Mixed together is always better and the pile will work faster. Having said that, I often layer when adding small amounts to the pile. Bucket of kitchen scraps, a double handful of leaves. Load of weeds and trimmings, some more leaves. When I turn the pile they will get mixed and compost eventually occurs. Ideally, total mixing from the beginning is the most efficient.

I would only mix fresh greens with new browns rather than mixing into the entire pile, though. Mostly because I'm lazy. Seems like a lot of work to stir up the entire pile whenever you add something.

I suggest to people that when they start a pile/bin they mix the materials and then cover with a layer of leaves. When they add the next time, the new material gets mixed into the previous cover layer and then covered again with leaves. Water may be necessary depending on several factors. Each time, the pile/bin is left with a carbon cover. This is predicated on new materials being mostly kitchen scraps which is the case for most people I am counselling.

Totally agree Lloyd. That top layer of high carbon materials reduces access to flying insects, keeps in odors by absorbing them, retains moisture, and looks nicer than yesterday's banana peels.

+1 with the top layer of leaves.

I do my pile in layers, using a water can to wet each layer as I build it. I will admit it takes a knack to build it that way but I can get it hot in a day or 2.

I don't turn my piles either. Once the pile is hot I make a hole in the center for any new kitchen scraps, again covering over the top with leaves.

While the pile is cooking I need to add water almost daily. This may not be the best way as it doesn't cook all the weed seeds on the perimeter of the pile, so I try to put anything with seeds in the hot center of the pile.

Once it begins to cool down I may turn the stuff from the outside in but then I may not. Depends on me and/or the weather.

Now for the reason - the reason I don't mix it all up in the beginning - besides being a lot of work is that mixing up so there are kitchen scraps scattered thruout the pile not only attracts rodents but insects which can be hard to get rid of.

As mentioned covering the top with a layer of leaves keeps the insects away.

I do have one bin made from hardware cloth that will exclude any rodents but I find it impossible to exclude insects.

Also you should have a way to cover a pile when it rains or that can slow it down or stop it completely. A tarp or an old shower curtain will work just make sure you have something to hold it in place.

yeah i always finish with a layer of brown (typically shredded oak leaves) and the bin is covered with a sheet of plywood.

lloyd, so you're saying when adding new stuff, mix with only the last carbon layer and not with the entire bin that is already heating up? by heating up, i mean just starting out as only 2-3 weeks into decomposition.

since the bin is half full, i'm wondering if i don't turn it and just keep adding to it (turning just the top half on occasion) would the lower half still decompose properly without being turned.

i suppose it's best to fill the entire bin in one shot, but since it's pretty large it's difficult to have the amount of greens needed to fill all at once.

You can make composting as labour intensive or as easy as suits you and your life style. If, like me, composting is a way of cutting down landfill, dealing with organic waste and nurturing the garden, but not a race or scientific exercise, you can just add whatever you have to the top of the bin. I don't mix it in and I don't worry about greens and browns. The gardening year and the kitchen provide them in due course. When the bin is full I forget it. Then I start filling the next bin. I have five bins at the allotment and one at home. By the time I get back to bin number 1 nature has done the composting for me. All the turning it gets is when I empty a bin to spread on the garden and refill it from the one alongside and so on down the line. This is low effort, zero expense, cold composting. It's slow (about 6 months) but it works for me.

floral, this is slightly (okay, completely) off subject, but I see yourself and other UK'ers (if you will lol) often refer to an 'allotment'. Here where I live, it usually refers to tobacco growing where years ago, through Government regulation, families garnered 'allotment rights' similar to mineral rights. They can produce so many acres of tobacco, and the allotments are meant to both secure a tobacco harvest, and control supply (for my own personal reasons I wouldn't participate in tobacco production, but it's an established part of the culture here.)

The tobacco allotments can be used, sold, or leased. However, and I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think if they are left fallow, one becomes in danger of losing the rights (although, since tobacco use is down somewhat, I think some have been bought back by whatever entity regulates tobacco production.)

Are allotments, as you speak of them, similar? Are they leased parcels? Are they near your home (even if they were separate acres, I suppose you could live near them)? Are they full lots, or like an amount of sq. footage as found in urban community gardens? Do they 'have to' be used for gardening/farming?

Thank you for your patience, I hope the OP doesn't mind this digression but I've long been curious.

"An allotment is an area of land, leased either from a private or local authority landlord, for the use of growing fruit and vegetables. In some cases this land will also be used for the growing of ornamental plants, and the keeping of hens, rabbits and bees. An allotment is traditionally measured in rods (perches or poles), an old measurement dating back to Anglo-Saxon times. 10 poles is the accepted size of an allotment, the equivalent of 250 square metres or about the size of a doubles tennis court." National Allotment Society

Allotments are what you would call community gardens. Mine is actually half size. It's 5 minutes walk from my house. I rent it from the local council and can keep it as long as I pay up each year. I've had mine about 24 years, I believe.

Beautiful, floral!

Since we're talking about filling compost bins: usually what I end up doing is filling an empty bin with a mix of leaves and grass clippings. I mix them on a tarp by flipping up each corner one at a time to flip and roll the pile. Works pretty good. I fill the bin and pile it up high. After a couple days it begins to sink. Over the next several months I add kitchen scraps and garden trimmings on top. At some point I will remove the bin and turn the top of that pile back into it as the basis for the next pile. Often there is finished compost beneath already. Last fall I dug into a full bin and it had sat long enough that the entire thing was compost with no turning required. Again the bottom half of that was made in a batch and layers added on top after that.

Usually I only bag grass a couple times in spring to get enough to compost up my fall leaves. I use that blend for garden mulching too, in late spring. Last weekend my neighbor offered me his grass clippings so I said 'sure, you know that tarp in my backyard? The one with the pile of leaves on it that I got from your yard last week? Dump em on that.' LOL I did offer him some compost, poor thing, he's just not bright enough to figure out how easy it would be to make it.

floral, i realized it doesn't have to be complicated and everything can just be tossed in and abandoned and let time run its course, but i like leaving a last layer of carbon because it cuts almost all smell entirely as previously mentioned.. not to mention it attracts a lot less bugs and things flying around the bin. i suppose i would like things to compost efficiently (quickly) hence my question about turning the entire bin when adding new stuff or leaving those older layers alone.. i'm just wondering if turning new stuff into the older hotter stuff would slow the process down of what is already being digested by the organisms, and can it end up making the pile go cold again until the newer stuff begins to break down.

Thank you for the description and the link floral. It offered some background for the history of the tobacco allotments we have here.

I especially like that it was developed around the idea of ensuring food for the less fortunate. Where I live, there are a lot of 'subdivisions'. I've always thought that it would be a good idea for the builder to establish a 'community area' (basically a park within every subdivision.) Especially so would the idea of allotment-type thinking be good for apartment, or condo developments.

With so many green spaces being developed, it would be nice if every area developed could have a community space for children to play, and neighbors to garden. Meh, but I often tend toward the idealist and will almost always be ignored in favor of the profit motive. "Quality of life? I'm just building the dwellings, I'm not going to live there." Anyway, sorry for the digression. Thanks again!

lloyd, so you're saying when adding new stuff, mix with only the last carbon layer and not with the entire bin that is already heating up?

That is correct steve. The stuff below the leaf layeris likely a decent C:N already. Adding kitchen waste to the layer of leaves will likely bring that up to a good C:N ratio as well. This is a basic backyard compost technique. Most people have to compost in their backyards so they do not want issues. Their compost is likely close to where the kids play or their neighbours property so anything negative gets magnified. Keep it simple but above all else avoid problems is my go to advice.

rgreen, I agree with you on public spaces. Unfortunately builders will not typically do it voluntarily as it doesn't translate into instant dollars on the bottom line like a few more houses would. Therefore it would typically require zoning regulations which are not that easy to enact - people start complaining about 'the cost of housing' and 'stifling growth' and competing against other towns on the cost of doing business. It's too bad people aren't more civic minded. Well, a lot of us are, just not the ones driving their Hummers to their construction sites.