hot composting | Crazy About Compost

Thermal kill temperatures obtained!

After a huge storm last weekend, tons of leaves came down on the block. By Monday they had dried out and I was there for the sweeping. I put my shredder to use and converted 3 bags of leaves into one full, dense bag of shredded brown fuel. I added a bunch of leftovers, the compost toilet bucket, weeds I picked from the side yard, and cat food that the picky guy doesn't want to eat anymore. On a side note, my cat seems to only want the cheap processed crap. I tried feeding him some super good stuff with real meat in it, and he doesn't want it! Anyway, it makes great fuel. My pile has been at or above 131 F for a few days now. Yay! According…

Huge compost bin sighting!

I was walking around the other day and found these massive 5' x 5' x 5' compost bins. I hope they don't always look this inactive! There's a lot of potential here. The "death" of a compost bin is when branches are tossed in... while they are organic and will break down, they will take forever to do so in that form and just take up space. To the left of these bins is a nice pile of wood chips, and it was good to see that the wood chips were not present in the bins... sawdust yes, wood shavings not really, wood chips no way. If the nature area wanted to (and maybe they do on a scheduled basis), there was plenty of material in the immediate vicinity of…

My Compost Pile is Sinking!

Just the other week, I had filled the bin up to the edge with new material...and I look out there today after forgetting about it and it's dropped nearly a foot! This is what I love about compost piles- I've been adding material to this thing on a weekly basis and it's just a bottomless pit of degradation. With the summertime coming on, I can only imagine this process will kick up a few more notches still.