The Great Compost
August 26th, 2007
Well I finally got a day to dedicate to assembling all the material we had been collecting for the compost pile. Yesterday I spent about 5 hours chipping, shredding, layering, and spraying the material into the compost pile. Thanks to my Master Composter friend Thomas, the design for the bin was created with shipping pallets and hardware cloth quite cheaply. It is about 3 feet high, 3 feet wide, and 4 feet deep. The starting temperature according to my handy composting thermometer was about 88°F.
For those of you not very familiar with composting, it is the process of producing compost through aerobic decomposition of biodegradable organic matter. It takes the right combination of Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Water to foster aerobic decomposition. Active (or hot) composting, which is what I am doing, allows the aerobic bacteria to thrive which is what causes the heat. This is where the thermometer comes in handy. The ideal temperature is between 130°F and 140°F for a few days.
Back to my pile… here’s a few of the ingredients that went into my pile:
- Shredded Oak Leaves
- Chipped Oak Branches
- Grass Clippings
- Stall Hay and Horse Manure
- Several Buckets of Kitchen Scraps (no meat or dairy)
- Dryer Lint
- Paper towels from cleaning non-chemical messes
- Water
- Shredded Bush Trimmings
So this was all yesterday. Today I went out to check the pile to see if there had any progress, and it had! At 2pm today I checked and the pile was at 122°F!!! And even better I went out 2 hours later to check it again at 4pm and it was at 128°F!!! Wahoo! We have heat!
Update: 6pm – Two hours and a short thunderstorm later… we’ve jumped another 6 degrees in the pile! Awesome! Now reading in at 134°F.
Update: 8pm – I’m starting to sense a pattern here… two more hours and another jump of 6 degrees! So now it is at 140°F. I’m beginning to wonder if it will go higher than that?!?! I’ll have to consult my local Master Composter to find out if this is a problem or a good thing.
Update: Next morning 8am – Another update for those of you out there just dying to know what today’s temp is! It looks like it has reached the highest temp, 161°F! I checked again at 11 because I am home today with Jenna because she is sick and it is still at 161°F. See picture below.
Thats probably all the updates I’ll do to this post.
Entry Filed under: Getting Greener
6 Comments Add your own
1. alicia | August 26th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
what does cooper think about your compost pile? i imagine it gets in the way of his laps around the yard…
on another note, may i just say that i am amazed that you (kevin) can take pictures of something as ordinary as a thermometer and make them look like art. incredible!
2. Ashley | August 27th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
I posted a comment yesterday but it never showed up. I said something like…
And Colby is excited about his new sandbox! So, I’m just wondering how you might have come into possession of “Stall Hay and Horse Manure”?
3. Ashley | August 27th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
And then I could follow that up by saying “That’s some hot crap!”
4. Kevin | August 28th, 2007 at 8:10 am
Alicia, nope not in Cooper’s way… its off in the corner of the yard which Cooper tends to avoid in his runnings anyway. Thanks for the photo compliment
Ashley, a guy I work with lives a bit farther out in the country and his neighbor has horses. That’s where I got the manure from. So far it does appear to be pretty hot crap.
5. Ashley | September 10th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Baby pictures?
6. Ashley | September 14th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Thanks. For the baby pictures.
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed