It seems that the gold standard for a compost bin is one that is hot and steamy.
Mine is always cold and clammy.
I have added greens, browns, water, turned it, massaged it, and fed it my choicest kitchen scraps.
But I got no heat. Not even an ember.
I called PG&E. They were no help.
Not that things aren't decomposing. They are just doing so kinda slowly. The up side is that the resulting soil is very rich, and my seeds have had no problem germinating in it. The earthworms are happy.
The down side is that all seeds, including the weeds, have no problem germinating in it. And my earthworms have plenty of creepy crawly neighbors, not all of which are as beneficial to my garden. I have enough pill bugs to open a drug store.
Maybe Mark Herrera's "The Basics of Composting" workshop at this year's Sustainability Conference will help me warm things up.
About Me: Jeremy wears many hats, including substitute teacher, school garden educator, hike leader, youth group advisor, Gardener's Swap Meet coordinator, husband, and father. His lifelong quests include the search for the perfect burrito, and more recently, how to sprout an avocado tree from a pit.
Hello from Littleton.
I've had the same problem. When I first got my compost going it was hot, hot, hot. It then inexplicably shut down. I'm not sure what happened. I'll let you know if I come by a solution.
Patrick
1)Buy two pieces of 1 1/2" pvc pipe and drill random 3/8ths inch holes in them. Dig down to the bottom of the pile and toss 3 foot lengths in as pick-up sticks. This will aerate your pile the lazy way.
B)Check out http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/, http://preview.tinyurl.com/5pqzts, http://preview.tinyurl.com/5h3bzd. I'm here in Chico and if you tag me back I can show you a sample of biochar-modified soil.
#) Find somebody with a comfrey plant. Gently uproot the plant with a shovel or fork and separate out one or more root nodes with a green shoot. Plant directly adjacent to your compost pile on the sunny side. Comfrey roots are a kind of nursery for soil organisms and critters and will greatly improve the local biota.
if the compost up there is mirroring the exact state and health of your real one, then i see at least 2 problems on it; you have a lot of dead leafs in it which reduce the nitrogen concentration in the compost to possibly 100:1 (Carbon:Nitrogen), and the location/build style/moisture might be another problem.
feeding your homegrown monster is a brilliant idea. egg shells, bird guano(dung), and grass cut are brilliant as a desert. especialy clover and similar faboideae will enrich the nitrogen houshold to ideal value of 25:1.
the ideal location should be in a wind sheltered corner with morning or evening sun and shadow at noon. you can increase the moisture between the layers of the leafes with spreading earth or adult compost in between. keeping the heat inside is another issue. the smallest surface and largest volume still a sphere has. so the shape of the compost should equal a round hill which increases the chance to have the core heating.
last comment; the compost isn't steaming all the time. once the "hot phase" of 120 up to 140°F in the extreme is over, a cool phase with worms crawling in and establishing a nice biosphere in it is comming up. so no matter what you do, after a few weeks the homegrown leaf monster will cool down anyways.
i hope this migt help in any way.
i am not a native spaeker, so please bear with me and my english.
I have a small backyard and a small area for a compost pile/bin. Do you have any ideas for a DIY compost bin?
I would go with 3 wood pallets attached with long screws or nails. Pallets are free--they are often discarded by many businesses, only challenge is transporting them--a pickup truck is ideal. If you live in Chico, you can see one we put together at the Dorothy F. Johnson Center Community Garden at E 18th Street and Beech.