My compost isn't hot and I'm going nuts

I have done everything I know to do, I put browns and greens and turn it and talk to it and pray and pitch fits and call it names, but it still isn't hot and it's making me mad.
Am I just adding things wrong. Do you just put the new stuff, leaves and whatever, on top of the pile or do I mix it in. It is composting and it smells like good rich dirt and it looks like it should, it's taking so long to compost because it isn't hot.
I need someone to help me before I lose my mind, and I don't have that much mind left so really can't afford to lose it.

Be calm, a mind is a terrible thing to lose. :) It sounds like your got good composting going. Is that on the bottom of the pile? You have to be patient, I know it's hard, but this doesn't happen quickly.
In order to get the heat, you're going to have to add some type of nitrogen rich ingredients, ie, manure, alfafa pellets or meal, if push comes to shove, find the cheapest bag of high protein dog food you can get your hands on and add that.
Make a hole in the middle, pour or shovel the majority down the hole and spread over the top and water it down. Then flip it. You also need to introduce oxygen to the pile periodically to help it work.
Invest in a meat thermometer, they're cheaper than the organic ones and work just fine. Use that periodically to measure the heat in middle of your pile.
Btw even if your compost is still in the coarse stage it's still very usable when you need it. I rarely sift mine as some as the others do, but you can if you wish.
Good luck, please hang out with us.

Have you watered it?, What's your outside temp right now, day and night? Every brown layer that may be dry needs watering. Too much turning won't let the process start at first, turning is for when you have a hot center and turn the colder outside stuff into the middle and let it get hot then do your turning again. The idea is to start the heating and keep it heating by adding fuel (greens & browns). You've got to let it heat up with enough moisture.
Carol

Hi Doccat, we cross posted, I agree on adding the green... alfalfa pellets are the rage now I guess, but any brown needs to be wetted down.
Carol

Hey Carol, to right. It's just take for a lot of us the pellets are easier to come by and cheaper. Myself, I gotta guy down the road that is a "gentleman" farmer and raises black angus. We can get all the poo we want for free. They are nice folks and she is a horticulturalist and is watching our puttizing around with great interest. ;)

Cathy

Dog food, I've never heard of that. Lorraine, do you add kitchen scarps? I like the water and nitrogen ideas.

Dean, boy, you weren't reading my old posts, then. Using dog food is an old trick I picked up from an old Mother Earth magazine. Cheap kick starter :)

I thought dog food was horse meat.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwww, a lot of it is corn and alfalfa..........

Most of the inexpensive dog foods are grain-based.

Carol - In my area (near Seattle) the grass growth really slows down about Novemeber, and any that needs a haircut is too wet to mow from all the rain. So, grass as a nitrogen source won't be available until March or so.
Alfalfa works well, and is easy to get. No truck for hauling anything in quantity, and no friends with trucks offering their service! Hence: alfalfa pellets - cheap.

Lesson learned the hard way: Alfalfa pellets swell a lot when wet down in the compost. Do not put too many in one spot or you end up with a gooey mass that is hard to stir into the pile... yucky stuff when wet, but it sure does help when grass is not available... but 25 lbs in a single layer is not a great idea!

Katye, "too wet" is an understatement at this time isn't it? How are you affected by the flooding going on?
Carol

LOL Carol: too wet!
I am not affected at all as I live on a hill.
There are areas where the water collects, but not to the extent of what happened down in Chehalis. You learn to respect "puddles" - they are often deeper than they appear.
I think the main concern was whether or not these storms would continue, which would over-saturate the soil. At that point all we would need for some truly exciting moments is a robust wind storm - the Doug firs start uprooting.
They get really tall at this elevation and with all the available water, produce a very shallow root system. It can get pretty ugly when they fall across several properties.

Katye, I can imagine, we had a flood a year ago last October, whole hillsides were saturated and slipping off the bedrock underneath. How is your hill for grade and depth of soil to bedrock?
Carol

Yes, I do add scraps. You should see me going to my daughter's house and my son's house and gathering up their potato peelings and stuff.
They just shake their head and ask if my will is in order.
I never heard of the dog food, but sounds cool and I will put manure in it. I did put some in there, but probably just not enough.
Anyway, I've calmed down a bit, so maybe I'll hang on to the little mind I have left.
You were all really helpful and now I have something to do
Also, it is 80 degrees here and muggy.

82° & muggy - sounds nice...

Carol - I live up on top of a large plateau, so there is nowhere to slide to.
(I'm not near the "edge"). I have no idea what the depth of soil to bedrock is, but I do know that my well is 180' deep, if that helps. Having been on this plateau for over 20 years, the worst damage I have seen to the hillsides is remarkably minimal, even after torrential rains. Normally, if the hillside starts to slide, it is where improper methods of watershed management have been applied.
Most of the area was graded for roads some 30-40 years ago, and I would say it's in very good shape.
I am more concerned about the Doug Firs that take a tumble due to their size & the wind. I would prefer to log mine off & replant with evergreens that are both shorter at maturity, and habitat for a wider variety of avian life. Right now the DF's are basically crow & squirrel habitat. The city does not want ANY trees taken down, unless they're diseased, even if one wishes to do a replacement planting.

Katye, isn't it ridulous that things like that are regulated as such. In the old days the people used the big trees right on site and used them for their houses, which did two things. It gave them close access for building material and kept tall trees that would fall on their newly built houses cut down and you had an area to plant or trim as you wished. It also was a protection from forest fires. Now days people build right under those trees and open themselves up to tree falling because of the wind having access to a tree previously protected by a forest full of trees. By rights a house should be in the open with a gradual rise in height of trees as the distance from the house grows, so you end up in the middle of a bowl in relation to the tree heights.
Carol

I bought a composter and have been adding to it, not a lot of greens, as I don't have them. I turn it, so far no compost, I have had it going a year now. Am I lacking greens?
thanks

What exactly are you adding to your composter? Give us a better idea of how to help :)

Browns alone will compost with air and moisture but very, very, slowly.

I put in kitchen scraps, garden scraps, ie oak leaves, things that I have trimmed. Should I put in alfalfa pellets? or try to find "greens" or maybe water? I would say it is not "breaking down" as fast as I thought it would with this "super" composter.

It needs to be moist to compost. So spray it down and keep it good and damp (not drippy) at all times for the best results. Usually,if you wet it when you turn it should work fine. Your kitchen scraps should mostly be greens but there may not be enough of them to do the job. Alfalfa pellets will help if you have no source for other greens. Try to get roughly a 50/50 mix of green/brown.

thanks for the info, will do those things ASAP:)

Lorraine and Makj: I wonder how long each of you have been adding to your bin, and how much volume is currently present? Compost materials only heat up for so long (for me it's a couple of flips of the bin), then you need to stop adding to it to allow it to sit and cure (i.e. passively cold compost), or spread it as is. Then you start another batch, let it heat, cool , flip and it reheats, etc.

If you have a large volume of stuff that's mostly composted and add a small amount of new material it probably isn't enough new material to generate heat if most is the volume is already mostly composted. Then it's best to stop adding and begin anew.

Also, flipping it TOO often is counterproductive. Once I add fresh stuff I let the pile sit undisturbed for at least a week until the temp drops to 80 or 90.

Karen

I have been adding for a year now, not a lot, but coffee grounds, kitchen scraps. today I added alfalfa pellets and water and turned it several times. I was told by the company I bought from to turn the cylinder everyday.

Makj, turning every day?... Anybody else have anything to say? I don't know if anything can really get started working being disrupted from the beginning. Maybe I'm wrong, but I usually don't get warmth for 3 to 5 days, except grass clippings in black trash bags in the sun. But then, again, I'm not a turner. I just start a pile, get it going hot and keep adding layers and watering between layers, putting straw (nice, clean, dry, airy layer) between my brown and green layers, sprinkling water at every layer that seems too dry to me.

My tumbler says turn twice a week. I found that to be too often, so I aim for every Saturday. Before I read the directions, haha, I was spinning that sucker every day thinking if a little turning is good, a whole lot is better, WRONG! After a week of nasty weather where I couldn't even open it because of the ice, today I found it warm again, after giving it no attention.

I thought maybe in a tumbler it cold composted and the water/air turning might speed it up since it is not a big pile that would heat up well. But a daily turning does seem way over the top!

Ok, this may be my problem. I've been adding to it since last spring. The bottom half of it is good rich dirt, but of course when I turn it, it gets mixed in with the new. Should I just stop adding?

You can sift out the compost from the fresh materials and continue the process or let the fresh stuff compost into the old and then use it. Personally, I think I'd sift it, use it and start a new batch with the stuff I sifted out that wasn't done yet.

me too

I can't believe I worked my fingers to nubs shredding paper when I could have just raked leaves. Oh well, I'll use it anyway. I like the idea of getting the good stuff out and using the other to start new pile. do you go ahead and spread the good stuff now or wait till spring.
Yes I know, you are all doubled over with laughter

Nope, no laughter just delight that you are sticking with it to enjoy the black gold.

You can spread it onto your beds now as a top dressing and the worms will carry it down to the roots of your plants.

I like that that the worms can to some of the work.

Me too. Those wiggly little darlings are amazing. They aerate the soil, carry the compost down to the root zones without our having to dig it in and in the process they pass it through their bodies and magically improve it even more... LOL don't tell my DH but I love those wiggly creatures.

Zany, me too, when I'm screening compost/meditating I look for that particular color and wiggle to rescue it from being destroyed on the screen, pick it out and put in under the screen in nice fresh aerated fluffy compost.
Carol

With all the rain here (no comment), there are always lots of worm buddies to save from the pavement. I have been subjected to some interesting commentary about my concern for these little guys.
I have been fascinated by them since I was about 3 and picked up my first Nightcrawler. But I thought they'd been cheated: no face!

**GRIN** I get home from work about 10:00 p.m. and it has been raining all day. Instead of rushing from the car and into the house I was taking my time and rescued 15 worms from the sidewalk. They are now in the compost pile where they won't drown and can choose their spot according to how warm they want to be. But no one was outside to witness my bravery in the stormy weather to perpetrate this daring rescue effort...so the men in white coats have not come for me yet...

Good thing, too! There'll be more to rescue....

Yes, it is still spritzing outside and I want to round up a few more when I get home ;~)