twosevenright, sounds like an aviator to moi.

Your pile has likely been composting the whole time. It is not necessary to get heat and some prefer the cold compost method. Keep it moist, keep it aerated, and the mesophilic organisms will do just fine over time. I might consider starting a new pile to let your current one 'finish off'.

I let my heated compost cure for many months (sometimes up to a year) after the heat phase, I like the uniform finer look of compost that is well cured. Not every one does and to each his/her own.

Lloyd

mesophilic organisms

Lloyd

Leave mold is the product of cold composted leaves. The two main advantages to hot composting vs cold, is that hot composting is faster and does a better job of killing weed seeds and diseases. On the negative side, hot cold composting destroys many beneficial ectomycorrhizal fungi, which are really helpful for root systems of woody plants. My experience has been that if I chop things into smaller sized particles, they will heat up quickly, while larger sized particles tend to cold compost more slowly. For example if I mix raked leaves with grass clippings, they don't heat up much, but if I run the lawn mower over the leaves to chop them up into small pieces and mix them with grass clippings, they will heat up to over 150 degrees by the second day.

I find that coarse cold compost will last longer and work better as a mulch around plants and than hot compost with smaller sized particles. I collect lawn clippings with my bagging mower to put on my compost pile. When the leaves on my front yard trees fall off, I collect them with the bagging mower for composting. Whenever my neighbors put out bags of raked leaves to be picked up with the trash, I go out at night before bedtime and bring home all their bags of leaves to compost. As soon as the compost cools down, I'm ready to use it and don't wait for it to break down into small particles. I do give it time to heat up if it's going to and then cool down, so that the heat doesn't damage the roots of my plants. During that initial hot decomposition, nitrogen can get robbed from the plants as well.

For the past two autumns, I've used the bounty of fallen leaves to fill new raised beds. I fill the beds with several feet of leaves, which I dampen as I pile them up. If I've got any fresh lawn clippings I mix them with the leaves on the pile. Once I have a pile is about 6 feet tall, I top it off with a few inches of finished compost to inoculate the piles and hold them in place. These piles composted very slowly all winter and settled down to about 1 foot of leaf mold by spring when I was ready to plant in the beds.

For my herb bed, I add about an inch of compost mixed with equal part clay kitty litter. Walmart's Special Kitty Natural Litter is made from nothing but fired clay. At $2.50 for a 25 pound bag it's a great way to increase the soil's water retention. I sowed the herb seeds directly into the fine top layer. The herbs are growing like mad despite having a very hot and dry summer. In my tomato bed and peppers bed. I scooped holes big enough for the seedlings, and then filled around them with the same mixture I used on top of the herb beds.

Last year I put seedlings directly in the coarse compost/leaf mold and found that it had too many voids, which gave the seedlings a little bit of a slow start. By giving the seedlings and herb seeds a less coarse medium in which to get started, they took off a lot faster. Withing 2 weeks they had a good root system started and their roots extended well into the coarse leaf mold without any problems.

I can hardly wait for fall because I'm planning to prepare another raised bed in the same manner for strawberries. My raised beds are 6 and 8 foot snap set kiddie pools that I bought on sale after labor day. Last fall I found them on clearance at WallMart for $5 each. They hold up great, are the perfect size, and could not be easier to assemble. I cut a big hold out of the center to permit drainage, but leave about 1 foot of the bottom around the edge to hold the sides down. Cedar lumber to build similar sized raised beds, would have easily cost $100 per bed. My soil is heavy red clay so I wanted to plant in raised beds with better soil. Using the decomposed leaves has saved me a great deal of money that bagged soil and/or amendments would have cost. They are in my fenced backyard, so I've not had any complaints from neighbors. I give them all the tomatoes they want as well, which helps insure no complaints about the aesthetics.

I realized afterwards, they I could have turned the pools wrong side out, so they would have been pale blue without the fish pictures on the sides. As the leaves have decomposed this summer, they have settled down some. so this winter I plan to add more leaves to compensate. While I'm working on the beds this winter, I may turn them inside out. My wife says they look odd and has feared our landlord or neighbors might complain, but I actually think they're cute and may miss my fishes on the sides.

Since the picture below was taken at the first of July, they vines are covered with tomatoes and have grown another 3 feet. Here's a picture of what cold compost can do.

{{gwi:2100670}}

twoseven - are your piles drying out? You could try adding some used coffee grounds to heat up if you want to get the clumps broken faster, and keep the piles damp.

I usually keep one pile for stuff that breaks down slowly - woody plant material like branches and spent vegetable plants. I let it sit for a year or so before adding it to a new compost pile in which it will take another year or so to complete the process. It takes a while and so it's good to have lots of piles.

Mustard_Seeds - I'm in Winona. Not too far from Onalaska, but on the wrong side of the river - :)

I'd suggest you read a number of things before deciding what you wish to do next. Look at your ingredients, compost needs, area available for bins, and the amount of patience you have.

Changing from a bin system to a barrel system will not provide any advantage for someone who does not understand the basics:
Bin size min.
material mix or c:n ratio
air and water needs
particle size (i.e. smaller is better)

The faster you want to make compost, the better you must understand the process; with more effort required. Your patience level will guide you to the right kind of composting - fast or hot, slow or cold, or something in between.

gtippitt,
what an interesting idea with the kiddie pool. I do a lot of composting, both hot and cold, and have 22 raised rectangular beds. You can bet I'm now going to give your idea a try this fall. Thanks

Adding some red worms to a cold compost heap will break it down into finer particles faster. Provided, of course, worms haven't already found your compost. They are avalable in many nurseries, by mail, or your neighborhood manure pile should you be lucky enough to be near one.

Thanks for the advice and suggestions. Obviously, there's a lot more to it than dumping it in a pile and leaving it. I suspect that my pile has been left to dry out as the only moisture it gets is from the rain that reaches it. I will do the prescribed reading.

Lloyd, that's close. I drive freighters for UPS. "Two Seven Right" is the primary landing runway for PHL, a much too frequent stop for me.

If you're ever over flying Manitoba, Northwest Ontario or Saskatchewan, give Winnipeg Radio a call (freqs in the flight supps) and see if I'm on duty. We can talk compost, the guys will get a kick out of it.

:-)

Lloyd

27R: The simple answer that comes to mind from reading your post: Sounds like you had too many browns (pine needles and leaves) in that pile for full decomposition, and the greens (grass) ran out before it was done, leaving the rest to slowly decompose. As others have said, putting that into a tumbler will not change that. You can let it slowly finish on its own, OR mix in thoroughly some greens: kitchen waste, fresh manure, grass clippings, coffee grounds. You will have compost either way, sooner or later. :-]

Using your advice, I've been adding as much kitchen waste, old refrigerator leftovers, greens, stuff like that. I'm happy to say that when I opened the door to the barrel this morning, it was steaming hot. Now, I cleaned out the pantry of some old flour, cereal, bread, stale cookies, and added that to the barrel. That stuff created quite a funk It's a good thing my barrel is located a good distance from the house. I don't know why that stuff would cause it, but it stinks!

You may have swung a little to the too N side (too many greens) of the pendulum. ;^)

Once you got it hot, that's the sign that the mixture is right. If you keep adding greens, you are going to go the other way. 30:1 C:N ratio is the standard.

A higher ratio 40:1, 50:1 is too brown and will slowly break down, but no stink, also no heat. A lower ratio 20:1, 15:1 is too green and may cause a stink, especially if it mats down and there isn't enough air flow. The bin has gone anaerobic and that's the stink. (good news: it is composting - bad news: the wrong bacteria are doing the work)

To help, add some coarsely shredded corrugated cardboard (which has 'air vents' built in) or some straw if you have it. Mix that in the bin to the point that it is evenly distributed. This will help to put the bin back into balance, and will allow for more air flow through the "pile". That should eliminate the odor rather quickly.

When it heats up again, just turn the bin every day or two to keep the oxygen levels up, and check the moisture level - not too wet, not too dry. DON'T add to the bin. Barrels like that need to be done more in batches than a continual addition process. Once this is finished, empty the bin, let it cure in a new location, and start a new batch.