Built the left pile 3 days ago from mixed things from my plot.
Today i turned the left pile and added layers of greens, cardboard and woodchips. Outside temp is 14°C (57°F) and pile is closing in on 30c (86f).
The probe i have is short 20cm (~8in) so middle of pile might be warmer.
How to preceed from here?
Right net pile was made a few hours ago and showing about 20c so not much yet.
Water and piss is taken care of.
by Weary-Ad-8743
2 Comments
How did the inside look? Probe is definitely short. The hottest part of my pile is always pretty close to the bottom.
I’m a newbie but for me it seems that it takes a while for many fresh things to break up a little, heating some but not much over a few days, and there’s a tipping point around 45-47 after which it might shoot to 60s.
The pile should be damp as a wrung out sponge. Add water, shitty beer, stale wine, spoiled milk, pee…. Whatever liquid (obviously not battery acid or antifreeze, you get the point)
Microbes use liquid as the freeway system to move from a part of the pile they’ve exhausted for their purposes and move on to a new patch.
Add food, greens, leaves, chopped up carbon. Add water. Pitchfork turn. Wait a week. Wash rinse repeat. B