How do you get a compost pile to "cook" ?

Hi, I live in a very dry climate and have no luck with getting my compost pile to cook and stay cooking.
I wonder if I am not watering it enough or don't have enough green stuff to put in.
Is there a ratio to use for the soil to green stuff?
What about in winter when it is too hard to use a hose to spray it down due to the fact it will freeze? Do I have to turn it in the winter too or just throw the veggie scraps in?
I am so new to this and I hate to seem this dumb, but I really want to figure this out. Anyone who can help and give info, many thanks to you!

Sunnyskies:
If you could answer a few questions I can give you some advice. What are you currently putting into your compost pile? Are you putting the material in a bin of some sort or just in a pile? If using a bin how big is it? How much material is currently in the bin? Answer these questions and I will get back to you.
George

sunnyskies...normally you'd use a ratio of one part green stuff to two parts brown stuff . (Other sources will suggest one part green to 3 parts brown.)

I basically use leaves, grass clippings, garden scraps/residue, manure (sometimes but not necessary), alfalfa ,etc .

As for moisture, just keep it damp...pick up a handful and squeeze it...you should not get much water drippinng from your handful.

When it gets super cold in the wintertime your compost will most likely slow down decomposition, possibly halting altogether. I cover mine mixed compost pile with a tarp to help hold heat in. Perhaps you have a bin though and don't need the tarp?

Once you get the basics down, or choose the type of composting that is easiest/best for you you'll have it mastered in no time!

geoz will be along to offer more input, and quite possibly others as well. Composting has been a popular topic here quite a few times!

By the way, a hearty WELCOME to DG to both of you! (Guess I missed seeing ya'll enter!) Be seein' around the Garden!

Thank you both very much! Well Geoz, I have been putting in grass clipping, and kitchen scraps (no meat or fat products) Then I shovel on some dirt and water it down. I don't have many leaves here, but I planted so many trees a few years ago that I will soon. I do have chickens and I put straw in their coop so I could use that too right?
I did try using a large wire compost pile (we didn't cover it) and it dried out so fast it was difficult to keep up.(out here you can leave a bag of chips open for days in the summer and they are still crisp!)
I now have a large black compost bin I purchased at Costco. I'll be honest though, I find it very hard to turn it in there so I haven't! I think they said that it didn't have to be turned though due to the fast cooking it was supposed to do in there.
I think I have failed so often that I just haven't worried too much and just keep throwing things in there. But now that I have a site with such helpful people I would really like to figure this out. Then maybe I can help some other people out here who haven't got a clue either!

Hi
Basically, there are two methods of composting - The Fast-hot-method, which will produce finished compost in 1 to 3 months and the slower cooler method, which will take much longer to finish - up to a year of longer.

Requirements for the fast-hot method are:
Provide an equal balance of green(nitrogen) and brown (carbon)material
Reduce the particle size by chopping or grinding
Provide moisture so that a handful of material when squeezed will appear very wet but should not drip more than a couple of drops of water.
Pile should be built all at once and have a minimum size of a cubic yard.(3'X3'X3') A pile built in this manner should reach a temp. of 150 to 160 degrees within 3 or four days. In a week the pile should be turned and moisture added if necessary.
Oxygen is required by the microbes- turning the pile every so often will re introduce oxygen into the pile

Now lets discuss the points in this method.

Greens are materials hich in nitroges such as: Green grass clippings, Green plant material, kitchen scraps including coffee grounds, Chicken manure, Farm animal manure.

Browns are materials high in carbon such as: Dried plant material, dried leaves, straw, shredded paper, sawdust and wood shavings

The bacteria that cause the decomposition (and the heat) require nitrogen for energy and carbon for growth and must have moisture to live. The Ideal ratio is 30 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen which is stated as c/n 30-1. Green plant materials have c/n ratios of 10-1 up to 30-1 Browns have c/n ratiios of 40-1 to 400-1. Most brown plant material has ratios 40-1 up to 80-1 Paper, sawdust, and wood shavings are high in carbon with ratios od 200-1 to 400-1. The idea is to combine green and brown material to achieve a ratio of 30-35 to 1.
By using 1 part green and one part brown excluding the paper and wood products you will acheive the proper ratio. If yoi use paper, sawdust, wood chips you could increase the greens to 3green to 1 brown. Now you don't need to try to get these ratios exact. Most garden debre, kitchen scraps , leaves, dead plant material, and manure mixed together will give you a workable mix. I only went into the carbon/nitrogen explanation to give you an idea of what makes a compost pile work.

Particle size. The microbes work around the edges of the material so the smaller the particles are the faster they will decompose. Particle size of 1" is ideal but here again material not chopped at all will still decompose - it just will take longer. The advantages of hot composting are: Faster composting, Temps above 135 will kill most weed seeds. Disadvantages are: pile needs to be built at once requireing a large amount of materials.

I am out of time but I will post more on the slower method of composting this evening or tomorrow morning.
George

Sunnyskies, you mentioned that the ingredients in the black bin are hard to turn. You can get a tool that is designed to "churn" the ingredients. It's basically a metal pole to insert into the mass and then some blades are extended on the lower end and a rotating motion is worked from the handle. Several sources such as Gardener's Supply carry them. I've not tried it; I considered getting one for the two bins I have but after setting up the ComposTwin tumbler I just fill the bins and ignore them for at least six months.

Hi Sunnyskies - Back again
The compost method most people use is the slower cooler method. All the rules about carbon/nitrogen ratio, moisture, and oxygen apply. The difference is that you add stuff to the compost pile as you collect it. Your pile will get warm but will probably not reach the temps you would with the hot method. your pile will still compost but at a much slower rate. The main thing is to balance out the green and brown material you add to the pile. You stated that you used grass clippings and kitchen scraps topped by dirt. Grass clippings are a green as are kitchen scraps. Grass clippings, if piled more than an inch or so deep will mat down and get nasty. Grass clippings should be mixed with an equal amount of brown drier material. Kitchen scraps also would benefit from some drier material being mixed in. This mixing of materials will make the pile more fluffy, which will aid the passage of oxygen. As for the dirt, it has been proven that dirt is not necessary as the materials you add to the pile have an adequate amount of bacteria to start the composting process. If you do add dirt add just a small amount, say, 1/4" for every foot of pile depth.
The turning tool that yuska talked about does work pretty well for small piles. You stick the tool down into the pile and as you pull it up some little wings on the bottom of the shaft open and pull the bottom stuff up to the top.

I would suggest that you go to Google and search for compost and you will get several good sites with a lot of info. Two good books are Rodales Complete Book of Composting and Let it Rot by Stu Campbell.

Just remeber that no matter what you do, if you pile a bunch of plant material in a pile sooner or later it will turn to compost. If you have other questions ask away.
george

Oh my, now I feel like a real idiot. You're going to laugh, but all this time I thought that "brown" material was the dirt! I have been shoveling on alot of dirt. And then trying to figure out how people kept their piles "loose".
Go ahead and laugh, I am. And thanks!

All good info above. As George mentions, I have heard that more than a bit of dirt actually slows things down. If your bin is on dirt vs. concrete, that is best, too. If you have any earthworms to toss in, that'll speed things up. They're hungry little things and the castings they add are very beneficial to your garden. Some folks cheat a little by sprinkling in a bit of Ammonia sulfate, but I don't think it's very organic and definitely not good for the worms!

Keeping moisture similar to a wrung out sponge and turning frequently really helps. But like 'Shoe says, the cool weather slows the process down. Either way, you should have compost by spring.

~Angela

Hi, Ss,

I am a little behind in keeping up with my "threads", but thought I would add my two cents.

I am a casual composter in a dry climate who could never get things heated up until I struck a deal with my friend who had a rabbit. She lived in a townhouse and the rabbit exercised on the patio. I gave her a small garbage pail with a lid into which she deposited the rabbit droppings. Every few weeks I collected this prize and sprinkled it around on the heap and stirred things up. When I watered this random blend, no dirt added, as regularly as I watered the vegetable garden, it really cooked! Steam rose, it smelled like a damp cellar and in about two or three weeks of churning or turning every three or four days, it melted down to black gold.

Sadly, the rabbit reached the end of its span of years, and my friend moved to Pennsylvania. I have been reduced once again to the steady year-long break down of the heap. It works, but when I am introduced to someone new, I try to keep my first question from being, "Do you have a bunny?"

Hello Everyone, the subject of composting is such an interesting one, isin't it?
I suppose there are as many ways of doing it as there are people. I have tried many ways during my 30 years of gardenning organically, and finnaly settled on the cold or cool method, depending on the air temperature. As Geoz decribed, you can just add the ingredients as you
acquire them and not worry about whether you have enough of this or that.
Our kitchen vegetable peels, coffee grounds, egg shells etc. go into a covered bucket which we add to the pile weekly, then cover it with leaves green plants or whatever is on hand, which we save for that purpose. It is important that the kitchen scraps be covered since they can attract flies, and we dont want that. We water it when the weather is dry, but we dont worry about the moisture content.
We do not turn the pile, just let it sit, and in one year we have beautiful compost. If we want to use it around small plants and don't want large pieces we sift it and it is just georgous.

God Bless you all, and HAPPY COMPOSTING TO YOU.
Sincerely, Josephine.

This message was edited Jan 10, 2005 11:14 AM

Hello sunnyskies,
It looks like you lucked out and found a very good source of info.-geoz . He has hit the nail on the head, sounds like me, someone who has received Organic Gardening and Mother Earth News for 30 yrs! I was learning the basics of composting before I was 12; raking leaves and leaving them in little piles around the yard- with regular watering of the yard they would turn to rich good smelling compost in about a month or so. In a dry environment like yours or western Colo., where I was raised, you can never get too much moisture. Unless of course the pile is just dirt .But the worms still go after that! If any 'dash' of Nitrogen is needed, alfalfa feed or meal should be more than adequate. I used to build my compost all at once by using horse manure and dried plant material. Try to build a good sized one before the cold months, water the heck out of it, then cover the whole thing with straw. I remember looking out the kitchen window after a snow and seeing no snow on the pile and steam rising from it. . usually it boils down to using what organic materials are readily available to you in your area. remember NO animal products except for manure from vegetarian farm animals -cows, horses, chickens(birds digestion is different) turkeys, goats, sheep...sorry no pig in the food garden; but it's ok for grains and such.

Hello again. For anyone who has the slow-cooking black plastic bins: Gardener's Supply Co. has an aerator on sale now for $13.99. One of the wings is thermal - as the stack is turned the color changes from purple to pink if the material is hot enough to cook (about 94 degrees.)

You might check to see if there is a rabbit rescue group in your area. Perhaps your local animal shelter has a rabbit that you can gather droppings from. Try putting a ad in your local free classified paper for a rabbit owner to contact you. Also ferret owners guinna pig, hamsters, and bird cage cleanings. Cheap dog food I have found by accident works well. Anyone else have ideas?

janeth2--Is the cheap dogfood a good 'green' component this time of year when even my yard doesn't need mowing...except for the little crop of flowering weeds that tower over my 'grass'? Would like to get another batch of compost going with all my banana peels and coffee grounds sitting in a plastic can.

Worms seem to like it.

Janeth, I had to put the family dog in the doggy hotel (kennel) this past weekend. Much to my surprise they also have a small animal rescue thing going on, 3 rabbits, about 15 doves and a ferret. Now if they would save those pen cleanings I'd be all set. In Western NY people look at you with that "where is your spaceship?" in their eyes whenever you mention composting.

Sooser
Banana peels and coffee grounds are both high in Nitrogen and would be considered a green. Can you come up with some leaves to mix with them as a brown.? Shredded paper would work also.
George

Hey everybody, thanks for all the great information. I have been way out of touch, too much going on here. But I am going to try to use all the great ideas. I don't have rabbits, but I do have chickens. So... that will help the pile to cook also??
coffee grounds, banana peels, alfalfa meal, (dog food?) turn, turn, turn. Leaves, kitchen scraps... O.k. it's coming together! I'm getting excited now.
I'll let you know when I see steam.
Thanks!

Chicken Manure is an excellent green, has a higher nitrogen content than most other manures. Keep us posted Sunnyskies
George