You've all inspired me! (and a question)

Hi all-

After reading this forum for a month or so, you've inspired me to switch from a large cold leaf pile to a hot pile to get compost faster. Right now (first week in Sept) I have the perfect mix of greens (grass, but I've had to fight dh for it becuase he prefers it mulched and left on his lawn!) and browns (early leaves) and the pile is nice and warm. It was steaming today and it was 78° out!

My question is sort of twofold -- do I turn the compost when it's hot, or wait for it to cool before turning it? Is it supposed to stay hot all the time? And as an aside, I went to bury some kitchen scraps and noticed the inside of the pile is gray-white with mold or mildew-- and it seemed rather dry.

The second part is that the grass clipping will naturally come to an end soon, and I wondered if coffee grounds could be substituted? If so, what kind of ratio? I have a pile of leaves about 14 feet in diameter, and maybe 5 feet tall by December, but it starts out bare ground in September, so I can add the coffee grounds in layers, alternating with the leaves. I just wondered how thick the layers (both the leaf layer and the coffee layer) should be.

I have been composting for over 25 years, really all my life if you count my dad's big pile when I was growing up, and yet I never tried to have a hot pile because my worms like cooler temperatures. There is plenty of space for them to stay cool now, so I wanted to sort of see what a hot pile might do for me.

Thanks for any advice and answers you can give me,
Suzy

Great job, Suzy.
Turn it when it cools off. Make sure to water when you turn if needed. Keep dong this until it doesn't heat up anymore.
The gray-white bit is actually piles of thermophilic (hot-loving) bacteria who decompose things fastest. Good place for scraps!

I bet someone has the ratio number for grounds (relatively high N), but I imagine you will need lots of coffee. Starbuck's grounds every week, perhaps. But kitchen scraps and all add up fast, too.

Layers: Thinner the better; you're going for contact between the two manures- green/brown. I personally like to keep them under 3 inches.

When your pile no longer heats up (don't add more material or it will never finish, so start a new pile.) then let it sit and your friendly worms become the heros of the show. When they leave the stage, it's time to reap the rewards.

Enjoy!
Kenton J.

A little reading continues to say that Coffee is C/N 20:1

I did a search on "ratio" and came up with a bunch of posts, but none explained the C/N 20:1.

I thought I knew what it meant, but decided I didn't. Could somebody spell it out for me, please?

Thanks,
Suzy

The C is for carbon, the N for nitrogen. Kenton is letting you know that coffee grounds have a ratio of 20 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen. The "brown matter" in your compost are the high carbon materials. The "green matter" are the high nitrogen materials.

Okay, garden_mermaid, that's what I thought it meant when I read it, but I KNOW I read somewhere recently, that although coffee grounds were brown in color, they acted (in compost) as a green. However, I was just complaining to my husband tonight that my compost wasn't hot enough -- as hot as I know it should be (or rather "should have been, assuming the grounds were greens). This explains it all. Guess the person who said that didn't know as much as he thought.

Oh, dangit! I thought I had the perfect formula for easy greens in the fall to mix with my leaves. I was going to float through fall's leaf bonanza with loads and loads of fresh compost ready in spring. And I've sort of made plans for that compost (the stuff I don't have) already - build up a little over here, improve a little over there.. ..

I should have known it was too good to be true. And now I remember why I have a cold pile. I simply cannot get my paws on enough greens through fall to keep up with the leaves....and so ends the cool saga of a hot pile.

Dangit, dangit, dangit!!! (Really I'm saying $#@!, $#@!, $#@!)

Gerdenmermaid, thanks for the quick response!

Suzy

Maybe you could trade off w/ your DH on the grass clippings, as they certainly are good for the lawn soil as well.

Suzy;
Sorry I confused you about ratios:
The numerical formulation goes this way- "perfect" balanced compost is 30:1. Anything that is like 20:1 or 5:1 is "green." I think cardboard and paper is something like 40:1 or 50:1. This is chemical composition, but by appearance and volume, it looks like half "green" and half "brown," and the materials themselves come to 30:1.

For instance, the same volume of shredded paper (40:1) and coffee grounds (20:1) comes out to 30:1, which, in theory, should yeild the hottest pile and most efficient composting.

I, too have trouble getting enough greens in fall, so I end up piling leaves aside to wait for next summer, when greens (weeds, grass, etc) are plentiful. Still, just leaves will compost alone, but brown leaves themselves will take up to a year, at which the resulting compost is called "leafmold." If you want to compost brown leaves faster, but don't have grass clippings and are desperate for "green," you can buy nearly pure nitrogen. At a garden center "Amonium sulfate" is pure, and only $3 or so for a bag. Lawn fertilizers that are high in nitrogen also work to add to your moist leaf pile. (Like a 30-5-5 fertilizer formulation)

I hope this helps, don't get discouraged. It is still composting for you , even if it is not ideal. I have mistreated my piles the last month- but slowly and surely, they are still cooking.
Kenton

The coffee ground debate has been been going on for some time. I know the Master Composter classes in our area teach that coffee grounds are "green", primarily for the reasons Kenton listed. We treat it pretty much as a brown because of the roasting process. It's kind of on the border from a C/N ration perspective, so if we have alot of really high carbon materials like the dry leaves or straw, we don't count the coffee grounds as green, or perhaps I should say "green enough".

I have always used coffee as a green cause it is like at the stop light when it turns green I take off and get going. LOL Coffee is green, Blood meal green, Grass green, Alfalfa meal green, manure green. All of these are abundant in my valley. Lots of brown coming out of the garden soon so I will get me some good cow manure to heat up the winter pile. I actually have more compost than what I need so I am going to waste it in my new woodland garden to get the soil cooking. Then I can use the stuff I get in the spring to top dress my raised beds.

Yes, I think "not green enough" s a good way to put it!

No, I'm not discouraged, I was just thinking that it would be very cool to get finished compost sooner and get the pile I have down in size sooner. But even if cofffee grounds were green with a ratio of 5:1, if we're talking an equal volume of leaves and grounds, there aren't enough Starbucks within driving range to keep me supplied, I don't think. The leaves might fit in a triaxel dump truck...can you imagine bringing in that many grounds?

My husband is getting into it -- not enough to pee on my pile, but we went to a hardware store for supplies and he was wondering if they had COMPOST THERMOMETERS! Who-ooo! (They didn't, but I bet he finds one for me!)

And it was fun to go out to Starbucks late at night (for us old fogeys) and get a latte and my coffee grounds. Maybe we'll still do that, but now that it isn't crucial for success, I won't feel the overwhelming need to go.

I dont like the word 'ammonium' in the ammonium nitrate...isn't that like ammonia? Not sure the worms would approve! Maybe I'll look into blood meal. Does that have anything to do with cows? Does it have anything to do with blood?

I have accidentally found a way to more easily get my (mostly oak) leaves into spaller pieces and that is to mow them when they are wet. I used to ask for Triple Mowed Leaves for my end of Oct aniversary present, but my husband didn't think that was very much of a gift, and he didn't like doing it, either. Some times I'd get them, and sometimes I wouldn't. BUT if he can corral the leaves to a smaller area, I can run a little water over them and remow them with the push mower which has a bag on it. They are much, much smaller pieces than even triple mowing DRY. It'simportant for me to re wet them before adding to the pile because oak leaves in the middle of my piles have a way of remaining totally dry which is a mystery to me. Almost as if they repel water!

I think I could end up with useable leaf lold in a much shorter time than one year with this new wetting method, but I noticed from some of the pictures on the forum that my idea of finished compost is way different than most of yours. Mine still has leaf chunks in it, for sure!

Suzy

Sofer -- I was typing my post while you were and didn't see it until I hit "send"

Where is a chart showing "how green is green"? Surely some of those have a higher C/N ration than others. Or a lower ratio. LOL! Whatever it is I want.

My worms would definitely like some alfalfa meal. I just dont' want to pay for it if I don't have to.

Suzy

It really doesn't matter the ratio. That is for scientists like Kenton. I mix 2 parts brown with 1 part green when green is short. When it isn't I mix 50/50. Doing this my compost is done in 2 months on the ground. I keep it moist and cover it to prevent drying up and stopping the magic. You need to do what I do. Look when you are driving for any manure potential areas. IE horse barns, Blue Silos (cow farm) and I look in our local paper (Mountain Trader) for anybody giving away manure. Lots here. I just have to shovel it, sometimes the tractor is around and I pay them 10 bucks to load it in my truck and trailor. The only time I need more than a load is when I am building soil like now and will haul a lot after I get the wood for the fire this winter.
This is how I collect it. This batch is mushroom compost, horse manure, urine, and wood chips. I get this from a large stable nearby. It is mostly wood chips but often it is more manure.

We have found that the key to getting the "maximum" grounds from Starbucks is to phone them in the morning and ask them to save ALL their grounds for the day for you to pick up in the evening. Otherwise they will throw some out and you'll just get what is readily on hand. Some Starbucks sites appreciate it if you bring them a clean 5 gallon bucket (s) for them to put the grounds in.

Great thinking, GM.
Who you callin' scientist, Steve? Did you get to swim in that mulch before you used it to get that perfume we love? Great Rockwork as usual.

Ammonium, yes: it's a word for a nitrogen form. It's in Pee. It's released from grass clippings when they are in your compost. It's even in the coffee grounds! Thank goodness, it's a different form when we're all drinking it.

Maybe a local Chicken farm or someone with rabbits, Suzy? Those are nice organic high-nitrogen sources. Or like Steve said, Bloodmeal. You can buy a cheap bag of the powdered stuff. It is very high and used only for its organic nitrogen. Like bonemeal (organic phosphorous source) it can attract animals if overused and not composted well.

And Suzy- ask Steve especially, cooked but still solid bits of leaves in your compost is great! Ideal, in fact.
Kenton

Piling up raw ingredients.
I actually had too much green (you can smell distinctly the problem with too much green...) from all the neighbor's dumping their grass clippings. So I counterbalanced it with very high carbon- office paper shreds.

The day after the raws composts got piled and watered.

Two piles- same ingredients, different ages.

Almost-finished compost has such amazing benefits. That is when the worms are happiest. They flock to soil amended with it. Completely done compost (like black, moist powder) doesn't help soils structure or worms, but is still good for plants.
So now we wheelbarrow it to the garden and use it everywhere.

... to the plants that love it and return the favor by performing with so much more vigor and health.

Nice finished compost Kenton. I like all the large pieces to feed the plants far into the future. And just think as a worm, every stick, or wood chip is just a sleeping bag to keep them cozy in the soil. This is my carbon layer that was chipped yesterday on top of my Grass clippings. I don't want to temp the pile cause that is what scientists do. I am just a simple gardener. LOL

A Native funerary fire pile?
(Gorgeous scenes as always, Steve)
K

Hey! These posts were all just great! Thanks for all the ideas!

I have been sticking my hand into make sure it's hot...that or a thermometer, how else do you tell when it's time to turn it? Trouble is, soon it will be time for long sleeves and I hate getting my cuffs dirty! LOL! I just *want* a thermometer and will use any excuse handy.

The batch I'm working on will be done long before 2 months, but as I said I consider it done before most of you. -- James I'd be using BOTH piles from what I see in your pictures. If I can't see anymore grass clippings, then it's ready for my uses (top of the soil). Yay! I have some spots I want to build up and some cardboard to cover for a lasagne bed. Of course, not matter how much I have I always want more, More, MORE!!!

Suzy

More More! Amend Amend! are the composters' chants...
Raw compostables added directly to soil is not too good- imagine how it cooks, and imagine that happening to your soil, which does not like to get hot, as the microbes can get fried. Thus the natural niche for thermophilic bacteria (heat lovers) who break materials down a step or two for the soil's cool-lovers, including worms.

I learned this the hard way and goofed up my front border bed- the "first impression" plot! All the bulbs died and most plants will noo grow there now, (except a few who have teken over, thank goodness) so I'm working on that...

Keep us "posted" Suzy.
Kenton

Since I am a, not as young as I used to be gardener married to a theoretical scientist who believes touching dirt is dangerous, I have to build and turn my own compost. I use the lazy person approach, which I invented. But I still make a lot of compost each year.
I gather leaves and pine needles anywhere I can and then layer it with manure. In my case, I can get virtually unlimited supplies of horse manure which is not that hard to shovel -- it is rather light in weight. Also, at one place where I gather it the husband and wife help me shovel and the whole loading of my truck takes 15 or 20 minutes. Once in a while they have a front end loader, but usually the 3 of us shovel. Unlike you, I can't get enough leaves to balance out the green -- grass clippings and horse manure.
I water every layer as I put it in, but this year it was so dry, it was hard to keep it all wet and my compost took longer than usual. When I put a compost pile together it usually gets up to 160 degrees which makes me very proud. It's kind of like watching your bread rise when you make bread. I did buy a compost thermometer, I think from Johnny's. When the temperature drops down to about the same as my finished compost's temp, I turn it and put a layer of horse manure in for every layer of compost. It then heats up again, but to something like 120 or 130 degrees. When it cools down again to something approaching the temperature of my finished compost ( usually a little higher than the temperature of a pile of dirt) I deem it finished and I begin using it. Mine doesn't look anywhere near as fine as JamesCo's but I am living breathing proof that having lots of small undercomposed pieces in the finish compost doesn't seem to hurt a bit. My plants love it and grow accordingly.
The moral of this tale is that there are lots of ways to do compost. Some take longer than others, but compost is a kind of miracle drug for the soil. You can make it in many different ways, but any pile of matter will eventually decay. The green stuff and turning just speed it up. Just use what you can get and a lot of it and your garden will be happy.

I only use my own coffee grounds. I should try the local Starbucks. But I never compost them. I put them directly on my most needy plants. They don't seem to mind that they aren't composted. I think it as an emergency treatment. If your soil is alkaline, as mine is, coffee grounds act as, well, coffee on plants. They just take off like crazy.
If you just wet down your leaves and put anything green you can find on them and pile them high instead of spreading them out, you will soon have wonderful compost.
As for worms and heat, I only use whatever worms show up. I have never bought worms except for fishing and that was before I started composting. I once made a compost pile, the traditional sort, half brown, half green, but my green was chicken manure. It got incredibly hot. Maybe 180 degrees? I don't remember, but to my amazement, there were worms throughout the pile. Native worms, mind you. They seemed to be looking for a chance to warm up. Don't worry about too much heat. Worms will come when they want to.
Betty

Good point Kenton. How do you know that your pile is done = Lots and lots of worms!
Yes Kenton I am trying to get my wife to float me out on Flathead lake and torch the pire. She won't do it. I guess I'll have to go to Norway to die.
This is the reason to ammend and add compost. This bed went without water for almost 2 months during a well failure. Now look at it. All are happy and now that it is moist again I see lots of happy worms.

Brilliant.

My delphiniums have popped up their 2nd flowers and are smiling as the sun sets on them. These 3 are the Pointer Sisters.

Sorry...I mostly skimmed the posts...but I will say that the best place to compost grass clippings is in place via a mulching mower. You already were composting grass clippings, now you just added more steps into the process. I suggest that you search out OPGC (Other People's Grass Clippings) or other sources of green material (or just use your own grass clippings when the lawn it too long to mulch).

- Brent

True Brent- I am a religious follower of OPGC.
I mulch my own, and three neighbors give me theirs to compost.