I keep two 'leaf' piles going- one I add leaves to and the second, older one I remove compost from.

My cold composting- no turning or green material- takes at least two seasons to be ready for use. And for it all to properly finish you need to stop adding stuff at some point. I don't cover anything ever- it needs moisture, so if you do choose to cover it use something water permeable.

We used simple pound in t-posts and farm fencing to delineate our pile areas. It keeps them neater and you can pile more leaves in more deeply with no danger of a stray kid or dog running through it.

Alternating layers of greens and browns works well.

It looks dry---is it? Should be damp like a rung out sponge. Grass clippings, or leaves and such from non-diseased garden plants works, too. I actually build mine with sticks and branches. Seems to help with aeration. Periodically, I will pull them up and twist them around. I then 'fluff and mix it all back on top of here and there layers of sticks. Seems to work for me.

I add a lot of grass clippings, and kitchen fruits, veggies, and coffee grounds to mine. I don't have access to chicken manure anymore, so use bagged manure and some of my finished compost added to the pile.

@gawdinfever Z6 Hi There, you seem to be saying aeration is good and helpful to mix it all up once in a while. So it would be good that once in a while I just shovel everything over, put the bottom on the top? I like the exercise. Until now I thought the opposite: that it needs to stay covered and untouched a long time for it for decay faster.

If that were my pile I would make an enclosure for it, such as a cylinder of wire netting, and load it all into it. That way it would be neater and an even thickness, not lower at the sides where it can dry out. Then I’d make another identical enclosure and start a new heap. If you keep adding to the first heap it’ll never get a chance to fully decay. You can either leave the first pile completely alone or stir it up, as you wish.

As for covering it, in a dry climate that could be helpful as long as you wet the pile before you cover it.

When I first started composting, I used three bins. I found it a pita to turn and move piles. I have a huge backyard space now, so use use the open piles method as you do. When I turn my piles now, I rake all the outside to the inside. Then I turn everything with a fork.

When my partner and I are feeling up to it, we both use rakes to spread the pile low. He rakes one way and I'll rake the opposite until it's all mixed. After doing that awhile, we pile it back up placing just a few sticks and branches every so often for aeration every foot high or so. Our piles are usually about 5 to 6 feet tall at the peaks.

We usually have two or three large piles at one time. One pile is always 'almost finished' that we let finish off by cold composting. It doesn't get turned very often. Mostly, just enough to keep the outer edges from drying out. We live in an area that we get plenty of rain, so very rarely have to worry about anything drying out too often.

In the early stages of composting, we even tried the cylinder netting method. It was ok, but we just prefer the open method now. Do what works for you, considering how much space and time you have!

Turning the compost pile/aeration makes it decompose faster than just letting it sit. It will still decompose without turning/shovelling it over , but takes longer. Turning/shovelling the compost pile generates heat, which kills weed seeds.. If you don’t turn it, it does not generate heat (cold composting) so does not kill weed seeds. I only turn mine once a year when I am shovelling it into a different bin, so I am very careful about what I put in my compost in terms of weeds. This is my understanding of it, however I am just a very basic/non technical composter person

Not quite right. Turning doesn't generate heat; it distributes it. It's the addition of nitrogenous materials---your greens---that create heat. And cold piles can heat up initially. It's just not sustained without more management.

@floral_uk z.8/9 SW UK Hi there, I like your idea of making two enclosures out of wire fencing and keep adding stuff from the open top. But can you tell me how to get the decomposed material from the underneath? I mean the bottom is going to decompose first. Seems necessary that I should build it so I am able to open one side of each enclosures to get the stuff underneath (or turn it over if I want to put in the effort). Perhaps even a short door in the bottom so when I open the entire pile does not spill out. what do you think?

Alex, you don’t need to remove anything from underneath until the whole pile, more or less, has rotted. You fill no. 1 and leave it. Then you fill no. 2. By the time no. 2 is full no. 1 should be pretty much done. You just lift the fencing off. It’s even better if you can make 3 bins. If you don’t want to use wire mesh you can use pallets and leave the front open.

No plastic required. Also, no greens are "required", but you can add them if you want to. The goal is not for the pile to get hot - quite the opposite. Leaves are best cold composted over a period of about 2 years to form Leaf Mold - a wonderfully rich and crumbly black addition to the soil. For hundreds of years this was the key ingredient for traditional French vegetable gardens. You can make it go faster and a bit more evenly by turning the pile every 6 months or so. Other than that - leave it open for the rain and the earthworms - who will think they have died and gone to heaven once they find it.

This is my wire bin. I lift it off quite easily. I used to have lovely wooden bins with three sides and removable, sliding, boards on the front, but these work better for me, and don't rot, so are very long lasting.

I do both hot and cold composting and think there's a place for both in the gardening world. I always keep a leaf bin going, but I love actively making compost.

@annpat Hi, that black stuff that looks like dirt is the result of your compost? I've never been able to get anything like that. That's just from leaf and sticks and greens?

Typically, my compost is chunkier; this particular pile was the composted clean-out from my chicken house with layers of pumpkins, grass clippings, etc. added to try to get the wood shavings cooking. I'm harvesting all my last year's piles right now and my regular piles are black, chunkier and writhing with red wrigglers. My leaf mould pile got invaded by roots for the first time and looks more like peat than leaf mould.

I avoid deliberately adding sticks only because they take so long to break down. I keep a "wild pile" in the woods for thorny stuff, twigs, branches and really unrelenting weeds.

I don't know if you can see the compost I spread last week in this picture. It's more typical. The fresh leaves got blown into it.

@annapat You have a lot of good stuff to add to your compost, like stuff from your chicken house. I am thinking chicken waste is a powerful fertilizer that helps break down everything else. I am envious. I am working on doing your chicken wire design. thank you.

You have a nice pile of leaves there yourself.

My last chicken died last fall, and I'm permanently retired from poultry. As much as I miss the fresh-from-the-back-of-the-chicken eggs, I am really grieving the end of my manure stash. I was lucky to learn about a neat method of chicken manure management when I started with chickens, using a deep litter method. I filled the chicken houses annually or twice annually with shavings, leaves and straw to a depth of about 12 inches. I'd throw in some pumpkins, pears, apples, fresh leftover lobster shells, seaweed, etc. and the chickens would flip and work the litter to the extent it would start composting with the addition of their own manure. It's a brilliant method, and I would get about 15-20 loads of almost fully composted, rich, litter annually. I would often compost it further, using it as a layer in my compost bins. The manure in that photograph was my last.

I make lots of good compost every year, though, with only three ingredients---leaves, grass clippings and pumpkins. You can make a lovely, fluffy product with nothing but grass and leaves, or just leaves.

(Not chicken wire---hardware cloth. Chicken wire is too flimsy and will need stakes, which are a pain. I bought a roll of hardware cloth 20 years ago and split the roll with a like-minded friend.

@annpat Hello,I just wanted to show you a couple of compost things I made, acting on your information.

I am thinking of getting chicken manure from Home Depot and add it to the pile. What do you think? My thinking is that manure will help it break down faster.

Also should I be adding water as I add layers? Very dry here in LA and maybe that's why it takes forever to break down.

This may not be in your comfort zone, but you yourself produce a free source of nitrogen that would speed the process along. Another free source of nitrogen are coffee grounds from Starbucks. You would just go in and say, "I understand that you have coffee grounds for gardeners."

Yes, if you're in a dry climate, water additions will help. Here, my cooking water and leftover coffee and rain are sufficient. I once lined the bin with cardboard pieces which helped with moisture.

I hope you like your new setup. I think you will. It looks great to me.

What's in it so far besides leaves?

Richard Brennan, the benefit of having a hot compost pile is that's what's needed to kill weed seeds. Greens or other nitrogen sources are needed for regular compost, that is a mixture of different plant materials. Leaf mold is great too, and it's made like you say, cold and long, and using just leaves, but leaf mold isn't compost, just very similar. Alex Taf, I think regularly turning and wetting the pile and keeping the nitrogen/carbon ratio correct would do more good than covering the pile with plastic.

@annpat thanks for your comments. I am grateful for your inspiration.

I put in everything organic I can think of. Green and dead leaves mostly. Sticks. Coffee grinds, fruit leftovers, lemon and orange peels, egg shells, paper towels. I wet it down on occasion. It's very dry here in LA. We haven't rain for a long time.

My wife resists putting in anything edible. She thinks it attracts mice. But mice don't eat fruit. What is your opinion?

I am going to Starbucks per your recommendation.

What do you think about adding chicken manure bought from Home Depot? I figure it would help break things down.

I just posted this about composting succulents: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6201653/would-succulents-like-aloe-do-well-in-a-compost

I hate to see you spend money on materials, but yes, it would heat it up, I think. Don't let Starbucks discourage you---I don't think they will; they advertise about their "green-ness". I find it helps if I stand aside and wait until they ask if they can help me. Then I say, "I'm a gardener. I wonder if this is a good time to get some grounds." I say that, because often they have a trash can ready to be emptied. Warning: I never get glass or trash in my Starbucks grounds, but some people have.

I don't know about mice. I've never really seen them in my piles, but they're definitely around---building straw nests in plant pots in my shed, and they filled a empty bee hive, stored in my old chicken house, with insulation. Water makes an inhospitable environment for them. I think people attempt to discourage them by keeping the pile damp. You can make nice compost using just the feedstock that your wife is comfortable with---or you could mention old_dirt's blue gills, which might make some fruit additions seem like a happy compromise. Pumpkins can generate a lot of heat, but squirrels like them, so they'd probably attract mice.

I once read that yarrow was a compost accelerator. My compost pile is just where I put stuff that doesn't have to go to the landfill, so I have some piles that don't heat up, but they still produce compost in a year. My leaf piles take longer, but are well worth the wait.

I really, really like to make compost, so I'm willing to be a little more eccentric than most people. Your kitchen sink gray water is a source of water that could be captured and put on your pile, if you don't mind slopping water through the house.

@annapat I love your passion. Dragging gray water. Wife would kill me so I could not do it. She's a clean freak. thanks for all the explanations. You really inspired me. I keep tending to the compost pile, adding several times a day. It's addictive.

@annapat One more thing: tonight pulled apart some of the top to bury some kitchen scrap and noticed it is warm. This is the very first time I notice heat in any of my compost. What's different this time is that I've been putting a pot filled with rocks on the top to help compact it (to make room for an avalanche of fall leaves that yard will generate soon). So could PRESSURE also be an ingredient that helps decomposition?

I don't know. (Anyone else?) So, you don't think the heat is being generated from your compost additions?

I didn't notice heat before when I just piled up leaves. Or maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention.

I doubt it would have been the pressure itself - but possibly the pot and the pressure contributed to more heat retention (like insulation with tighter cells keeping heat in better). Composting always creates some heat, but to 'heat up' properly speaking the heat generated has to be held in faster than it's escaping. (Leading to the second effect, that the heat rises enough to be better for heat-loving microbes, who generate even more heat, etc).

But it could also have been just a combination of the stuff you added and the conditions getting just right to start the process into a heating cycle, or critical mass.

So the pot might have helped - but in longer term I think putting random stuff on top to 'pressure' it is more likely to be a bit negative because of lack of air in there. it might have helped a bit but probably not worth pursuing as a strategy. The same old basic rules of composting still apply - a bigger pile does help, water and air matter, the mix of stuff helps, etc. Most of all, everything composts in time.

I agree 100% with armoured.