You could inocculate each pile with redworms. An easy way to do this is to make a well in the middle and drop in a shovel full of horse manure. But chances are you have some worms in there already and just need to wait.
Sounds like you've put lots of energy into those piles. I'd let 'the microherd' - bacteria and fungi, plus compost worms and Time finish the work.

If it stayed hot for a month and a half and has since turned cold, it has probably pretty much stopped composting.

I think you have three choices:

• Use it as is.

• Add more greens to heat it back up and/or get rid of all the leaves.

• Screen it, use the finished stuff, and add the unfinished stuff back to compost further.

There may be other options for you, and others will be sure to chime in with their thoughts.

I don't worry too much if my compost has small amounts of uncomposted material in it unless it's something like shredded paper and I'm planning to use it on my lawn. In that case, I screen it and add the uncomposted stuff back to the compost.

With your pile being so large and holding heat for the time you have stated means you made a good pile. Compost can only retain heat for so long then the pile is finished by bacteria called azobacteria. As Paulns said, they will cure the pile for you. As Bpgreen said, you can use any of the suggestions given, although adding more greens will mean starting all over again to compost the oak leaves down. Depending on how many leaves you are talking about it may be best to just screen them out and add them to your next pile.

There is a great online book about composting by Steve Solomon that I have used with great results. If you have time you may want to take a look at it. The situation you are questioning is found in Chapter Nine. Sounds like you are doing great to me...

Blutranes

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Gardener's Composting

I think the reason your pile stayed hot so long is because of the alfalfa pellets. Personally, I don't add anything to mine that I have to buy. Use grass clippings or kitchen waste products in your compost. And just because it isn't hot doesn't mean it isn't breaking down anymore. It will still compost a lot more, it doesn't have to be hot to break down. The worms and sowbugs will do the rest of the digesting.

You can build a small sifter with 2x4's and 1/2" hardware cloth to a dimension to stand over your wheelbarrow for convenient sifting. Just toss shovelfuls of compost into the sifter and shake or rub it through the hardware cloth into the barrow. Anything that won't go through the 1/2" cloth can be returned to the bins for additional composting.

Just remember that composting normally doesn't happen quickly. In nature it takes about a year for organic matter to break down into parts small enough to be taken up by plants. So be patient, time is on your side, it will break down eventually and you'll still be there waiting. One way to keep your pile actively cooking is to keep it moist and turn it every week. That keeps the air in your pile and allows the bacteria to grow and breathe. Cheryl

Here are plans for a sifter like the one Cheryl mentions.

I opted for the finer hardware cloth for mine, largely because I want to make sure I catch most of the uncomposted shredded paper.

Thanks all for the input. Blu, I had read Solomans book some time ago but in trying to figure all this out I had forgotten about having redworms finish the compost. I have three thriving worm bins going that I just added some of that batch of compost to. This may be off topic but if anyone knows about this it would help. Should the unfinished be used as a feedstock or as bedding
paulns, I think it may be getting too cold now for the worms. I suppose I could put a few in and see what happens. It rarely freezes here but the temps are below ideal range for redworms. What do you think?
Tim

Thanks for the ideas for a soil sifter. I was going to make one out of other materials but sizing it to the wheelbarrow makes more sense. The frame could be made of 2x6 or even 2x8 to add height, notched to stick to the wheelbarrow for stability, and 1.5" by 3/8" rips screwed to the frame to capture the hardwarecloth would add strength.

Tim, we've had night-time temps dipping as low as 28F (-2C) a few times here the past two weeks and daytime temps sometimes not much higher. Yesterday I dug into one of the pallet bin piles we'd put a lot of horse manure in, and there were fat redworms squirming around in there, mainly in clumps of manure, a few inches beneath the surface. I've also found live redworms under a couple of inches of frosty compost mulch in the garden in December. So they're tough buggers. If it rarely freezes there I don't see why you wouldn't have worm activity (and general composting activity) all winter, since they can burrow down deep in the pile. Lucky you!

blutranes, that was quite the read. Thanks. Was fascinated by the query of "too much compost a good thing?" in the later chapters. Started to make me uncomfortable, and got me thinking how I might have ruined my garden this year!

Happyday--If you plan to shake the screener by hand, I think it would be awfully tough to hold on to 2x6 or 2x8 boards. The picture looks like they used 1x4s for the lengths and 2x4s for the crosspieces. I think I used 1x3s all the way around. If I remember correctly, I chose the size by grabbing them and seeing how they fit in my hands.

The way I use it is to put a shovelful of compost in it on a spot in the lawn, pick it up, shake it around and toss the remains back in the bin. It can get heavy pretty quickly used that way. I'd think resting it on the wheelbarrow would trade one pain for another, since that would be hard on the back.

Interesting, I use a flat piece of wood like a spatula to rub the soil back and forth and dont pick it up at all. I suggested taller sides because I prefer to load several shovelfuls at once.

It would be possible to cut the handles down and round them off so as to fit into hands, and even to use much lighter 1 by material, or make the sides of plastic material, if the user would need to lift the unit. There are many possible variations.

"There are many possible variations."

Sure are, like using old paneling for the sides, even lighter and easy to replace. Did anyone think wheels or rollers on one end? The possibilities are endless...

Blutranes

Yep, panelling would work, or plywood, and if you must pick it up, you could cut handle notches or attach drawer handles with screws. Or 4 legs could be attached so it stands by itself.

Put some kind of portable tracks on the sides of the wheelbarrow, wheels on the bottom of the box and roll that sucker back and forth on the tracks. We are too old to be holding up things for very long over here...

Blutranes

blutranes,yesterday afternoon I put some of the compost in two of the bins. I just checked them and the worms seem to be loving it. They normally stay below the surface of the paper bedding, when I opened the lids I saw the worms all through the compost on the surface. The only time I have seen a response like this before is for pumpkin, amazing!
paulns, how would you go about introducing the redworms to the bin? Its going to be cool and rainy today and night time temps in the thirty's. The compost is covered with a tarp so I don't think they would drown or anything, I have just grown fond of the little guys and dont want to loose any. You think I should just lay them on the top af the compost?

Sorry paulns,
I see having re-read your original post that you did discribe how to introduce the worms, and as it happens I just aquired a little horse manure. Thanks again, Tim

Tumblenes

"Started to make me uncomfortable, and got me thinking how I might have ruined my garden this year!"

There is no way you can ruin what we are doing unless you work really really hard. The plants will know what to do, all you have to do is make sure they have everything they need. Your concern is just a reflection of just how good a job you will do next year IMO...

Blutranes

well, this fall I added 2 wheel barrows loads of compost per 3'x12' row, top off with shredded leaves and spoiled hay over that. compost was I estimated 3/4 finished.
That seems to be hard work. Here is the quote I was refering to (chapter 8):

" The average soils in our region test moderately- to strongly acid; are low in nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, and magnesium; quite adequate in potassium; and have 3-4 percent organic matter. Mr. Organic's soil test showed an organic matter content of 15 to 20 percent with more than adequate nitrogen and a pH of 7.2. However there was virtually no phosphorus, calcium or magnesium and four times the amount of potassium that any farm agent would ever recommend. On the bottom of the test, always written in red ink, underlined, with three exclamation points, "No more wood ashes for five years!!!" Because so many people in the Maritime northwest heat with firewood, the soil tester had mistakenly assumed that the soil became alkaline and developed such a potassium imbalance from heavy applications of wood ashes.

This puzzled gardener couldn't grasp two things about his soil test report. One, he did not use wood ashes and had no wood stove and two, although he had been "building up his soil for six or seven years," the garden did not grow as well as he had imagined it would. Perhaps you see why this questioner was always a man. Mr. Organic owned a pickup and loved to haul organic matter and to make and spread compost. His soil was full of worms and had a remarkably high humus level but still did not grow great crops.

It was actually worse than he understood. Plants uptake as much potassium as there is available in the soil, and concentrate that potassium in their top growth. So when vegetation is hauled in and composted or when animal manure is imported, large quantities of potassium come along with them. As will be explained shortly, vegetation from forested regions like western Oregon is even more potassium-rich and contains less of other vital nutrients than vegetation from other areas. By covering his soil several inches thick with manure and compost every year he had totally saturated the earth with potassium. Its cation exchange capacity or in non-technical language, the soil's ability to hold other nutrients had been overwhelmed with potassium and all phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, and other nutrients had largely been washed away by rain. It was even worse than that! The nutritional quality of the vegetables grown on that superhumusy soil was very, very low and would have been far higher had he used tiny amounts of compost and, horror of all horrors, chemical fertilizer."

I knew exactly what you were talking about. There are two things you are not taking into consideration:

"One, he did not use wood ashes and had no wood stove and two, although he had been "building up his soil for six or seven years," the garden did not grow as well as he had imagined it would."

and

"As will be explained shortly, vegetation from forested regions like western Oregon is even more potassium-rich and contains less of other vital nutrients than vegetation from other areas."

Now you have to ask yourself a couple of questions...

1. Have you been hauling in organic matter and piling it up on your soil for "six or seven years"?
2. Do you live in Oregon?

Do you see where I am going with this? Like I said, you are doing fine IMO...

Blutranes

Just curious,
How did we get from the original topic to blutranes and tumblenes topic about potassium buildup in soil. I'm new to posting but I have been reading these forums for a while and I wonder if another topic has meandered here. Maybe this has something to do with my question and I'm missing it.
Tim

timshaw, blame blutranes...i read his link. I have been using 1/2 finished compost to my gardens (600 sq ft) this fall, about 4" to 6" in depth. I have been adding compost to a much lesser extent in previous years, before that, horse manure. Possibly you feel that your compost is also 1/2 finished, as the leaves are not completly digested. To spread or not to spread, that is the question. here is what I might do: spread the 2 bins this fall (cover with hay or chopped leaves.) This will also free up 2 bins to start new piles.

The 3rd pile, remix and add more coffee & see if you can get it hot again, this may bring you to a more finished state: use it to side dress next spring.

Hi Tim

Sorry you haven't gotten many answers to your questions. In my composting, once I can't sustain high temps, I move the stuff to a curing bin. I don't try to regenerate heat by adding more material. I use my tumbler as a batch composter and want to make as many batches in a summer as I can. I only got 8 done this year. :-(

What you do will depend mostly on what you intend to use the compost for. I like to let mine continue to decompose until it's so fine I don't have to sift it. But that's me. As a note, I generally don't use the compost I make, so far, I tend to give most of it away. How sad is that?

I guess I really don't have an answer for you, sorry.

Lloyd

Here is a link that might be useful: Curing Bin

Well there you go Tim, what is your optimal strategy here? Spread or no spreadÂdoes the lack of soil organics dictate the course of action here? Is it so important in the fall-winter to completely finish the compost? Import any time? For me now, the garden seems like a fine holding bin for me. Or is it that I am too impatient?
You might be asking yourself, whatÂs the difference?

BTW I will employ Lloyd's techniques next year (I use a tumbler as well), after I gorge the garden with partially finish compost first. Anyway, presently I am using my holding bins to produce mulch (leaf mold).

have I made amends for meandering?

If your compost worked for several weeks and has stopped with undigested material either there is not enough Nitrogen to feed the bacteria that do the digesting or there is insufficient moisture in the mix. The only reason composting stops with undigested material is because the bacteria run out of a protein (Nitrogen)source.

Composting hasn't stopped. Hot composting has stopped. If you're in a rush- then do all the "add greens/moisture" type things. If you're not using it til late spring/early fall anyway- then leave it.

I've been growing in 80% compost and 1/2 finished compost for a few years in the same spot, and the production gets better every year.

Along the lines of what you ask about, instead of three or four individual bins, I have one composting area that is about 16 ft wide with the front open. I had started a small pile using scarce browns that I had available like some left over hay and straw, which I shredded and a few leaves. To that I shredded up all the garden waste which was green plant material and had a place to empty my kitchen scrap bucket two or three times per week. It has been heating and composting but things picked up when my sis in law brought me some green horse manure mixed with thin wood shavings and alfalfa hay bits on thanksgiving day. I set about half of it aside in another location, filled my hotbed / coldframe to refuel it and put a couple of muck bucets of it on my compost pile. A few days later we got some freezing precip, sleet and a little snow along with cold weather. I went by and dug a little hole in the compost pile to see if it was {{gwi:315922}} and found that it was, but far from being digested as far as the harder, more solid materials go.

Much of my abundance of oak leaves have fallen so I have started in earnest to shred them and have also resumed my raids on our supermarket dumpster for compostable greens.
{{gwi:319348}} I have layered 4 big boxes of all kinds of fruits and veggies on top of my compost pile after running my {{gwi:259064}} in the pile to grind and mix it up a little.

Then {{gwi:319349}} I have covered the produce up with more shredded oak leaves.

With the recent precipitation, the pile had just about the right moisture content, so no additional watering was needed. I will repeat this process a few times as I finish gathering and shredding most all of my leaves over the next couple of weeks, then run my tiller in the pile another time or two before having finished compost about like on the left to spread on my garden like {{gwi:73009}} by mid to late January.
That is my plan.
Bill P.