Read, read, read, especially from this forum. There's a huge wealth of information here for you.

Rosie

Welcome aboard. There's a plethora of information about composting and you can easily find yourself inundated with all kinds of techniques and conditions that apply. Stick to the basics, spend the time and compost will happen without a whole lot of input on your part. Hot composting is wonderful if you have a large amount of matching material handy, most of us don't. Cold composting, frowned on by some, is easiest yet quite timely. Weed seeds aren't killed and worms tend to eat it right down to almost nothing. Oh, but the power. When the worms are done you're left with the blackest, richest plant food available. Experiment, find out how easy it is, check the net, get into it. Most rewarding.

Perhaps this link will be of some help.

Here is a link that might be useful: Composting Tutorial

thank you everyone!

Read the FAQs for this forum.

Read a number of short compost articles. Do not believe all the stuff in them. Try a cheap DIY setup before you buy some gizmo that some retailer wants to sell you. Lots of folks on this forum will be glad to tell you why they love the way they compost. But that is not necessarily the best way YOU should make compost.

Some considerations:

Your local laws and restrictions.
Size of your yard and how well you get along with neighbors
Materials available in your yard, neighbors, local sources, etc
Your patience level, or lack of same
Your natural inclination for DIY, or preference to go buy stuff
Desire to spend money, or not to
How well you want a composting system to blend into yard

Are you sure you want to start? Because once you start there is no going back. you will be an addict and start doing strange things like bring banana peels home from friends houses or go to stores and ask for their trash (UCG's). As soon as you get your first batch done you will be hooked, pretty amazing process!

I'm also a noob to the composting thing, although I've already started. I live in New Hampshire. Have a fair size lawn (1/3 acre or so of lawn, takes a good two hours to mow) and more than my fair share of oak and maple leafs every fall.

For the last several years I've been piling the leafs in a particular spot. Last year I started a pile mixing these old leafs with fresh grass clippings. We also added kitchen vegi/fruit scraps from the kitchen along with coffee grounds. So far so good. During the summer/fall months there was noticeable heat coming out of the pile while turning it.

My question/concern is that many of leafs are whole and don't seem be decomposing (granted I haven't turned the pile in over a month (being March, its partially frozen and until recently covered with snow). Is it advisable to run the compost through some sort of shredder at this point, if yes any special considerations regarding what type of shredder to use? Also, those compost tumbling bins - are those worth the $ and would it be advisable to batch my pile through one of those to finish it off?

From what I've heard... the compost tumblers mostly aren't big enough to get a real hot compost going. You need a pretty big pile to do hot compost because the surface doesn't heat up that much, only the core. Now if you have a really big compost tumbler, that is different.

And if you're doing worm compost, you'll make your worms dizzy!

One tip for those new to composting is - keep that pile moist. Bacteria, fungi and worms all need water to do their thing.

Humin: Probably no need to shred. When the pile thaws out in spring, turn it as soon as you can. Most likely, by planting time - April, May and June depending on where you are - there will be finished compost. Anything not finished, like clumps of leaves, you can toss back into the next pile.

Very finely shredded leaves break down the quickest. My shredder (when working) shreds very small, maybe 1/16 or 1/8". Other shredders often don't shred that finely. But a Good shredder will often offer the capacity to use different output screens, for different size wishes.

Running the lawn mower over the leaves three times still leaves the leaves too big for optimal hot composting. When I mix my shredder shredded leaves with the right grass mixture, the core temp can reach 160F in three days. It still takes three to six months for me to feel comfortable using the compost. Forget the 14-day advertising stuff.

I found an almost new Troy Built chipper/shredder on craigslist for a reasonable price. Not sure how fine it will shred, but I could see it taking a long time to compost the leafs that have been in the compost pile since last July. Last time I turned the pile the leafs didn't seem to have decomposed much. The leafs were black and covered with a gray mold/mildew, but still very much intact.

Or maybe my expectations are wrong? I'm expecting a loam like end product.

Larsgardener
You sure hit the nail on the head in your addicted statement.
I been tossing stuff in a pile for more years than I care to count,
I knew it would turn to compost, however never realizing till recently how compost would turn my world around.
Square foot gardening...I now have two, 4ft square compost piles, along with a tumbler, and looking for more..
Everything I look at now I'm wondering if it can be composted...LOL...
I suppose I am now hooked...

Welcome! Composting is one of the smarter things to do.

@humin, it does take a while for those leaves to completely decompose (unless you provide excellent conditions which I am no where versed) but I find they are highly beneficial "as is" with that mold on them.