Here’s my compost guys! I just wanted yall to see it.
I don’t really understand the scientifics behind hot compost so I think technically that means this is a cold one. I just throw the scraps in the bin, cover with a small heap of browns and let the buggies work at it for me. I’m so used to not really turning it either. I’ll add my scraps and browns and leave it for maybe 3 weeks, then turn it before repeating the process. But last time, I checked the pile after a week and all the scraps were broken down except for an avocado peel. So 4 days ago, I threw in a lot more and now all I wanna do is turn it every day.
I couldn’t resist the urge and did turn it today, obviously not done at all so I had to rebury it and cover it again.
by pcx23
3 Comments
[deleted]
The main thing with hot composting is mass, everything in the pic is perfect for hot composting, the heat just comes from the microbial activity of bacteria and stuff breaking down matter and reproducing. A larger compost pile has more mass and as a result more microbial activity, meaning more heat generated. The larger the amount of mass, the more it insulates itself, and in turn loses less of a proportion of its heat to external radiation than a smaller pile would. All of that heat being retained drives the temperature up, which increases the rate of microbial reproduction, which, you guessed it, increases the amount of heat generated. Hot composting breaks down material much faster than “cold” composting, but can also make your pile catch on fire lol
in layman’s terms heat is produced because microbials are eating organic material and energy is released exothermically. so like how we’d want to be around 98.6 degrees fahrenheit we’d want the microbes to be around 160 ideally