Got roughly 1.5ish cubic yards, if my math is right, of compost rocking in here being added incrementally for over a year (winter I stopped). Last photo is my attempt to show what it looks like when you dig down into it.
I was very lazy with this pile last year, I would just add to it and never turn or water it.
I knew this method would be slow but it’s too slow for me I’ve realized, so I’m trying to get a hot compost going now.
The pile is made up of food scraps, lots of leaves, lots of pine shavings from chicken coop, chicken shit, and grass/garden waste.
I think it had way too much brown and not enough green so I’ve been adding pee to it for a few weeks now and have cut way back on adding browns and I’m just trying to load up greens in there.
I’ve also begun to “turn” it when I add greens (these photos are from before a “turning”) but it’s really big for me so hard to actually turn it. I’m basically just stabbing at it with my pitch fork and turning that as it comes back up.
Thing is it doesn’t seem hot at all to me when I put my hand on or in it (thermometer on the way from Amazon I know that would be much better to check with), and doesn’t really have any smell at all so I don’t think much is going on in there.
Should I make a second setup like this and transfer it into there so it’s much more all mixed up? And then transfer back and forth in lieu of turning it? Or just be more patient? Any other advice as well is much appreciated.
In hindsight perhaps I should have done a smaller pile but this originally was just a giant leaf collection zone and I figured may as well compost it, but I did not factor in that it gets tonssss of leaves falling in it as well, C:N ratio seems hard to keep up with.
by anotherberniebro1992
6 Comments
Ask Starbucks for their coffee grounds. It’s Been a game changer for me. Get you a small 2ft long drill auger it works wonders. Cold compost takes a while and even longer if you don’t have worms, you can buy them but I’ve been trying to find mine on my own.
mine looks just like yours with seaweed and no chicken shit. looks like it’s doing the same thing and I’m planning on doing another pile
Yes set up another one. I have 3 going. And cover that one with something, so you don’t get things growing in it.
Patience grasshopper. Double the amount of material there and chill. The stuff in the middle is looking good so just stay the course. It all composts eventually.
Its spread over too large a footprint. The most efficient shape to retain the heat from decomposition is theoretically a sphere, but thats kinda hard to build with chicken wire and scrap wood, so make it a cube or cylinder. It should be roughly as tall as it is long and wide.
If its a yard and a half of material you want to reset your chicken wire to be about 3-4 foot wide, then shovel/fork all the material into the new smaller footprint pile. It will get turned as you transfer it over which will give it a boost of life and the reduced 3 dimensional surface area means it retains that heat better.
It looks mature enough that you just need to rework it a bit to give it a kick, and its should be finished in a few weeks. If youve got some “hot” greens like coffee grounds or chicken manure with less bedding you can mix that in there as you go too.
You can also use some of this as top dressing, a little bit of extra browns is just mulch for the garden. Use a garden rake to fluff the bits of leaves or twigs to the top and spread the finished compost down.
If youve got chickens, have you thought of using them more in the process? You can build them a movable run that you fill with a deep layer of litter, throw all the food scrap in there and chickens will scratch anything they dont want to eat into the litter where it will compost along with the resulting manure from the stuff they do want.
You can use just about anything youd consider a brown for composting as litter too, save some money on shavings if youve already got a shit ton of leaves you need to get rid of anyway. Chip drop and shredded brown paper works too.
When the litter bed is getting funky you move the run and plant into the old spot the next season. You could also muck it out and build up a garden bed elsewhere too if youd rather not move the run or dont want a garden in that spot.
it also looks like there is a lot of leaves in there, leaves take a long time to break down even compared to other things. that is one of the reasons they are still extra visible. 2ood chips also take a while. I would expect to basically be able to still see some leafy bits and chips once it is finished.