Themometer is not needed. Just keep fluffing it up.

I haven't used a compost thermometer nor am I a compost expert (more like a compost inept). However, I think you are on the right track for when you should move on to a new bin, Marj.

Back when I made compost as a regular course of events, I liked to finish a pile in early July. It could have all the additions and be capped off just before the weather was really hot and that kind of work, really uncomfortable. All the heat in the environment along with the internal heat, really got things cooking in the compost pile.

Steve

It is cool the first time getting a pile heated up. My last pile I managed to keep hot until early February I think that's when we got the big freeze.. My friends were amazed to see steam rising in January. My current pile never got much more than warm.

I also don't think you need a thermometer unless you possibly build a pile that gets too hot. If you've got money to burn then go for it.

One thing that I read that really makes sense to me is that composting is like cooking. Once you've figured out the recipe then you get how to do it.

If you're not careful, soon you'll turn into a compost wacko, collecting stuff like used coffee filters and banana peels from work, snatching apple cores from the waste baskets, haunting Starbucks for their coffee grounds and so on. A dangerous path.

Here is a link that might be useful: link to compost forum

I will continue by building one small compost pile this year. Mostly, the material will come from one of my neighbors who makes this strange commitment to compost each year. He has tons of what he calls compost!

It is almost entirely lawn clippings and pine needles. Appropriate choices but he does no more than pile them up. In fact, he invites a landscaper guy to dump lawn clippings in his yard where nothing is likely to be done with them for a number of years. They aren't even mixed into the pine needles which might even be left in plastic bags and tossed into the pile - I kid you not!

Anyway he is always pushing this "miracle material" (which is obviously in his way) and I'm willing to haul off several wheelbarrow loads. Remarkably, he has now tilled his garden and it does not appear that he will make use of a single fork-full of his own "compost" this spring! At the rate he is utilizing this material, I figure that he will have some of what is already piled up over there into the next decade!

What I carry off will be used to mulch the potato beds after allowing it another 12 months of composting. I don't add anything but soil but it gets good and fluffed up. Just doing this seems to take care of the bindweed seed that must be in it - yes, bindweed is robustly growing over some of the neighbor's bins!

My own compostables will continue to be buried under 8" or 10" of soil directly in the garden beds as they become available. I realized the other day that the nature of the soil here may be a primary reason why this seems to work so well for me.

Decomposition must be at least partly an anaerobic process when I do this. However, my garden soil has a great deal of gravel in it. In my imagination at least, around each rock is trapped some air. Layering clay over compostables may not be entirely successful but in my garden, all of the material will decay away uneventfully while doing a good deal to improve soil tilth and fertility.

Steve