Maybe the winter is the problem with the heat.

I read somewhere that the compost slows down in the winter. I guess old man Sole does his thing and adds energy to the pile. The same article curiously enough stated that if the pile is large enough it would insulate itself. The reason according to the article is a lack of oxygen. I always thought that winter air is actually heavier and sinks to lower spots. Maybe putting the pile in a lower area would keep it going. Hot air does rise and thin out right? Well who knows? Any way borrowed a book from the library by Rodale on composting. I have time to read it now that the garden has slowed down. Sometimes reading is as good as gardening. Have a merry Christmas all.

Merry Christmas to you, a peaceful Winter Solstice and a joyful New Year! Enjoy your book, remember the important points and report back to us, 'kay?

well i never assumed it was the heat that done the composting anyway, i thought it was the fungus. and since the fungus is dormant for the winter and not breaking stuff down and generating heat and of course the cold... well read your book and i'm sure that will even create greater questions. lol merry christmas

Heat is generated by the organisms consuming the organic material. Many people in cold climates get hot compost. If the ideal environment is there (i.e. good C:N ratio, appropriate moisture, adequate amounts of material and air), digestion carries on and heat results.

Karen

Goodness at my age I enjoy realizing that the system is certainly slowed down as cold air reduces the overall temperature of the pile. My own activity outside is tempered somwhat by that same cold weather. I do not find it a pressing need to be out there trying to force Mother's hand against her wishes. By the end of Februrary your whole outdoor arena will be awakening for your pleasue to observe once again. Maybe it is time to knit a pair of booties for a new grandchild or build a new birdhouse.

It may slow down but it is always somewhat alive and working. As the winter subsides and the thermal mass of the pile is more comfortable greater speed in conversion will be the result. Another factor that may be in play is that your pile could be nearing complete conversion when the pile cools naturally.

Well, I don't know as it is a lack of heat supplied from an outside source. I do think that the sun certainly aids in things. Just look at the break down of organic matter in the soil in winter verses summer. The article says that it is a reduction of available oxygen that causes this. I find it curious as cold air is more dense and settles. We all know that hot air rises. Oh heck maybe its me that is full of hot air. Well anyway merry Christmas all.

Several things happen as winter moves in. The most noticed is ambient temperature reduction. Any thermal mass below fifty degrees is causing the biolological life to get sleepy or less active. The warm weather players kick up their heals and take a rest while the cold weather players now continue but their noticable effects are far less noticable than warm weather effects.

Rain, snow and time bring on compression. This spells less oxygen retension in the pile.
These ever changing conditions are normal.

Not rocket science! Observe and enjoy discovery. Want to amaze your friends next spring or summer? Crank up your pile by adding some materials to anything over a hundred and ten degrees. Fix a home made jar of soup or stew with lid. Set it in the pile where it will stay the temperature of the pile. Pull it out and utter the words: Grunt...free heat. No stove.

ya know, we use refrigerators in our houses to drastically slow down bacterial growth in our leftovers.
oh, doc, you are kidding! we had a nut try to get a permit for a solar power BarBQue place here once. Its one thing to make a boy scout oven, but commercial ribs, he hadn't quite done the calcutlations.

Ugh, I've personally been witness to a horse manure pile catching fire. The goofball owner of the farm was storing their spent stall bedding and manure under the roof of their barn. The center of the pile was extremely hot and ashen -- it had the appearance of a charcoal fire, and the entire pile was smoking. DH and I happened to be there visiting at the time and we ended up dousing the pile with water from a garden hose. Had we not noticed it, we believe that it would have combusted soon thereafter.

well, in that case, I will attend the doc's slow cooker potluck dinner!

Yeah, the number one rule of any horse owner or barn manager is to store old bedding/manure out in the open, with plenty of airflow around it. Hay must be stored in a well-ventilated place, under cover though. The trick with hay (technically, a "brown", right?? Or maybe I've got that wrong?) is that you cannot allow it to get too hot as it is also prone to spontaneous combustion, which is how barn fires sometimes start (hay is often stored up in the tops of barns, in the rafters). Hay also needs to have been very well dried before being baled. So ... it's the same concept with our compost piles, right?

PS I kept forgetting to state that that Hot Manure Pile episode took place in mid-September, in MD, a day or two before Hurricane Isabelle rolled through, so the temp's were pretty hot here at the time.

I was wondering if anybody had experienced spontaneious combustion before? From what I've read that pile must had been over 170F.

My application of food warming would be called showmanship not a cooking demo. The stew or soup would be hot going in and not be there long.
Just long enough for the surprise and the show.
.......I do things like that once in a while just to keep them guessing.

Even a pile of sawdust or wood chips can get hot enough to spontaneously combust. At the sawmill, chips are put into huge piles to be used for fuel for the electric plant. The chips are usually used before they begin to break down too much since there are no "greens" added to generate fast heat. But occasionally the piles are not used fast enough and come the winter rains the piles can begin to smoke and if not used will burst into flames. That means that we have more danger of fires in the cold wet winter than in the summer heat.

It always strikes me as funny because it is not until the piles are wet that they become a problem and to put out the fire they must add more water. Of course they also have to spread the chips out into a thin layer at that point to saturate them and prevent the heat from rebuilding.

I've heard of a news story from San Antonio, where a mulching plant pile, caught on fire. Needless, to say it was very hard to put out.

I have purchased a compost tumbler and the information on winter composting is that it stops working when temperatures consistently drop below 40 degrees every day and night then the compost slows to hardly nothing.
We get alot of sunshine here during the winter and hoping it will only take a month for the tumbler to make compost. Normally in summer heat it only takes 14 days.
I have a tremendous amount of grass clippings, dry grass/ hay clippings and all the manure I can play with. ( rabbit, chicken, horse, cow).
I hope the tumbler is not a big disappointment for its huge price.
I cant wait to Play.

Interesting, CricketsG'. I had contemplated one of those tumblers for years. I wonder if you stuck some fresh horse manure and shavings in there, if it would heat things up in spite of the cool air. I put a bunch on top of my compost bins yesterday - my neighbors probably don't find the smell as lovely as I do though. Oops.

Crickets, there are 2 ways to work with a tumbler. Since you have enough on hand, fill it about 2/3 of the way full and let it sit for a week. Then tumble once or twice a week, no more. Don't be tempted to keep adding stuff. It should make compost in that month.

I use it the other slow way. I put things in it gradually. It really only started working good when I stopped adding things. My last addition was fresh bunny poop. It heated up for a few days, but I still don't have finished compost, but it is close. I'll use it in the spring.

Thank you Cathy for the advice. Will do just that.
My neighbor has 6 horses.
The distant neighbor has 4 donkeys and a herd of cows.
My sister has 30 chickens, 15 ducks and 16 rabbits.
My sister is using my grass clipping to feed the rabbits and the dry grass clippings to dress under the rabbit cages. Every two weeks I can gather the dry grass clippings full of rabbit manure to compost. If compost tumbler is busy at that time, I will store the waste in trash cans til time to compost. ITs a great circle of life. Right now I have two trash cans of rabbit manure and hay waiting for the tumbler to arrive. Will add a little horse manure to heat things up a bit.
On the side lines I have two big heaps of dry grass clippings from mowing the lawn that need to be composted. If my finances let me, I will most likely order another Tumbler before Spring.
Growing Giant Pumpkins and Giant Tomatoes this Spring. I need real compost to add to that so called walmart compost.
I am very anxious for Spring to arrive.

Wow, that is a whole lot of manure! Lucky duck!

I am doing really well staying heated right now (4 by 8 bin, mostly dry leaves), and I credit it to enough moisture and a few handfuls of urea fertilizer added to the leaves. I think yoou have to consider that nitrogen will get used up and is more volatile, and also that steam is sending moisture out of it. I am staying hot right under several bags of leaves, which is Not a place getting good air, and the leaf bags themselves can't be getting good air with only a few holes, and dense material inside.

You are Lucky! Wish I had that much sources of dung!