Jamie, you must have a tumbler. I flip mine by the fork full every month or two.
Not as ambitious now as in my younger days.

Karen

no Karen.. I AM the tumbler!!! (secretly lookin' at technological alternatives whilst telling myself how good it is for me).

And you flip it twice a day???

Karen

Yup! Jest did...good for me. Ouch.

Jamie, don't you let it heat up, ever? Doesn't seem it would ever heat if you disturb it twice a day? Do you ever check the temp? Just curious?

Karen

It heats ...sits in the sun all afternoon. To my knowledge it should be rotated at least once a day. I don't take it's temperature. It breaks down nicely though.

"It breaks down nicely though."
Goes to show, "compost happens". There really are no absolutes.

My understanding is the best way is to feed it a bunch, all at once, add needed moisture. Monitor temp, it should heat in a day or two if you have a good C:N ratio and proper moisture. Keep monitoring temp, once it cools, flip the whole thing and feed it again, let it heat (should stay hot for about a week), flip when it cools. Feed again and repeat. After it has heated for several cycles, let that batch sit to mature and finish, and start a fresh batch.

I used that process last year when I was getting large amounts of coffee grounds from a coffee shop. It always heated to 140° to 150° within 2 days. It usually stayed hot for a week. Now that coffee shop is gone so sometimes I add grass clippings to get it cooking.

I use two Biostack bins. Each is comprised of 3 bottomless tiers which stack to form a bin. Instead of 2 stacks of 3 tiers, I use them according to my needs at the time. Currently I have it arranged like this: one stack of two tiers which is holding finishing compost. The other is a stack of 4 tiers which is full of actively composting stuff.


Karen

I flip mine when I think about it, which might be 2-3 times over the summer, but I'm not in a hurry for it to process. It's that "benign neglect" theory operating again.

Mine has suffered from my benign neglect a lot this summer. My husband wanted to dump in some grass clippings about a week ago. I had just showered, didn't want to get hot, sweaty, and dirty again, so I let him do it alone. I did caution him to add lots of leaves with it. Well, he flunked. It was so stinky for the past few days.

Today we have an unseasonably cool morning, so I decided to check the compost. Still stinky, temp with my compost thermometer was 132°. I broke my own rule of thumb and decided to flip it even though it was still hot. He had added way too much nitrogen (grass) and not nearly enough carbon. And way too much water! It weighed a ton as I flipped it. I generally don't let my husband add to the compost himself, and now again I won't. That man has watched me build compost for over 20 years. You think he'd learn something.

Karen

That's a nice system Karen. I really just started doing it to make use of all the veggie and fruit scraps I create. I've done some reading on creating the right balance and make additions to comply generally, but do not get into the whole measurement thing. Boy though! I LOVE your idea about picking up excess grounds from a coffee shop. Did they save them up specifically for you?

Yes Jamie, they did. It was just a little shop in the neighborhood, owned by a couple of women. They were happy to save them for me. I'd take a nice clean 5 gallon bucket with a lid, they'd add the grounds and filters. They'd fill it it 2 to 3 days. When I went to pick up, I'd deliver a nice clean 5 gallon bucket.

Starbucks has a policy of recycling their grounds. They don't do it around here, though. (And there are none in my area, they're in more upscale areas than mine!). You can google "Starbucks grounds for your garden" to find info.

If you really want to understand composting, the ratios, the phases, etc, you might consider reading Teaming with Microbes, a Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web by Lowenfels and Lewis. Very good, very complete and informative book. You might be able to get it from the library.

Karen

thank you. Good ideas. What do you do during winter months?

I hibernate, and so does my compost. I realy, really, really detest cold weather and being cold myself. Usually around December, before the onset of our coldest weather, I flip my compost and put it to sleep for the winter. I secure the lids on with bungee cords and don't look at the compost until the worst of winter is over, around late February or March. By then our weather is generally moderating, and I continue.

By spring I usually have a nice batch of finished compost to spread, and I start over. Until the weather gets really cold the next winter, the process repeats. Most of the time I'll have two batches- old cold pile of materials finishing, and another of actively composting stuff. At some point you have to stop adding to a batch, or it will never "finish".

Karen

How much leaf stuff do you put in? I find that oak leaves don't seem to like to break down.

>> I find that oak leaves don't seem to like to break down.

A friend of mine let his oak leaves "age" for over a year, in trash bags. He would gather them one Fall, let them sit dry in bags until the Spring-after-next, and then mix them directly into his garden soil.

I can't say of my own knowledge that does anything usefull, like let tannion degrade, but he thoguht it worked (and his garden soil stayed fertile for many years without other amendments).

My tiny compost heap is very inefficient - never big enough to heat up, and seldom "in balance" because I have so few thin gs to add that it just gets whatever I have available.

But I just confirmed one piece of obvious common wisdom: it does need some water to break down at all. Our summers are dry and my hose didn't reach that far. When I added coffee grounds and vegetable scraps, a little water went in with them, into the center, and that just barely broke down a tiny bit over 2-3 months while vines around it didn't break down at all.

Then I added a Y-valve on the end of the hose, so I could "shoot" water farther than the watering wand reached, and in just a few days of being damp, the whole pile softened, shrank, and began to disintegrate despite not being balanced.

I save lots of fall leaves, too. I have three 32 gallon garbage cans which are dedicated to storing leaves. Any excess over that gets stored in lawn bags. I use my own leaves, and two of my neighbors deliver all their leaves to me. I also sometimes cruise around in my car the night before garbage collection and collect the bagged leaves from other people in the neighborhood. Most people collect them by using their lawn mowers and bagging, so they're generally shredded when I get them.

Many people say that oak leaves are slow to break down for them, but I don't really notice it much. My next door neighbor has 2 huge pin oaks and I use all of his leaves. What's really slow for me is straw.

I don't use the hose to add water to my compost. It's too hard to control, too easy to add too much. I moisten it with a sprinkling can. My bins aren't that big, and more than a gallon of water at once would be wetter than the proverbial "moist as a wrung out sponge"

Karen

a leaf shortage!!!! Wish you'd drive past here, Karen!

Starting in October, I spend WEEKS raking, loading tarps and dragging....oh my back hurts a'ready. In the spring though, when I dig down under the pile, I get some great soil out! (inky always helps.)

Never a shortage here, either Jamie. I can get as many as I'm willing to keep around. I'm still using leaves from last fall, now it's almost time to start over.

I also often mulch my planting beds with leaves, especially in fall.

Karen

I usually leave them on the beds (sure don't have to put them there) but have to get them off early spring because I have many many tulips, daffs, and hyacinth (earlies). Even with the composting blades on the tractor, the work is ferocious though. My shoulders and back get all muscled up, I rediscover my waist and then I plop on the couch with a whiskey and bonbons and wreck it by spring ...then I do it again!

kqcrna said:I don't use the hose to add water to my compost. It's too hard to control, too easy to add too much. I moisten it with a sprinkling can. My bins aren't that big, and more than a gallon of water at once would be wetter than the proverbial "moist as a wrung out sponge"

Good point. Since I started hosing it down from a distance, it's gotten somewhere between a few pints and several gallons. Not very precise!

Tonight I'll sniff my pile that I've been "watering" lately. Since it has more N than usual, my nose ought to tell me if I've overwatered itt.

But it's so small and loose, and our summer is so dry, that it may drain and then evaporate so fast that even spraying it from a distance may not be too wet. Once it breaks down enough to be compact and "peaty" instead of just a heap of vines, it'll tend to hold more water.

During the Sept-May "rainy season", I sometimes park a wheelbarrow or tarp over the pile so it doesn't leach out or wash away!