Compost

100°F

105°F | Ok, I went as long as I could stand it and decided to mess with the pile. I wanted to give it a few days to see if it would jump up to the coveted 120°F to 135°F range, but it did not. And I had a few bags of kitchen scraps sitting in a 5-gallon bucket out there needing to be used. I took this opportunity to cut up the big pumpkin we grew, and two small ones.

I chopped everything up well. I moved the pile to one side of the Geobin to expose the bottom where I put down a couple layers of cardboard. I did the same on the other side. It’s possible some of the heat has been leaking out of the bottom, but researching this a bit makes me think that probably has not been a factor. Added the cardboard any way, and it gave me a chance to see what’s going on in the pile.

Fortunately, I didn’t see too many big pieces of material. That tells me I did a decent job of cutting things up as I threw them in, and that stuff is being broken down well. I added straw, dried leaves, all the pumpkin chunks, kitchen scraps, and more of the spent coffee grounds. Lastly, I added a small amount of urine diluted with about half a gallon of water.

It’s good to see the size of the pile be a legit 3′ x 3′ now, or maybe 3′ wide and about 2.5′ tall. By the time I was done and put the thermometer back in, it was down to 80°F, which is a bummer, but I really wanted to add all this stuff and see if we can get it past that 120°F mark we always seem to be stuck at. Time will tell.

111°F

110°F this morning. I moved the thermometer just a little bit and it went up to 114°F. So it’s basically maintaining the same temp for 4-days. I’m torn. I want it to jump up to that very active range of 120°F to 135°F but as I understand it, it’s best to wait a few more days to determine if this is actually a stall. If it stays under 120°F for 3 more days, I think I’ll cut up the other pumpkins I have along with kitchen scraps and bunch more dry leaves, etc.

116°F

113°F, smell dampened

106°F

111°F this morning. The pumpkin pieces and dry leaves added this week are clearly active. I added a few more greens, including some spent coffee grounds that Alena picked up from Starbucks, along with some straw and dry leaves, and gave it a turn. It smelled a little worse than usual but not rancid, so I will be keeping an eye on that. The pile is finally at about 3′ x 3′ now; as I understand it, this is the smallest recommended size to get a true hot pile going.

108°F this morning. We got two big bags of leaves from the front of the elementary school yesterday. Stopped by after we took the kids to the park. One bag is mostly dry brown leaves. In that bag I’m going to try to make leaf mold. Crunched them up a bit, added water, and put some small holes in the bottom of the bag. The other bag I want to let dry out some and then use as brown on the compost pile. I’m going to dump them out so they dry up.

88°F, but 100°F when I moved the thermometer to the middle. I kind of didn’t want to disturb it since it’s finally heating up again, but I had another bucket of kitchen scraps to add so I did that, but quickly, with a little bit of turning for aeration. I stuck the thermometer more in the middle of the pile and noticed that instead of just 88°F, it was actually at about 100°F in the most active areas.

78°F today. I added diluted urine to the pile.

68°F today.

I want to get this pile hot again.

From June until November, I added kitchen scraps to the pile weekly. I also added cut up cardboard, garden straw, alfalfa meal, and other greens and browns. The hottest it got was 120°F and that was for less than a few days.

Today, I cut up well and added a large pumpkin from Trader Joe’s.