Compost Pile Not Heating Up

by Bob
(Creston, BC)

Hi
If you have a compost box and put garden waste in it over a period of time, how do you get it to heat up. I am a member of a community garden. We have 5 bins that are used. In previuos years no one seemed to know much about composting and it was left pretty much on its own.

When I joined I decided to see if I could get the compost working the way it should.

I started by rotating all the boxes. I leveled each layer and added some soil that was available.
After a couple of weeks the bins where settling but it didn't appear as though they where generating any heat. I put my hand down a ways and it seemed relativly cool.

In 3 months I have rotated the bins 3 times. What I decided to do each time I rotated the bins was add a sprinkle of pure nitrogen pellets I bought at the garden center. The bins are decomposing but it still doesn't feel as though there is any heat.

What I have at the moment is four bins in the process of decomposing and one bin that was empty and is now being slowly filled with garden greens as people work their beds.

This is the bin I am wondering about at the moment. What is the best way to make sure this bin decomposes as it is being slowly filled. Will this bin create any heat as it is being filled. I know the best way is to fill the box in one go but that isn't practicle at this point.

What I have done is added a small bag of steer manure when there was about a foot of greens. I keep the vegetation chopped with a pair of shears. I also water it down. Plus I add a sprinkle of nitrogen as the box fills up.

The boxes are about 3 cubic feet each.

Is what I am doing ok or should I be doing some thing different.


Doug says that compost works naturally when the "green:brown" ratio is 50:50 or the carbon:nitrogen ratio is 30:1. If you're adding a lot of nitrogen pellets, a lot of kitchen waste and not much carbon or "brown" you may not have enough carbon to get things going properly.

Three cubic feet is a very small bin. That's a space 1 foot by 1 foot by 3 feet tall. You'll need to make these larger if you want to really get heat going. 4x4x4 is much better.

It's all in the balance of carbon to nitrogen and the moisture content if you want a hot compost pile. A cold compost pile will work as well but not produce as good a compost and take more time.

It's in the balance.

We're currently doing a compost tea seminar over at the seminar pages and will be adding compost material shortly to this topic.