Some simple questions on starting a compost pile

sjweld, congratulations on achieving heat! Now don't make the same mistake I made and turn it too soon! I made the mistake of being over eager and turned my hot steaming pile, it went cold and is still cold a week later :~(

I will hopefully get it hot again soon with new stuff being added but it sure takes the buzz off when you kill your heat like that!

Another newbie question: I keep seeing the term "curing" used. What is curing and when/why/how is it done?

Ozark, happy hunting!

Zany, I thought of you and learned from your experience. I remember reading above where you turned it too fast. I did not turn!! Thanks for making the mistake for me and not being to embarassed to let us know so I could learn! :)

;~} you are welcome!

at first i turned my tumbler every time I added stuff, waaaay to often. It is amazing, I keep filling it up and it is down by half by the end of the week, like magic.

cathy4, a tumbler sounds great. Maybe Santa will bring me one someday... right after the new house, 5 acres of land, new car, new appliances... Until then I will try to keep piling things into a heap!

Composting is not rocket science. Some try to elaborate on this and that but the simple fact is that anything that once lived will rot. The more different plant life you add the better your total result will be.

No fancy equipment is needed to make compost allthough some tumblers jazz up a property and add to the interest. Any pile aproximately four by four by four is an excellent size. Turning when the heat goes down speeds up the whole piles ability to convert raw matter into compost.

The content of the pile will always be living bacteria, fungi and possibly critters from amobia to neamatodes plus just great hoards of trace minerals.
When finished or cooled down is when worms of several varieties appear. Some like it hot and heavy on manure while the typical so called garden worm appears last liking it cool.

Basic old time advice always said....use some raw manure, some of your garden soil, some mixed greens and brown materials. You may add black strap molasses on start up to provide a booster but this is not a requirement.

There will be minimal NPK in finished compost but maximum living biology that will go to work in the patch and create NPK from the organic material in your soil. This is why fall tilling, fall leaves and a cover crop is a must for best results. The fall prep provides partly converted raw materials and some finished ready for the plants to use. Your compost has the table set and will flourish on the soils content.

Conversion works in a very specific way all being created by the living biology. Roughly it goes like this:
First your soil's natural biology begins the break down in the soil using the organic matter present. This builds a strong micro-herd improving all that are present. Compost provides the inoculation of even better and broader living biology. The breakdown or rotting is part bacterial, part fungi working, part living critters eating and improving the organic mater from raw and compost that was not quite finished turning all into humus in the long run. Next the humus is conveted in to humic acid and still more happens as it becomes ready for your roots to uptake the goodness you have provided.

The plant roots actually put out and create a specialized biological small food factory that does the finishing for plant up take through the roots. If you foliar feed the elements needed are delivered to these little known food factories is finished there before it is of use to the plant. In general the trip from leaf to roots for ejection to the food factory takes about an hour from leaf surface to the roots. This is why foliar feeding is sometimes even more effective than waiting for the process to complete in your soil.
Foliar is generally thought to be supportive not all inclusive plant support. You still need your good and healthy soil.

Getting scientific concerning biological total changes that take place is literally not really possible. Science to this day does not know the total step by step conversion secrets. We sure do know something is good as we build our soils with organic principles and greatly reduce or eliminate the use of manufactured NPK which are literally not needed when you get good soil created. NPK of the manufactured variety all kills some if not all the very living biology you seek to build your soil with.

It normally takes about three or four years of trusting your biology to see major changes. A little better plant condition and plant resistance to pathegons is seen each year. It is worth waiting for and working towards.

I am quite sure there will be some who may disagree with something I have said. If that is the case just over look those parts and trust your unknowns to work if you follow the principles for a few years. I have lived forty years on the same lot and never/rarely used manufactured NPK. You or anyone is welcome to visit and stir around to you hearts content. You may safely eat my daisys.

docgipe, thanks for sharing your years of first hand experience. I have been really enjoying reading all of the advice here and am trying to understand my soil better in the process. I only have a small postage stamp area to work with but I want it to be a healthy and rewarding postage stamp.

When we had several acres to work on it was easy. Just heap all the stuff in a huge pile and after a couple years of cold rot (it was often up to 10 ft. tall pile), remove the top to find lovely rich dark stuff underneath it. Once established I found if I did this once a year I would never run out of garden gold. But now, in town and on such a tiny space, hot composting is needed to break things down faster and create 'soil' where there now is none.

So, what will eventually be a large raised planting bed is now my compost heap. I know it takes lots of time for nature to create soil but I want to do everything within my ability to expedite it so that I can begin to enjoy healthy plants.

Ditto to what docgipe has offered. I have been on my property for over 20 years during which time it has continued to improve.

To practice soil "stewardship" is worth the effort & time, as is practicing patience. And in so many ways, patience is a lesson that gardening teaches well.

The fact that the gardener works toward the establishment and maintenance of healthy soil is the point. Some folks don't have the time or resources to compost a "particular" way. Find what works best for you, in the region you live in.
Use components that are available to you - and don't shy away from trying different methods. Be observant, and watch how your plants respond.
From any perspective - it's work, but oh so productive in the long term.

My son lives on what I would call very sparce top soil in Portland, Oregon. He has been out there composting and using manures, remineralization, mycorrhiza and cover crops for ten years or more.

When he started an inch of top soil was the maximum over his patch. Today top good rich top soil is deeper than the blade of a garden shovel. Worms reside there in great numbers like five to ten per turn of that shovel. All along the way I saw all of his plantings increase in size, number of fruit and quality of all that grows there. The funny thing is typical. When he was still at home he had little interest in the garden that I tinker in daily. In Portland which I refer to as a great hippy land he has been converted by his new peer group. :) I saw nothing stronger than Neem Oil in his box of garden products.

Don't forget to add dandelion greens to your Humus pile. The nutrient value is really high. Just make sure you add them before they go to seed. I keep about 4 small passive Humus piles going and finally after about four years of trial and error,I have success.One Humus pile I am so proud has Spearmint growing the edges and it smells wonderful when I turn the pile.

I was concerned that I am starting out with no dirt or soil as a base to blend my compost into. Silly me! I don't know why I didn't think about it sooner but since all soil is a combination of ground rock ( clay, silt, sand )and rotted plant material my silt/sand and compost mixture will be no different than that piece of farmland that has been improved with compost and manure...But I get to decide how much of each to put into the bed from the beginning.

So, I will try to completely fill the box with composted material first. Since that compost will settle I can then add silty sand to it for the trace minerals and texture/drainage. IF my logic is correct I should end up with a wonderful sandy Loam just like in the fairy tale gardens I read about... I hope!

If I can get the pile large enough and hot enough this will happen relatively fast. But if it stays cold the pile will take longer to get to that same point. Either way the end result will be wonderful and eventually I will have a bed that will only need top dressing each season to stay healthy.

I don't have to create anything, I just have to keep mixing up the ingredients that are available and nature will alter their characteristics for me. Duh! Science 101 for grade schoolers and for some reason I was struggling so hard to understand!

zanymuse- sounds good. I made a new bed last spring with layers of old leaves and soil and a bit of ntrogen fert. Worked fine for a hill of squash and a huge flowering tobacco.

From the specs on nutrients it's sounds like my compost must be diet type on steroids then? Got my plants fooled, LOL

I think my next step is going to be to add another load of browns from the needle pile and some alfalfa pellets from the feed store for nitrogen and all the protiens I read it has in it. They have plain alfalfa or some with molasses added. Since I have read that the molasses are good for the heat too I may get that one.

From everything I have read that should give the pile the additional size it needs (it has shrunk from 48 inches to 30 inches) and heat it up at the same time. Next week end I hope to have it built up to at least a 52" high by 48 inch wide by 14 ft long row inside my planting box with lots of alfalfa added along with my other odds and ends of scraps and egg shells.

If I can get the pile to that size I can relax a bit and just throw what ever other refuse I have in and just aerate it a bit when it starts to cool off again.

My gardener friends dropped off 5 huge leaf bags full of grass clippings today and a friend sent me a bushel basket of wormy crab apples to add to my compost. I have some hot manure and lots of browns to add also and am going to pick up a bag of alfalfa pellets to use when it needs to be turned just to keep the heat going.

Now I just need to learn patience :~)

ok. now I'm REALLY confused. On another thread, I was told that worms and heat don't go together in the same compost pile...One or the other, but not both...Please explain...

As I understand it the worms move in as the compost cools and they take over.Or in a cold pile they will start at the bottom and work the material into the soil and work their way up untim it is all turned into rich humus.

They will leave a hot pile and burrow to a safe depth or to the outer edges until it cools enough for them.

I truly just LOVE my DG friends....thanks, Zanymuse!

Funny thing. When I first started my little pile and was confused, I was trying SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HARD to get some "Heat." I kept reading about "Heat." I tried everything to get "Heat." I read about this recipe and that recipe and ratios and proportions, ad nauseum. Then I read that "Heat" would drive my worms away, so I stopped trying to get "Heat."

And, one day after my DH had mowed the lawn, I went out back to the huge pile where he dumps all the fresh grass clippings and the leaves and that thing is sending out steam -- "HEAT!" And I run to the house and ask him how he got his "heat," and he says, "what'd mean? -- it does that everytime I mow the lawn...it just stays hot."

I have not worried about "Heat" since that day...

I am a "Cold Pile" specialist.....

That is the only type of composting I had done until now and I want to get faster results so I want heat! But as a realist, I understand now that if I can't get enough heat I can always trust those darling earth worms to finish things up quite nicely for me ;~)

Zanymuse,
I'm layering shredder paper from work, leaves, grass clippings and COFFEE GRINDS. I'm getting a 5-gallon bucket every 1.5 weeks from my job. I run a trench down the middle of my little pile and toss in the veggie scraps and the coffee grinds and filters, then fold the trench back together. I started out with a few scrawny worms, and thew everyone I found in that pile. A coupla months ago, after the Houston monsoons, I went back to my pile and pulled a trench to see what was going on inside. There were so many humongous worms! Beauties! Averaging 4-6" long and fat, fat, fat!

I have a happy worm farm!

Would you tell me what the schedule should be at this time of year for working with the compost and preparing for Springtime? I'm trying to clean up the yard, and my potting area, and getting flowerbeds ready for winter. I mostly do container planting, and have only one small bed I really put any effort into. That bed was my first one, and last summer when I repotted old plants, I threw all the container soil that had any worms into that small bed. And, the one time I totally dismantled and sifted my compost pile (last summer), all the fine compost went into that small bed. It was totally rich! I grow hostas and ferns in it, beneath the trees, cause of the shade. The plants love the soil, and so do I.

So, what should I be doing with the compost that's been breaking down since then last summer? I haven't sifted it at all, just been feeding those happy worms. I'm dumping containers that have died back and putting all the worms I find in the compost pile.

Also, I want to enjoy the yard next Spring, not just be getting started with planting. I've been reading that you can plant seeds now, and the plants will know when to start coming up when the ground starts getting warm. I want to plant some seeds. Would it be advisable now, or wait until later? If so, when?

Questions, questions...

"I want to plant some seeds. Would it be advisable now, or wait until later? If so, when? - Gymgirl
-----------------

You might get away with planting now where you are, I don't know.

I'm in colder country, and I know what would happen if I planted spring seeds now. We'd get a warm week sometime during the winter, the seeds would sprout, then it would turn cold again and they'd get frozen.

Our temps are so up-and-down here I just have to wait until after the last frost date to plant anything. Then, I still have to hope we don't get a late freeze as often happens.

Personaly, I would use this years finished compost on the bed now as mulch and let those happy wigglers til it in as temps permit. As for planting now, I know there are some things that benefit from winter sowing but what they are I don't have a clue!

Do you get heavy frost, freezes or snow in Houston ? If so, you might do better by starting the seeds early indoors under lamps to get that head start rather than risking them sprouting up only to see them killed by a frost.

You might want to consider a different approach to wintersowing. This way, we do so in containers, most commonly milk jugs, and in the dead of winter. The jugs act as mini greenhouses. This will be my third year and it works great.

http://wintersown.org/

There's also a wintersowing forum here on Dave's

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/coldsow/all/

Karen

I'm thinking your nutrients are not coming from the composting itself, it's from the worm castings(worm poop is a good thing, guys) Your pile only get hot enough to break down organic material and hopefully weed seeds, etc. Worms just move outta the way. They go deeper in the cold, but smart worms are not going to go far from such a great buffet! We've lived here over 20 years and this is VA red clay, but we've worked this area so long there are few places I can't turn the soil with a shovel and go down a good 2-3 feet and rich black soil It works!

I'm thinking that even without our careful mixing of 50/50 greens/browns, turning, and all that - composting is going to happen just fine in time.

Two years ago our electric company was trimming and chipping trees on our road. I asked them to dump a truckload of wood chips on our place, and I've been using those to mulch around trees. These were big wood chips from the chipping machine, nothing you'd really think of composting.

Now there's few chips left in that pile. The middle of it has all turned into black, fine compost on its own. That makes sense - they were chipping live tree limbs, and the leaves and green bark probably made a good green/brown mix with the dead inner wood.

Yes, compost will happen all on it's own if any plant material is piled up. In fact, some piles of only wood chips have often been known to get hot enough to smolder and eventuallycreate a fire at sawmills.

We have a cogeneration plant that burns wood chips and other organics to create electricity. If the fuel for the plant is left out in the weather in huge piles we often see it begin to smolder and that pile must then be broken down or fed to the boilers to prevent a fire getting started. But the nutrient content of the compost created from only wood chips will be low. But it still makes a great siol amendment for sand or clay soils.

Ok, last week I was excited because my pile was finally hot, well warm anyway. How long does this "hot" last?? I have been out almost daily and the center of the pile was still warm. Yesterday was the first day I didn't check it. Today I went out and it was cold through and through. I should add that almost daily I have added to the top of the pile a combination of kitchen water, coffee grounds, paper plates and daycare lunch leftovers & fruit skins. I have not done any stirring/mixing. I only dumped the stuff on the top of the pile. Did I do something wrong or is it expected to cool that quickly. Oh, also yesterday was VERY windy and cold out. Not sure if that is a factor or not. My pile is surrounded on 3 sides by solid wood and the 4th side is open as is the top.

sjweld,

I read that a pile will heat up rapidly with the addition of fresh nitrogen such as grass or alfalfa if there is too much browns but will cool off rapidly again if the pile is too small, too wet, too dry, or too compacted so air cannot get inside.The temperature outside affects it but winds can quickly kill the heat.

You didn't say how large your pile is or what condition it is as far as moisture and air so I can't make a guess at the cause ofyour heat loss.

Having killed the heat in my first pile I am gathering the resources to rebuild it bigger and plan to add some long tree branches to it that can be pulled out as the pile settles to open up air passages as needed. I also am going to cover the pile with cardboard to keep it from getting too wet during our rainy season.

Zany, my pile is at best 3'X3'. The outer edge was somewhat dry but the rest of it was moist while not dripping wet. It may have been too compacted, not sure there. I did have a few sticks stuck into the pile (it was completly on accident). I was checking the heat by sort of lifting up on the stick to create a space to easily stick my hand into. I can take a picture of the pile if you think a visual might help you help me. :)

I think you pile is just too small to get real hot or hold the heat for a prolonged time especially for a fall/winter compost. If you can pile it higher you should have better luck. If not, don't give up on the idea of black gold, it will still happen but just not as fast.

edited to add: Please remember that like you I am new to hot composting and therefore I am only repeating what I have read and been told. One of the more experienced people will hopefully come along and agree with me or set me straight!

All the composting I have done in the past was in cold piles or lasagna beds.

This message was edited Nov 15, 2007 4:51 PM

I will keep adding to it and just see what I get. I have more leaves to add but they are all dry. That means they are a brown right? I am trying to get greens to add up to balance them out before I dump them in. I really should quit being a scaredy cat and call the guy down the street to get some good manure! I don't know why I am having such a hard time calling him!

LOL I guess you are just having trouble finding the right words... Excuse me, could I bother you for a small load of ... Er..could you spare some of that fine smelling livestock byproduct for my compost heap?

Please keep sharing what you learn. I can't add anything, as I am very new to composting ... I've started my first pile 12 days ago. Checked my pile today and was warm, not as steamy as it has been. I've been collecting lots of coffee grounds, kitchen scraps and shredded leaves. Plan to add everything to my pile this weekend. Should I turn the pile I stared before adding the new stuff, since it cooled down some or just pile it on top?

After the pile cools it is a good indication to flip the entire contents of the pile. Adjust moisture as necessary as you do it. It might or might not heat up again after aeration. But it only produces heat for so long, then it goes thru cold composting stages.

Karen

Thanks Karen ... glad you're still reading this thread.

Karen, thanks for sticking around to keep us newbies from leading each other down the wrong path!

sjweld,
It is my understanding that leaves from the tree that are still green are greens and those that fall in autumn are browns. They tend to mat so water will not penetrate them so it is best to chop them up or mix them in well to prevent them from making a thick matted layer.

Ok, then they are browns and I am good on the chopping. DH picked them up for me with the push mower and bagger so they are chopped. :)

Sounds perfect!

Zany no wonder I am getting confused! You and I are bouncing off each other on two threads!! LOL