my compost reaches that stage that you describe with lumps of stuff I generally set it aside in it's own pile or bin. As other composting material reaches that stage, after 2 or 3 hot cycles, I add it to the other lumpy stuff that finishing. I continue to stir or flip and aerate and it finishes in a few months. Then I use it. If a few big sticks or lumps remain I might throw them into the cooking pile. If it's still a little lumpy when I topdress with it, that's OK, it will eventually finish in the bed.

I used to screen it to remove the lumps but don't bother any more. Too much work for no advantage.

Karen

Lloyd, I'm smitten... in a platonic composty swoonie sorta way. Cool pics, and cool idea. Howsoever did you get into this sort of "town pays me to take leaves" kinda gig?

Idaho, cute :) They are quite brave, and we have 4 swooping about our house daily in suburban Pittsburgh ... sux to be a squirrel in our neighborhood.

Karen, thank you for giving me permission to not screen it! :P I've been reading about screening, and looking at how beautiful and fluffy the screened compost looks in wheelbarrows, etc., and all I could think was, "really? I SO don't want to do that by hand!"

So here's where I'm at... I tried one more time to get Bin 3 to cook something ... it just doesn't resemble compost and it makes me sad. Maybe it's an exercise in patience.

I actually bought some urea (thinking maybe we weren't producing enough "the natural way"), mixed a couple cups into 5 gal of water (a measurement I read somewhere on here that someone posted he does to his pile ... thank you whoever you are who posted that and I can't find) ... Nothing. Temp is still 70ish after a couple of days? which is cooler than ambient. *sigh* There are still enough tiny sticks and stuff in there that I thought it would jumpstart the carbon munching again with the nitrogen boost. No such luck. I'm just gonna sit on it and occasionally water it so it doesn't dry out for the next couple of months and see what happens.

On the brighter side, I've layered a new pile in Bin 2 with browns and some decaying greens from Bin 1 + ours and our neighbor's grass clippings. 130 degrees, baby :D

It's the little things that keep us going.

Thanks you all for your suggestions and your help. I'm off to figure out how to kill cucumber bugs.

-Veronica

"Howsoever did you get into this sort of "town pays me to take leaves" kinda gig? "

Long story, but here is DW's version (much shorter than my story and leaves out a few details), scroll down to "Field Compost".

Here is the local newspaper story on my fund-raiser experiment.

I've made a few changes and refinements over the years but the basic premise is still the same.

Lloyd

Lloyd,

I like her! She had me cracking up all the way through the story :P "there are no photos of that pile." ;)

It's awesome that you guys helped (help?) band students. I was one, and we got no respect :D Now I understand the "look at all this crap that people shoved in the bag with their lawn clippings" photos I saw while stalking your photos. It's a head shaker. Like you're not gonna notice :P

I wish Chris (not a DH, but a Dear Partner of 18+ years) would get all excited about helping me do gardening tasks ... but then again, I'm the one into it ... All I've been hearing is, "Didn't I say I wasn't going to help you turn this when we started this whole thing?" ... I do get him to water, though, so I shouldn't complain.

-v

Sometimes DW can be a tad sarcastic. ;-)

I enjoyed working with the Boosters for eight years but DD suggested I "move on", something about a 49 y/o hanging around a high school seemed "creepy" to her since she had been out of the high school for a couple of years.

So now I volunteer at the Legion, I'm one of the youngest ones there! But I have to admit these elderly (70-80+) ladies can out work me in the kitchen. How sad is that?! Most of them also knew me when I was a little tyke so I never hear the end of "I remember when you were just a little thing" stories.

As far as gardening, I keep telling myself I will get into it more when I retire, for now, giving compost to serious gardeners is satisfaction enough. I am constantly amazed at what some people can do with seeds and good soil, it's like magic! And now that I think of it, most of the garden whackos enthusiasts are women, why is that?

Lloyd

Lloyd,

I thought about posting the Sarah Conner quote from Terminator 2 where she talks about women create life and men create death, but when I found it, it was a little too intense for GardenWeb ;)

... Just sayin' :P

Chris and I both laughed at the "49 yr old hangin around a high school ... creepy" thing... But then he was shocked that you create compost, but don't "garden" (which has me confused .... what do you put in the fields where you put your compost? ... do you rent them out to growers?)

Sorry if it's too personal a question.

But as far as composting without growing, I can totally see the attraction. It's nature and science.

-v

I grow wheat in the fields.

I have to say, I've thoroughly enjoyed this post! This answered some of my newbie questions.

Idaho Gardener: Can I borrow the red tails for my squirrels?! ;)

They're MINEEEE!!!! :P (I'll rent them out for cheap ;) )

-v