I have attempted to compost some brush from clearing underbrush here on the windward (wet) side of the Big Island of Hawaii. This includes a very large percentage of Uluhe ferns. These are climbing vinelike ferns also known as False Staghorn ferns I believe. They seem to have an almost magical resistance to rotting. I shoved them through a wood chipper/shredder along with lots of strawberry guava saplings. Piled them up in a 3' x 3' x 3' pile. Turned them. Let them get wet from rain. Protected them from rain. Nothing happened. Tried adding amonium sulfate. Nothing happened. Turned them. Nothing. Added some horse manure. Got a brief warming trend, then nothing. That pile has been sitting out there well over a year now and is unchanged as far as I can tell. If I could isolate what is in there I could patent an organic wood preservative. Meanwhile on a trip back to visit my parents in NY we chipped a bunch of junk from their garden and 12 hours later it was 136 degrees. I suspect that the culprit is the Uluhe ferns. A relative, the Hapu'u or tree fern is used by gardeners as a substrate to grow orchids on. It can be rainforest wet for years and not break down. Any suggestions on how to get the stuff to rot? I have no qualms about using inorganic fertilizer.

Several of the community gardens in this area have raised beds that were filled with a manufactured soil. We have a company here that is dredging a lake bottom of the accumulated organic matter that has threatened that lake with eutrophication and then mixes that OM with sand and sells it as soil, not "topsoil" or "garden" soil, just soil. The OM dredged from the lake bottom is dewatered and then finely ground before being added to the sand and if you got some of this and then left it exposed to the rain the rain would wash the OM out of this soil leaving yuou with just sand, unless you added more OM to that soil. You will find that if you build up those raised beds with just organic matter you will need to add to them all summer long as the OM is digested by the bacteria. I find this true in the containers where only compost is used as the growing medium.

There are numerous insects that do help digest organic matter, Pill and Sow Bugs, Millipedes, Earwigs, Ants,and more, but they all need a cool, moist environment to live in. Their presence in a compost pile, therefore, indicates the material is too cool and too moist, although it will still convert from waste material to compost over time. Their presence in a compost pile also may indicate that other, less desireable, critters (skunks, raccoons, etc,) may visit and take off with what you want to go into your garden. Although some find no problem with these wee buggers in a compost pile they are an indication that the composting process is quite slow.

What I often do with a big pile is periodically use a big, heavy, iron pole with a sharpish end (used primarily to chip ice) and drop it hard into the pile. It doesn't do much more than create big air holes down and chop holes in whatever bigger, intact materials are in the pile. For things like larger leaves, this seems to work pretty well to help with breaking down the plant material and getting air into the pile. Pile should still be mixed materials though. Keep in mind, I don't overdo it - I think doing it once in a while is more important than punching a lot of holes down. I typically might do five to ten shots at a time before I get bored. This is somewhere between being totally lazy and actually chopping all the materials when added to the pile. Doesn't require much in the way of work and still seems effective.