Are you sure that's necessary? I've never covered a pile here in Maine, because my piles get their heat from my compost ingredients. If you must cover your pile, cloth would work. Anyone trying to watch their plastic footstep can find other alternatives---cardboard, newspaper, fabric---all would work, I guess. The only situation that I can imagine needing to cover a pile would be in a climate with excessive heat or excessive rain.

Oh, I see. Your tarp isn't cloth. Yes, it would work as well as any other plastic sheeting.

I agree with Ann. Let Mother Nature do her work. Use the tarp if you must, but avoid using plastic as much as possible.

Any cover beit plastic or not slow's air circulation to the determent of compost. Stuff rot;s anaerobically so putting material in those black bags will do that.

Getting a pile to heat up is a function of proper size, moisture and a mix of materials.

'Getting a pile to heat up is a function of proper size, moisture and a mix of materials.'

I agree with this. Covering a compost heap? Awful idea. [Smiley face]

Even an older compost pile I have heated up in places by poking in freshly mown grass clippings. I was experimenting at the time. Rather fun, it was. I wanted a place to give me some bottom heat for a pot of cuttings.

You could always pee on it. That will heat things up pretty fast!

i got the idea of covering it with black plastic from recommendations to do that with shredded leaves to make leaf mold. i was going to similarly poke holes in it. Why does it make sense for leaf mold and not compost?

GG, nice idea but its 18 degrees here!

It'll only take a minute or two.

But even in a very dry climate I wouldn't do it. (Cover a compost heap.) We're having a wet year this year, but normally it's drought. I just let compost heaps do their thing. They provide so much life which in my opinion is a lovely thing.

It seems to me that there's an opinion that something that happens fast is better than something that happens slowly. A lot of people want to compost fast. If you ask them why, they can't answer. "Oh, that's the way it's done. Get it to heat up." But then they'll say, "I don't do it that way. I dig in my compost every year into my veggie patch and that seems to work."

Of course it works. Composting fast can be a fun sport, but composting slowly is good too.

The interest in heat is not speed but killing weed seeds.

The fastest way to heat a compost pile is to use the freshest horse or cattle dung you can get. Dump it in as one big clump and cover with leaves, not plastic. Don't spread it out until after the heating effect goes away.

I'm not convinced heat kill's as many seed as given credit for. Wheat fields that are burned off always grow over in weeds while waiting for next cultivation.

If you can keep a pile hot (130 degrees F), for 4 days, then that is the same as baking a turkey as low heat. But if you cannot, then you cannot blame the heat.

The heat from a burning wheat field goes up quickly. It could be that seeds just under the surface never see temps above ambient soil temp.