04-10-2014, 05:06 PM
Found out why I wasn't getting the heat I read there should have been. According to all the literature and gardening websites and blogs and forum comments and youtubes videos, etc., composting creates heat, sometimes in the 130 to 150 Fahrenheit range. "When the composting is cooking, you can feel the heat," they say.
I started a new compost bin using the Berkeley Method, developed in the late '60s early '70s at Berkeley University back in the days when research universities could do research that actually benefited society, not corporations. The method, lasagna-style layering of brown material (leaves, straw, shredded paper, and other high carbon items) with green material (lawn clippings, kitchen scraps, and other high nitrogen items) (not animal-based: Meat, bone, fat, etc. take longer to break down and attract unwanted critters, like flies and rats and raccoons and bears) and turning the pile at proper intervals, can produce mulch in as little as 18 days. Today was the first turn and the center of the pile was bone dry, despite the fact that when making the pile I'd empty the lawnmower bag (I was doing the first mow of the year), layer some straw and/or leaves, then hose the pile down. The top layers were fine, but not below where all the work is being done. We'll see how things go tomorrow.
I started a new compost bin using the Berkeley Method, developed in the late '60s early '70s at Berkeley University back in the days when research universities could do research that actually benefited society, not corporations. The method, lasagna-style layering of brown material (leaves, straw, shredded paper, and other high carbon items) with green material (lawn clippings, kitchen scraps, and other high nitrogen items) (not animal-based: Meat, bone, fat, etc. take longer to break down and attract unwanted critters, like flies and rats and raccoons and bears) and turning the pile at proper intervals, can produce mulch in as little as 18 days. Today was the first turn and the center of the pile was bone dry, despite the fact that when making the pile I'd empty the lawnmower bag (I was doing the first mow of the year), layer some straw and/or leaves, then hose the pile down. The top layers were fine, but not below where all the work is being done. We'll see how things go tomorrow.
Getting me free admission into gaming conventions for a decade