way to go!!!
your story is very simular to mine. I started my first real compost in august. got a great batch in oct. I was so proud i showed every one.
even my daughters boyfriends.
I too had 'kinda' tried before. i just called them my "scrap piles"
In the summer i would just stare at it in awe.
It's under a foot of snow right now and i miss it.
but i have a lidded garbage pail of treats for it come spring.
my DH thinks i'm nuts. but he loves me anyway.
very jealous of you fodder contacts:)

Welcome to CA... Composters Anonymous,

My name is Joe, nice to meet you Christine...

You go girl. No matter how many times I see the process work, it amazes me that you can put together a big pile of material and those tiny bacteria can heat it so hot that you can't keep your hands in there! It's a fetish that not many people can appreciate. Welcome to the fold.

UUUGGGHHHH!!!

It's still too cold here, and two feet of snow! You guys with the warm climate drive me nuts! It's not fair!

Whine, whine, snivel, snivel.

Lloyd

P.S. Way to go, Christine!

Steam on you crazy diamond!

"even my daughters boyfriends."

How'd that go over with the daughter? If I took any of my daughters friends anywhere near my compost...something about "Hell hath no fury" I'm sure.

:-)

Lloyd

Hi Lloyd
my oldest Daughter Jenny, showed her boyfriend herself, even asked if she could poke it with a stick to show him how it steamed.
(so proud)
my youngest daughter Rose, not too sweet 16, pretty much just rolls her eyes at everything i do.

I tell everyone "it the most beautiful compost in the world" and I guess i say it alot because that was the comment Rose's boyfriend made. :)

Thank you, thank you all! *takes her bow*

I feel good knowing that I'm not alone with the sickness!!

Lloyd - don't worry, your compost will be waiting for you when it thaws :p

auntyara - I think one's own compost is always "the most beautiful compost in the world". I can't wait to see mine in a few months!!

~ Christine :)

Congratulations! Your next thrill will be when you get to harvest your compost.

I'm jealous of your situation - you have an ample supply of greens and browns and are probably able to make all sorts of compost, year 'round.

>UUUGGGHHHH!!!
>It's still too cold here, and two feet of snow! You guy with the warm climate drive me nuts! It's not fair!
Whine, whine, snivel, snivel.

Not too cold here in tropical Western Maine, Lloyd. I've got a steaming pile, started in early November, that I add 5 gal pail of coffee grounds and wood shavings every day. It also got two wheel barrows full of litter from the chicken coop in mid-december and one dead chicken that didn't survive the minus 30 temps. It seems to be steaming along quite happily all winter.

I'll admit that I never had a pile cook all winter like this before but this is the first time I ever covered one with a tarp to regulate the moisture. In the past, they would cook right up to the first snows and then cool right down. This year, the only moisture that gets into the pile comes from the coffee grounds or the few shovels of snow that I toss in when I add dry wood shavings.

So don't let cold weather stop you from cooking compost, Lloyd. Keep the pile big, balanced and regulate the moisture by covering it.

Welcome Christine!

Wayne

Hi Christine,

Welcome to the wonderful world of compost! Like you, I have a great deal of material to compost when the mood strikes me; it never fails to make me smile seeing all that steam rise off the piles, a true thing of beauty. Although they may be slow to admit it, the family will come to love your pile just as much as you do (at least mine finally did). My daughter shows the "compost factory" off more than I do. Just wait until you sit at the dinner table with some good food that came out your garden grown in your compost.

Again, welcome to the community, I do look forward to sharing our adventuresÂ

Blutranes

I am not shoveling the snow off the compost to get at it. We had the -30 and a windchill to -45 for a week, just ain't gonna happen. I have been chucking stuff into the multi-tumblers but it freezes pretty quick. Spring is only about 6 weeks away, I'll just have to get my compost fix by reading about all the southerners here. :-(

Maybe I should get one of them nature mills? :-)

Lloyd

Whine, snivel (4), sniff

Oh! I understand, I got it bad also. Today I brought home discarded flowers to add to my compost. I cut the long stems in about 4" sections, nice blooms too. They were about half spent and I couldn't resist. I needed some green's for my newest lasagna bed. I have six beds and haven't seen the results of any compost yet. I can't wait till spring.I had to chuckle at myself when I found I had carried home the three left over napkins from my lunch so I could put them in my 40 gal. trash can. I have a new shredder and it will even shred newspaper and cardboard. I use every scrap of mail and paper. I love the junk mail. My dh says "that will never work when you going to stop". I say "Never! Never"! Congrats on your first post Christine

"We had the -30 and a windchill to -45 for a week, just ain't gonna happen. "

That's cold no matter whether it's F or C. Actually, it's pretty close to where the two are the same (-40).

Sorry bpgreen. Hope it warms up soon. Worst winter I've been through. My koi pond is still frozen. We were with out electric 5 days.

"Sorry bpgreen. Hope it warms up soon. Worst winter I've been through. My koi pond is still frozen. We were with out electric 5 days."

Those are Lloyd's temps. It never gets that cold here.

I used to live in the Midwest, so I can imagine those brutally cold winter days, but I can't imagine being without electricity for 5 days. How did you stay warm? Even if you have a furnace, you still need electricity for the fan. About the only heat I can think of that would continue to work would be gravity fed hot water heat.

Wow -45, I thought I had it bad. It's only about 20 F here, well "only" when compared to your temps.

My compost piles are frozen solid though...life is so boring now, lol

Welcome out of lurkdom, Christine! :-)

I well remember when my first compost pile started steaming last summer, I could hardly believe it as I've always cold composted. Exciting stuff! LOL Every time we came home I could hardly wait to go over and check on that pile to see if it was still steaming!

You are sooo lucky to have such a good source of produce and leaves. I'm still struggling but will search out more sources for compostables come spring. My bins, piles, and lasagna are still sleeping under a couple feet of snow. But we are adding to the main pile daily from the kitchen.

It's a balmy 1°C here right now - that's almost 34°F - we're having a winter heat wave and I don't miss Manitoba at all! However, I'm still not going to try to keep compost working all winter in zone 3.

Congratulations! I'm still on cold composting - I may faint the first time I actually see steam coming off of my pile! I haven't been covering it, however - I don't know if that is the difference, besides that I don't normally have huge quantities to add at once.

However, I've still been trekking out to the pile to dump our scraps and coffee grounds - the only foot path through the snow is to the compost bins.

louisagardener said...

...and I just had to share with somebody who I knew would understand why I'm so excited!! :)

When you get ready to share it, I'll send you my address.

Now you have two hobbies, doing it and writing about doing it.

irene - I don't cover my compost pile, and I haven't turned it yet (although the weather this weekend is supposed to be really nice, so I think I'm going to turn it). The biggest things, for me, I think are that a) I happened to have a large amount of material at one time and b) I noticed it really started working when I wet the pile about a week and a half ago (it had been kind of dry here).

dchall - I don't know that I'll ever be ready to really share my compost... just the stories of my compost :)

Much envy. I started my first compost bin last March (even though I've been reading the compost forum for longer!!). It was made with dried leaves, kitchen scraps, some clay clods, and a whole bunch of grass clippings. Didn't seem to heat up or change anything much.
It was a 5x4x1, and only this January I figured out it should be at least a 3x3x3 ft to heat up. so tried to pile it up so it fits that size, but still seems that nothing much is happening. Of course, it is halfway broken down, brownish, but sill alot of visible material, greens, etc. I guess I've been cold composting.
Any suggestions on how to get it to heat up? Or has it already been heating up and I just haven't noticed? I'll post a picture of it later.

Way to go Christine! I too am a lurker, posted for the first time a few days ago. Had to talk to someone who understands my obsession. My family thinks I am crazy. I have my first compost pile and 400 feet of lasagne beds I have been working on since Oct. No steam. I need some steam! But, I just made a big score...I went to my town's landfill looking for leaves (the 50 bags I have hauled in the back of my car doesn't seem to be enough!)...the city road people said that is where they take them. The nice garbage man at the landfill informed me he had a huge pile of 3 year old rotted "moss" from wood chips the city does trimming trees. He said he uses it for his flower beds and they grow like crazy in it. So I am heading back with a shovel and garbage bags. He also gave me 2 ornamental concrete pillars, perfect condition that someone threw out. I use to be a shop-a-holic...now I get excited about garbage! Go figure. My husband thinks I am a certified nut. If I ever get some steam...he'll see me doing the certified-nut-happy-dance in the back yard! Lord only knows what what the neighbors think.

Snickerfritzd...do you need a friend? My family thinks I've gone whacko, too. Please tell me you're in west Alabama.

Hi Penny. Yes, I need a garden/compost wacko friend! But I am in NorthEast Alabama, Arab. This is such an addiction! I will turn 40 this month...I do not feel 40. Prior to getting into gardening, I thought people that gardened were just little old grannys with wide brim straw hats. Well, my dad always gardened, too. Anyway, who knew it could be so gratifying to plan, plant and enjoy beautiful flowers. Now if I could just make dirt. I am so frustrated with my compost pile. And those dang lasagna beds...everyday I look out and think I need more of this and more of that. Spring is only 2 months away!!! I placed my rose order last night, I am so excited! But I need those darn beds to look bigger and fuller and ready for them. Anyway, if you are in Arab come on by for coffee. You can see my piles of stuff that is not quite dirt yet, but getting there. One fine day they will be gorgeous roses and perennials, my own little slice of heaven.

OOoh, are you up there near those Sand Mountain tomatoes????

You'll find it SO much fun when everything starts growing and remember, the "hunt" for organic materials will be even more fun!

I had let my beds go to rack and ruin over the last several years and last year decided enough was enough and was going to do lasagna gardening (it might have been around this time last year...gorgeous weather like we've had the last few days. I was driving by a bank where the landscape company had bagged up the old mulch and dirt to get ready to re-mulch and asked if I could have it. They thought I was nuts but I haven't stopped. I just can't wait for the grass to start getting cut around here!

Just pulled 25 bales of hay to the back yard that I'm going to layer on the beds today, ala Ruth Stout method, a precursor to lasagna gardening. (See if your library has any of her books, they are a HOOT!) I am also working on mixing up stuff for beneficial microorganisms from yogurt whey and molasses.

Roll Tide!

Here is a link that might be useful: Check out this Granny Gardener! :)

I am near Sand Mt. on Brindlee Mountain.
So you use mainly hay? I was worried about it going to seed. Do you get it from a farmer or a store? Checked out the link, thanks. I will have to get her book.
I am very interested in your yogurt/molasses recipe. I had planned on going to the feed store for dried molasses, alfalfa pellets and cornmeal. I have read the molasses speeds it all up, the cornmeal could possibly prevent blackspot on roses by increasing the beneficial bugs and ofcorse the alfalfa is suppose to be great for the roses. I have read so much that I'm not sure what does what at this point. So much information out there and so many different views on what is best! What I need is a truck to keep hauling it all into my yard! Anyway let me know about the yogart....haven't read anything about that yet. Anything to help all the good bugs along has got to be a good thing!

This is the joy of gardening only a gardner can appreciate along with gentle rains often and good dirt.

I miss the cold winters I used to live in. I was able to finish all kinds of indoor projects before I wanted to be outside forever.
Brass

Ya'll won't believe this....I got to do my happy dance in the backyard today. I got steam!!!! It still makes me grin from ear to ear just thinking about it. I had been turning my pile everyday this week since it has been so warm. And I am embarrassed to say, but I read a couple of days ago to heat a cold pile up, to "just Pee on it". My husband absolutely refused. Said I needed a straight jacket for even suggesting such a thing. Well, dangit, I was so jealous of Christine's steam, I peed in a throw away cup and added it to the pile several times. Guys, I kid you not, STEAM today. My husband can laugh all he wants...Urine is going to be a must have addition to my compost from now on. So how long after steam does it turn to good dirt? And do I keep adding my kitchen stuff? I am so pyched about the steam, I am going to build a 2nd compost pile/bin area in the very back of my yard and get another going to help out those lasagna beds in the spring. Any advice on how long to wait is much appreciated!

snickerfritzed - That is AWESOME! It is a totally gratifying feeling. I don't know the answers to your questions, but I will be excited with you... doing an honorary happy dance in my computer chair :) Congratulations!

~ Christine :)

snickerfritzed,
congrats!
compost to dirt? i think it has to go thru a worms digestive track first. not sure, but all ducks in a row, mine took about 2-3 months to be finished usable compost.
my husband did the same thing when i asked him to pee on it.
(it's not like he don't pee out side anyway)
I guess i'm a "whacko wanna be", I still can't add my own. or add dead animals or dog poop.
yes i'm a " wanna be" soo jealous. :)
in my whoosey defence it's a long walk from the bathroom to the compost piles.
keep tinkling girl. :)

i got my first steam today too.

What a feelin, goin to the dumpster today for more UCG.

ron

Way to go Ron! Steam on everyone!