Finally got my compost bin to hit 140 degrees for 3 days straight

After a whole week of tweaking the brown-to-green ratio and turning it twice a day, the pile actually steamed in the morning frost last Tuesday, has anyone else had trouble keeping their compost hot in fall weather?

3 comments

3 Comments

abbyf7918h ago

Last time I tried to get fancy with hot composting I had the neighbor's kids come over and ask if I was cooking meth in my backyard because of all the steam lmao. They told their mom and she called the township office, next thing I know some guy in a vest is poking my pile with a thermometer asking about ammonium nitrate. Took me two hours to explain it was just banana peels and coffee grounds getting hot. Now I just keep it cold and nobody bothers me about it, plus my tomatoes were massive last summer so cold composting is clearly fine.

flores.mark21h ago

Actually I gotta disagree with the whole hot compost obsession. People act like hitting those high temps is the only way to get good compost but my pile has never gone above 110 degrees and the stuff I get is perfect for my garden. Fall weather is the best time to let things slow down a bit anyway. All that heat just kills off the good microbes and earthworms that do the real work in your soil. Your plants dont care if the compost sat at 140 for a week they just want nutrients. Plus you are probably burning all the carbon out of your pile which is a total waste. Cold composting is way less work and gives you better soil structure in the long run. Just my two cents from ten years of messing with piles.

coleman.hannah15h ago

Oh man that meth story cracked me up. I had a similar thing happen last year when my neighbor saw me turning my pile with a pitchfork at 6am and thought I was burying evidence or something. Now I just tell everyone upfront I'm making dirt and they usually lose interest pretty fast.