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Nitrogens get chewed up faster in the ol' compost bin. You're going to need nitrogens to keep things going. You can try adding manures or used coffee grounds. Both will need to be mixed well to get heat I think.

Plan B: don't keep things going. Just let it go the winter and when the thaw arrives, things will start up again although maybe not so hot.
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In addition to a significant supply of nitrogen and adequate moisture, you need a reasonably large pile (therefor a large volume to small surface area ratio) to sustain internal heat. My bins are 4 x 4 x 4. I combine horse manure and veggie scraps with shredded leaves. The internal temps are running about 150 degrees and have been for several weeks. At this point in the growning season, it's likely you don't generate enough grass clippings so sustain the large nitrogen demands of your pile.

Is this the same pile you added the bale of straw to?

Lloyd

If your mixture of greens and browns, or the Carbon to Nitrogen ratio, is close to optimal and the moisture level is close to just moist then the bacteria will get to work and generate the heat you are looking for, but if the balance is not there they will not. If the mix has too much water that will exclude air and those aerobic bacteria will not be able to work.

yes this is the same pile but I have seen the same thing with my other pile. I have 3x3x3 bins. So does manure realease nitrogen slower?? What if it was summer and i had all the grass I wanted? How can you ever stop adding it if lasts such a short time? How does you pile ever finish?

IMO it's the straw. Straw is high in lignin and it is not easily digested by bacteria so it doesn't provide the same oomph as other carbons do. I've used straw a couple of times, not at all similar to leaves. I did get a larger pile (10 feet tall) and much more grass than normal to heat up using straw but I couldn't get a good balance and there was an odour issue. Straw is not my favourite but I use it when I have to.

Lloyd

Lloyd, that was informative - straw composts slowly. I wonder if the right mix of straw, leaves and grass clippings would work well, 15%/40%/35% or similar.

BTW, I suspect that lignin, which is hard to break down, is probably a very good thing for fostering fungi and mycorrhizal relationships, so some straw is likely to be a valuable addition.

I can tell you from experience that chipped/shredded pine needles also compost slowly, but that might be obvious.

I really like the idea of a mix with straw in it, I just don't know a good formula (yet).

After reading more and more about the lignin/fungi, I've started to always add some old straw to the windrows by randomly adding a 'book/flake' or two every 10 bags or so. But because the feedstocks are so widely variable, it is difficult to know exactly the proportions I'm adding. I am going with my gut on this one.

I think the straw is a good thing during the heating phase by adding porosity as well as after the heating phase when the materials go into the curing phase for fungi development.

Always something new to try in composting. :-)

Lloyd

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The pile finishes after you stop feeding it. At some point you have to stop feeding it, but do continue watering, and let it do its thing. The short answer of when it's done is when you can no longer recognize whatever you put in it. Beyond that it's subjective. The damn sticks in my piles never seem to break down so my finished compost always has sticks in it

Eventually, your pile will cool down to ambient temperature even at the height of summer. Just because it has cooled down doesn't mean it's finished and isn't doing anything. It just means it is done with the hot phase. Things are still going on. Bacteria is still digesting and ingredients are still breaking down.

For the fastest compost people try to keep it hot as long as possible. After you've made up the optimal mix of ingredients for hot compost, the tricks to keeping the temperature up is to keep the moisture level optimal and to keep the oxygen level optimal. Keeping the moisture level optimal is basically monitoring and adding water as required. Keeping the oxygen level optimal means turning every so often. The typical strategy is to monitor the temperature and, after it starts dropping from the peak temperature, turn the pile and sprinkling water while doing so. When you're in the groove you can watch the temperature rise some again and then drift downwards and then repeat the turning and watering.

The other school of though is to just assemble and let it rot adding water as required. It takes longer but it also takes less energy.

If I want to produce as much compost as possible as soon as possible I go hot. If I just want to digest organics as a means of disposal, I go the cold, slow method.

I can't speak too much on cold winters where it snows but I do know that whether it freezes over or dries out in the desert, when the right conditions return, the process starts right up again.

For me, I'd just relax, let if freeze up and when spring returns, just start things up again.

two cents
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All good points. If all elements mentioned- C:N ratio, moisture, air, etc, are near optimal, the pile will heat up. After it cools if you add C and N and flip and correct moisture, your added ingredients will heat up. If the majority of the stuff in the pile has already gone through a hot cycle or two, the pile won't hold heat for long unless you've added a huge amount of new materials. The stuff that's already been through hot cycles is simply finished with it's hot composting. It just needs to sit cold for a while to let the fungi finish it off over time.
I'd stop adding to that pile, just let it finish at cold temps. I'd start a new batch with all new ingredients. If it's big enough, it should hold heat longer.

Straw takes forever to break down in my compost, too, as do paper products. I like to have mostly leaves as the C. But I add just a little straw too. It takes so long to break down but it also add a lot of air, making the pile much lighter and it compacts less. Those little air tunnels in straw hold up a long time. Keeps air in the pile longer and make it much lighter to flip.

I no longer wait for the straw to disappear completely to use the compost. Nor do I screen out all such stuff. After it sits cold for several months, I mulch with that compost.

Karen

THanks everyone. Maybe I am too paranoid and I should just let it finish. I will be very careful in the future about how much straw I add as well. I am gonna turn it again today and I will report back with what it looks like.

I think you are too paranoid and you should just let it finish. :-)

You can keep adding greens until it smells bad, then you know you've added too much N, so then you can add more browns until it stays cold, then you'll know you don't have enough greens, so you can add more; until it smells...

You learn the right proportions by watching it over time... if its slow - add more greens, if it stinks - add more browns, if its hot -let it rot, if its not hot - let it rot.

I second rott's suggestion to keep watering and accept the fact that temperature fluctuation is normal and not a bad thing.

I'm also in Wisconsin. In the fall I gather up the leaves as fast as I can, mixing in some green grass to help heat things up. Things heat up a bit but then quickly cool down. That's ok; it got a good start. Then I keep adding water and fluff occasionally to try to get it composting a little bit before winter sets in.

A really helpful thing too is to find ways to add bits of nitrogen when you can. I'm starting to store my used coffee grounds separate from the rest of my kitchen scraps and will add the grounds to my nitrogen-needy leaf pile. do this all winter long, and then when spring comes, it'll be ready to roll again.

Don't give up! When I started composting I sort of obsessed over the temperature and was always trying to make it hot, but that's not really the point. The cycle I follow is: Fill the bin up/water/mix - in a few days it'll heat up - let it sit for a week or two like that - water and mix again - it might heat up in a couple days again - let it sit for a week or two like that - water/mix again - it might heat up, but probably not - just keep repeating the water/mixing every couple weeks and you'll have some good compost in not too long.