"mmarteen" wrote in message
...

"Compostman" wrote in message
...
You don't say where your live, so I have no idea what your Winter
weather is like.

oops. Zone 4a (Minneapolis, MN)

It's natural for your pile to cool off this time of year where you live.

And you don't say what you put in your compost pile other than snake
oil (I mean "accellerator"), so it's pretty hard to give tips. I can
advise
not to waste your money on additives to the compost pile. Compost
happens
naturally.


For brown: chopped leaves, long dead plants, used dirt from pots, chopped
up
newspaper. Also lots of egg shells.

For green: kitchen scraps (vegetable only), coffee grinds and recently
deceased plants and weeds.

I have tried to keep the ratio at least 6:1 brown to green. I turn the
pile
every 3 or 4 days, which is about when I add to it and lately, when I dose
it with the accellerator and water. I take the temperature before I mess
with it so I can see what is happening with the pile first so the temps
are
before I turn it or add water.

Neither dirt nor egg shells are browns. Compost isn't dirt and dirt doesn't
compost.

And egg shells don't compost either. They may eventually break down, but
they're not
really part of the composting process. (I dry my egg shells in the oven
after I've used it
to cook something, then crush the shells and put them around plants that
would like lime.

Most people advise against putting weeds in the compost. Coffee grounds are
and excellent
green material. Make sure you chop up kitchen scraps and plants from your
yard. Newspaper
is very slow to compost (unlike cardboard or office paper).

But don't worry about your pile freezing during the Winter. Next Spring
worms should
find it a good home and finish things off for you.


When I purchased the additives, my idea was to use them as a jump start if
the pile
got too cool. I thought I would be able to maintain the temperature above
60 if I just kept adding
"brown" and "green" in the right proportions. Instead, I've been adding
them
just about every time I add to the pile because the temperature seems too
cool.

As I said before, additives are a waste of money. The idea is to turn waste
into
compost, not turn an otherwise useful product into compost.

Temperature depends upon lots of things: ingredients, size of
ingredients, moisture (I actually like to keep my piles on the dry side,
especially to start, because vegetable waste contains so much water),
size
of pile, and frequency of turning the pile. These all affect
temperature.
It's pretty hard to keep a pile hot during freezing weather, although
one
year, when I was working on my piles every day, my most active pile
would
be
frozen on the outside and 140 degrees in the center.


My composter is roughly 3' X 3' X 3' so I guess I should expect it to
freeze
eventually, although it would be nice if I could keep it going for another
month or so to get rid of all of my pile of garden waste from last
summer's
garden.

mm

--
Compostman
Washington, DC
USDA Zone 7
"mmarteen" wrote in message
...
I started composting in late summer, bought the Gardener's supply
pyramid
job. Yes I know, it is a yuppie composter but give me a break, I live
in
a
city neighborhood and I wanted something that looked attractive and
had
various defenses against bad smells in case something should go awry
in
the
green/brown balance. (cover and charcoal filter).

Over the summer I had no problem keeping the compost between 80 and
110
degrees and the stuff seemed to break down fast judging from the
falling
level of debris inside. Since October, however, I have had a hard
time
getting the compost above 55. I realize that the temperature outside
probably makes it more difficult for the composter to retain heat but
at
this rate, the compost will be stalled over the winter.

Here is my modus opperandi: The balance of brown to green has been
consistent. We've had extremely dry weather (and the holes in the
composter
top aren't sufficient to water it when it does rain) so with every 6
inches
of material, I add about 4 gallons of water.

I tried using the Gardener's supply compost accellerator and it was
hard
to
mix and figure out unless you were composting in batches. It didn't
really
work for me, but that may have been a factor of how I applied it.
After
that
was gone, I bought some from Johnny's Seeds which I have been using. I
haven't used it enough to say it works or doesn't but my compost is
still
hovering around 55.

Any tips or ideas?

mm