Amendments! What is your personal favorite?

I have always used more manure than leaves in my compost because it just seems to work better that way. I also add grass clippings when the lawn is growing which is not right now. It is actually easier for me to get manure than leaves because leaves only fall once a year and horses keep pooping year round. I also throw in weeds and lettuce that has gone to seed, etc. etc. The compost usually isn't quite ready in the spring, but by June or July it is great if I can keep it wet -- which isn't necessarily all that easy in dry years. But I try.
When I first bought this house the vacant lot out back was dangerously overgrown with skinny little ponderosa pines. The county urged everyone to thin and I did. At one point a called in a company with a huge industrial strength shredder. They reduced the stuff that wasn't good for firewood to chips. The stack was about 6 ft. high. I don't usually use wood chips because they steal nitrogen while they are decomposing. That stack, about 5 years later is about 1 1/2 ft. high. I will probably start mixing it in with the manure piles soon.

I noticed that my 3' mulched flowerbeds in the new garden reduced by half this week -- not much moisture, but lots of bitter cold at night. Could just that much of a change in temps make a difference in the "fluffiness" of a layer of compost?

Simple settling happens first. Maybe its expansion/contraction contributes some, but I doubt it would do that much more than temperature fluxuations in summer would. Wind could ever-so-slightly help shift it to make it settle. You wrote it was a new bed, I imagine it was just exaggeratedly fluffy and settling realistically now.
3'? That's what you call an industrial-strengh winter blanket.

It needs to be a raised bed by next spring. I'm going to keep piling it on, and letting it settle I guess. There will be a 2 foot rock wall around the edge soon. I wonder if that will effect the settling at all.

Other than keeping it in...

I just had a lovely thought. Do you think the worms have been at the layer of manure that's under the leaves? OMG that would be soooo funny. Thousands, and thousands, and thousands of worms... LOL

Totally possible. I've seen it. When the worms evacuate en masse from a finished part of new vermicompost, the shrinkage can be hugely exaggerated. A real kick for worm lovers like MQN. All those squirming fellows is enough to make the faint of heart faint and the diehard gerdener bay at the sky.

I planned to stir the pile around a bit this weekend. I will deliver a Wiggler Update, have no fear! pictures even, if it's the worms. I'm not squeamish, so sorry in advance for anyone who is.

Did you mean 3 inches or 3 feet? That's a lot of mulch, but not too much if you are planning for a raised bed. I find organic matter does shrink a lot without my doing anything, but I never bothered to figure out why. I bet it is a bit of everything -- settling from its own weight and jiggling by the wind, and yes, worms are probably thrilled to find a whole bunch of munchies delivered to their door step. Did you water all this when you first put it on?

Field of Dreams - If you build it they will come. = Speak of the Devil, she will appear...........

I can not believe what a mild winter we have been having, the big old weeping willow I inherited with the house still is holding on to its leaves, while all the smaller trees in the neighborhood have shed. Plan on mowing my neighbors yard tomorrow, not a good deed just want to steal his leaves......

3 feet. Mixed manure (60%), dirt (10%), and chopped leaves. There have been several good snows and rains since I piled it up.

3 ft. sounds like a goodly amount and with the manure, dirt and chopped leaves, no wonder it is shrinking. That is one working compost pile/mulch. Is it worms or bacteria or both? Who knows but I suspect both are happy in that mix.

Now that's what I call "just right" as far as amendments and percentages!

Good to read you, QN. I hope our drastically-plunging-temperature weather starts to head your way. Oh, sorry; but not before you steal the neighbour's leaves conveniently mixed into fresh grass clippings.

Embarrassingly,
I too steal my neighbors' leaves. But I wait until they bag them up and put them in the garbage can. The garbage man won't take them unless they are stuffed in our official garbage cans. I can tell they aren't garbage because people put them out whenever they rake them and actual garbage would be ripped apart by dogs and ravens which take no interest in leaves.
I used to go around at night stealing peoples' leaves and putting them in the truck until one lady, whose house I had hit more than once flipped on the light and came charging out to see who was stealing her leaves. I had a truck full of bags of leaves so I was caught red handed. I apologized and said I hoped she wasn't planning to use them. She said she didn't mind a bit but she was dying of curiousity about who would steal her leaves. She said that if she had known I wanted them she would have delivered them. But it was pretty embarassing.
Now I ask people first. They are always thrilled because they don't want to have to drive to the dump. So my life of leaf stealing is over, but I still get the leaves!

OK. Spent the whole morning turning compost, and building out my new lily beds. It is quite and interesting thing to see what 6 WEEKS does to turf buried under 3' of manure and leaves. It has turned to a vile sort of stringy goop, which I hope means lots of microbial action. The leaves had obviously lost mass from being dried and smooshed, but they aren't really decomposing yet. The manure was already mostly done composting when i got it, so I didn't expect that to change much. I stirred the layers a bit, and piled it back up to the regulation 3' depth with the seemingly UNENDING supply of chopped leaves and grass we have accumulated. snerk.

I don't need to plant anything there until march at the soonest, so I'm just going to keep stirring it once a month and adding stuff on top. I think it may need more moisture, but let's see how much snow we get.

That's a wonderful story, Paja. I love that bit "dying of curiousity about who would steal her leaves." I imagine her with a cup of string camamille tea, standing by the door, lights off, but her free finger hovering over the switch, looking out the edge of her curtains, imagining a person with a leaf fettish or interesting motives...

GreenJ, I know that stringy goof of which you speak. By describing it as vile, I imagine it is smelly, too. When it's happened to me, I have assumed that it was not getting enough oxygen to host the aerobic bacteria we usually like to invite to our composts. Out of impatience, I usually fork or metal-rake the turf a bit...
"Keep stirring..." sounds like some sort of delightful garden soup to warm the soul in winter...

I have had such a headcold this week I wouldn't know what it smelled like. But it sure looked gross. It is reassuring to know that is SUPPOSED to happen... LOL

Down with turfgrass!

Turfgrass has so many uses. Aside from providing a fine meal for microorganisms, I have used lifted sections to build temporary buttresses on the new planting beds, a ramp for my wheelbarrow, etc.

One of the ladies who gives me leaves called today to tell me she and her neighbors have about 25 more bags of leaves for me! It may take two trips to get them all home. The neighbors were thrilled not to have to take them to the dump. I was thrilled to get the leaves.
In the meanwhile, I had some wonderful house guests this weekend. She and her husband helped me unload the truckload of manure ( in the old truck) and layer it with the leaves I already had at the house. We watered the pile and put some red wiggler worms in from nearby piles. We even started a third pile.
Now I can sell the old truck and I can go get more manure with my new truck. I was beginning to think I wasn't going to get enough compost going before the ground froze, but thanks to my friends I am well on my way to enough for next year.
Can you imagine a friend who offers to shovel manure out of your truck and claims its fun? Wow. She is my friend for life.

True friends stay with you when the manure hits the truck! ;-)

Boy, are you right, GM. I would do anything for this women. She is also helping me to learn enough to get started raising chickens. I just checked with the County and learned that as long as my chickens don't annoy the neighbors there are no restrictions on having chickens. I will, of course, try not to get any roosters. That might bother my neighbors.

OMG, you could have a CHICKEN TRACTOR (a.k.a. Free Range Fertilizer: http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~nfantasi/Chicken%20Tractors.htm ). You are so lucky.

I have been looking at chicken tractors, but I have also been talking to my friend who has chickens. She likes the idea of letting the chickens run free within my fenced yard. One way or the other, I will have fresh eggs and fresh chicken poop. Life will be good.
The best time to buy chickens is around Easter, so I have until then to figure it all out. Roving chickens vs. caged chickens, how many, what kind. But I am learning more each week.

I used to have a "rabbit tractor." Left to run, he would mow a strait strip of grass along his path and only that vicinity would be fertilized...
BettyPaja, frozen ground doesn't stop a hot compost, hoo-rah! One thing I know about chicken manure is this: compost it and compost it well. And then some more. Until worms have come and gone. I wish it hadn't cost me so many bulbs to figure out that little fact.

And I should have known right away about my ex girlfriend when she didn't show interest in going for a compost run in the pickup. Belly dancers from Isle of Wight are all daft anyway.

It's all the jiggling around. Bad for the brains.

Kenton/JamesCo

That girlfriend was definitely not for you.. The belly dancing sounds good, but belly dancing in the Isle of Wight? Must be a story there. You must find a girlfriend who understands the importance of compost! Don't worry, such a person will turn up. The right person turns up at the time you least expect it, such as at a Botanic garden. Or if you see a girl driving a truckful of compost materials, follow that truck! What a great line, "I was just wondering if you were planning to use those materials or if I could get you to donate them to my compost pile." If she says she needs them, you have found one. If she says she was on the way to the dump, at least you might be able to talk her out of the compost materials.

I will definitely be careful to compost the chicken manure. I have used it before in huge quantities and have been amazed at the heat it generates.

Glad you know how to play with fire, Paja- I didn't.
Your leaf theft story inspires the next thread:
Continued here:
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/672860/

Topic conveniently "diverged..."