my smoking pile

15 years ago

folks i just had to come in here and brag on myself. i dug down 4 feet into my pile and could barely see because of the steam. i got that booger a cooking. the city i live in are having a christmas program uptown tommorrow nite. the are gonna have horse drawn carriages. they needed someone to scoop up the manure and i got the job. besides getting some manure for my pile im gonna get payed 50 dollars for 3 hours work. lucky me i guess 2 kinds of green and i get to spend one of them. got my compost thermometer from ebay yesterday and ive had a ball using it. the center of pile was 155 degrees today. i also put in 2 more smokestacks to keep that boy chugging. i think after fridays manure haul im gonna be done with the pile and let her cook for 3 or 4 months. if you folks strike it lucky go to a neighborhood conveinence store with a 5 gallon bucket like i do and ask them to keep those ucg. they love doing it for me it means less work for them. well everyone have a great day. im gonna be a senior pooper scooper tommorrow nite. have a great one david goode

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Comments (10)

lynxe
15 years ago
Lucky you! I've got bags & bags of grounds in my pile, but nothing's happening. :(
bradley787
15 years ago
Congratulations on your new job and new bounty David! And congratulatins on gettin you steam arisin! Now, about your thermometer, I got one online and the stick part of it is only about 6 inches MAX. I need a longer one, is your's longer, can you provide more info. on that.

To Lynxe: The grounds are good, but you probably need some good dry crispy brown leaves. I just added a bunch of Starbuck's grinds and 4 inches of leaves yesterday, and by last night it was up to 140. I did spray the top with a little bit of water, (that's where I put the dried leaves, and left some beat up cardboard on top since the winds here yesterday were 20 mph.
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Ok, before anyone goes nuts and starts posting all the good and bad and everything in between, I've read all that! The question I have is can I add the poo NOW, or should I wait till I get more "browns" in this pile? I have 2 large dogs and DO plan on putting the poo in the pile (if the USDA thinks it's ok, then I can live with it)And I can't see saving all the other stuff from the landfills to just add other "crap" :) Vic Here is a link that might be useful: USDA Dog composting
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I agree with Lloyd that you should leave the leaves on the lawn. I have a slightly different situation, but the thinking is similar. Whatever the trees drop, either leaves or pine needles, gets left in the garden beds or raked off the lawn into the nearest garden bed. If I cut down perennials I leave the cuttings in place. My thought is why should I rake out and carry this organic material over to the compost pile, and then carry the finished compost back later? I also live in an area where winter snow cover is unreliable but fierce winter winds can be destructive, so all of this material is good mulch. That means I don't have as many leaves for the compost pile, so I do a lot of paper shredding for the browns. I don't have access to bagged leaves here - there's no curbside trash pickup and I think most people just dump the leaves over the coastal bank or into the woods. Claire
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Yesterday was such a GREAT day! The old pile....got very spread out, was exceedingly untidy; we added to it regularly throughout the year. Its bottom layers became perfectly fine compost. The process was easy, required no thought, and, with time, gave us beautiful crumbly stuff for the garden. With time....the two key words. But I've so many new beds a-makin' here that I want and need lots more compost than that method can produce. So with the new pile, I've been trying to do a better job of following the advice and info on this forum. I haven't measured, but I'm estimating this pile is about 5 - 6 feet long, about 3 - 4 feet wide and maybe 2 - 3 feet high. It's got several large bags of leaves, many bags of coffee grounds, many, many rotting pumpkins, compost bucket contents, shrimp shells, old cat food, shredded paper grocery bags & paper towel & toilet paper rolls, bags of tissues & paper towels & paper plates & paper cups, bags of biodegradable cat litter with cat urine, crumbled bark and broken pieces of twigs and small branches, broken-up stems from sunflowers and (ugh) cleomes, some old compost (not to mention the multi-gallon bucket of rotted fish). And I've laid thick sheets of newspapers and cardboard loosely on the top and sides.... I added large amounts of everything at a time. Very messy to keep piles of stuff lying around, but so worth it.... And turned it. Yesterday's late afternoon temps down in the 30s I think, but the middle of the pile was WARM! That completely made my day! So exciting that I think I'll celebrate by starting a new pile next to it! They can keep each other company LOL.
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lynxe
15 years ago
Thanks, Bradley, but I do have dried leaves. :(

And rotted pumpkins. And shredded paper. And compost bucket contents. And more coffee grounds. And some finished compost. And some grass clippings. And some shredded cardboard....:(((

You get the point. I'm thinking the pile just isn't big enough yet.

So I'm working on it!
luv_daises
15 years ago
Ok, I am fairly a newbie. What are smokestacks , and what are they made of? I guess they are for adding air to the center of pile?
Kimmsr
15 years ago
I would hope no one has a smoking compost pile since that indicates it is on fire, not good. A steaming compost pile is seen when water vapor condenses and the air is too saturated with moisture to accept more, hence the visible water vapor above the pile.
If you compost pile is less than 6 feet by 6 feet, luv daisies, there is no need for a "chimney or smoke stack" because air can infiltrate that material with no problem, unless the compost is too wet and if that is the case even a "chimney" won't help.
cowgirl2
15 years ago
... air can infiltrate that material with no problem ...

There is no evidence that this is true. There is evidence that passive aeration is inadequate for optimum composting conditions.

Please have a look under the Forced Aeration link on the left. In fact all the items in the Research section is worth reading.

It should also become apparent that a chimney in your compost pile may not work either.

Here is a link that might be useful: Research
takadi
15 years ago
I call your magic soil with a better website

Here is a link that might be useful: Research
Lloyd
15 years ago
Large compost bin with smokestacks.

Didn't work so good, never did it again.

Lloyd
Kimmsr
15 years ago
I've not seen anything from a good compostr research facility that shows an adjunct aeration, forced or passive, will do much of anything to spped up the digestion of the compost material. Back in the 1970's I tried a chimney in a 6 x 6 compost pile and found it did nothing to speed up the digetion and maybe in reality slowed that down because it caused the center of the pile where the bacteia would have been most acive to dry out.
If you turn your compost pile you will, provided you do not pour lots of water on the material, add some air (which contains about 21 percent oxygen) but most of that air will be squeezed out as the material settles. I do not tuen my current 4 x 4 x 4 compost piles and the bacteria work just fine in the center of the pile, even working some to the outrside edges and they convert the material into compost in about 9 months. Air infiltrates that material just fine with no adjunct anything required.
The only people I see really pushing the aeration concept are those with a product (usually way overpriced too) for sale.
takadi
15 years ago
Compost is great because the best compost comes out of the least effort involved, in my opinion

my smoking pile

Comments (10)

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