Are you a hottie?

Not to worry anyone but have any of you heard of spontaneous combustion of hay & straw etc.due to the heat build up caused by the white mould & bacteria at work for too long ?

Any thoughts about it WRT. our composting games ?

Yup, Plantoid, it definitely can happen in hay or straw stacks especially. Here it happens when several tons of compressed bales are stacked when a little too damp still (not fully cured to hay). I gather the important variable here is mass. The large mass does not let excess heat out and there is plenty of burnable ingrediants available and enough oxygen.
160-170 is as hot as a pile should get. If does not seem to be simmering down then it needs to be turned and watered to lower the heat. Also a pile that gets too hot for too long will eat up all the nitrogen etc, it is good compost but not super fertilizer.

GWN, you do not need to save a starter, just make the next pile where the last successful one was. There will be enough inoculant hanging around there any ways


150F and size is shrinking.

150F is tops for me, I'll start breaking the pile up if temps are sustained at temp higher than that.

I'm pretty sure that if I didn't pour some water down into the center of my pile, it would've gotten higher than 162F. I guess it's a good thing it didn't.

Well I got home and I seem to have stalled at 120, and I have to poke the thermometer into several places to get 120, most parts of the pile is 110. (funny how fickle we are, last week I was over the moon with my 110.
My second pile is also 120.

Turan, I had planned on moving pile with each turn, I have a few acres of this very aggressive grass that I am trying to kill, yet keep the carcasses of the plant for their nutrients, so I figure if I move the pile a lot it will help with weeding

GWN, O yeah, I forgot that. I am sure it can only help to have a starter from the last batch.
You were gone several days, did the pile heat higher and now cooling again? I have a sneaky suspicion that piles that simmer along at 100- 140 are more nutritious compost, not as much nutrients get burned out. But I don't know where or from whom I heard that, probably my Dad.

Somewhere, maybe this thread? Some one mentioned compost pits in arid areas of the world. That was what my dad always did. Digging the pit out was a bother. That is a a more anearobic composting. It did not smell or bother the neighbors etc. Because we only had the one pit we would add in one area while digging out another area. It was 6X6X6? Deep enough that I hid in it and then worried I would not be able to get out when I was 8.

I would not be able to get out when I was 8.

Last night we were chatting about whether one could bury a body on a hot compost (Our son has come to stay for the summer and DOES ask weird questions ) but there WAS an episode of BONES that a body was found in a compost partially broken down

It used to be routine to bury meat and bones in the compost. Problem was the bears it attracted. I told my hubby that i want to buried in the compost pile and then fed to the plants. He says the neighbors would object.

so MY QUESTION IS should I turn them now> See if I can get them going? Perhaps combine 2 piles

Turan wrote:Yup, Plantoid, it definitely can happen in hay or straw stacks especially. Here it happens when several tons of compressed bales are stacked when a little too damp still (not fully cured to hay). I gather the important variable here is mass. The large mass does not let excess heat out and there is plenty of burnable ingrediants available and enough oxygen.
160-170 is as hot as a pile should get. If does not seem to be simmering down then it needs to be turned and watered to lower the heat. Also a pile that gets too hot for too long will eat up all the nitrogen etc, it is good compost but not super fertilizer.

GWN, you do not need to save a starter, just make the next pile where the last successful one was. There will be enough inoculant hanging around there any ways


150F and size is shrinking.

EXCELENT POST TURAN .. TAKE THREE CLASS POINTS AND BECOME INK MONITOR FOR THE WEEK !



Seriously that ought to be made a sticky especially because of the temerature safety ceiling & the action to combat it as well as the nitrogen depletion at high temps.

plantoid wrote:

EXCELENT POST TURAN .. TAKE THREE CLASS POINTS AND BECOME INK MONITOR FOR THE WEEK !



Seriously that ought to be made a sticky especially because of the temerature safety ceiling & the action to combat it as well as the nitrogen depletion at high temps.

Ink Monitor! O the honor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks

Seriously though, the temperature thing is a balance between killing weed seeds etc and using up too much nitrogen. Do you know what is supposed to be a good temp to reach for the weed seed part? I think the bacteria in the compost starts dieing at 165F, so it should cool down then unless there is too much mass.

Tire composter is 140F and it is snowing out.

GWN wrote:

I would not be able to get out when I was 8.

Last night we were chatting about whether one could bury a body on a hot compost (Our son has come to stay for the summer and DOES ask weird questions ) but there WAS an episode of BONES that a body was found in a compost partially broken down

I did a search for composting dead animals and found lots of info. It is routinely done. Here is one example:

Disposal by composting

The action of thermophilic, aerobic bacteria converts nitrogen rich (e.g. dead animals) and carboniferous (e.g. straw, sawdust, etc.) Materials into humic acids, bacterial biomass and organic residue (compost). During the composting process, heat, carbon dioxide and water are generated as by-products. The resulting product is free from harmful pathogens, is nutrient-rich and can be used as fertilizer. The poultry and swine industries have adopted composting as the method of choice for ridding farms of dead animals.

In a typical system, carcasses are placed in a bin containing sawdust, creating an ideal environment for the growth of the aforementioned bacteria. The optimal carbon to nitrogen ratio for bacteria is approximately 30:1.Bacterial action rapidly heat compost piles to temperatures as high as 160F and within several weeks carcasses are reduced, leaving only brittle bones which are easily crumbled. "Turning" the compost pile by moving it to a new bin (i.e. secondary bin) after two weeks helps maintain high temperatures and promote even further decomposition.

Lindacol
That is quite interesting, in fact explains a lot.

OK so I was unsure what to do with my piles that seem to have stalled at 120, so one of them I turned over today.
(more like rebuilt)
So we will see what happens now.

OK I AM BACK.... still trying to get into this club, banging on the doors
So both of my piles briefly went up to 120 degrees and then dropped right down again.
So on Monday I rebuilt the whole thing into one large pile, added some lawn clippings.
It was 75 when I finished, it was 81 by that night, gradually going up again to today despite a bad freeze last night, I am up to 105.
.......
More cautiously than before.

It's quite possible that your compost is nearing completion

naw, just starting over again

OK, this topic has renewed my interest in my compost pile. I don't use a bin, just a pile. Back a few years ago I used to turn it weekly and once it seemed so hot during the winter that I had to divide it into 2 piles. From reading Turans post, I guess it was too big originally.

At some point I started putting in sticks to let in oxygen and that makes it so much harder to turn! So I stopped turning and it only do it about once a month if that. I know this isn't working because I now have lilly-of-the-valley and English ivy popping up in gardens where they never were before.

I just got a load of grass clippings from a neighbor, bought a new fork when the other one broke, and I've been slowly removing the sticks as I add more kitchen scraps. But I need to get serious.

Soooo...I'll continue to read and gain inspiration to turn...

Thanks, all!


The far left is the 'use this' pile, the right side is the 'new' pile. The middle is new pile stuff covering potted up tulip bulbs and a wheel barrow of the same, to keep them warm for the winter.

CapeCoddess wrote:.....
At some point I started putting in sticks to let in oxygen and that makes it so much harder to turn!

I store a 4 ft rebar propped up in between the pallet slats. It is heavy enough to practically poke holes into a 4 sq.ft. pile by itself. Wiggle it back and forth till the sides of the hole is firm. Works very well.

HI Capegoddess.
Looks like you must be doing it right, there are advantages to slower composting.
I have read where you can create a solar heater for your finished compost to get it up to a very high temp just to kill the seeds.
You line a box with tin foil on a warm day
I need to find the details....

This is from Mother earth news
"For this job, I use a solar cooker made from a 20-inch cardboard box lined with aluminum foil. (You can find plans for simple solar cookers at the Solar Cooking Archive; be sure to search for “eye safety” and read the precautions for shielding your retinas from superintense light.) When I have compost from diseased and weedy plants, I take a 3-gallon heavy plastic pot filled with damp compost, enclose it in a clear plastic bag and place it in the cooker in direct sun. You can use an oven thermometer to find out how hot your cooker is. Two hours at 140 degrees kills most weed seeds and soilborne pathogens."



Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/2006-10-01/Compost-Made-Easy.aspx?page=3#ixzz1vXM2CoAa

Hmm...wonder if that cooker kills all the good bugs, too...and my sweet little earth worms.

OH...I went out to my pile today during lunch break, with an indoor thermometer and only got up to 71 degrees about 12 inches down. Not a member of this club yet. But it's moist down there. I like to pile it up during and after a rain, like now. So I put out some kitchen scraps, sprinkled some of that grass all over the pile, grabbed that fork and threw all the stuff from the closest end across the top...in the rain. But it hurts my back anymore to do too much. The last few times I turned it, I'd turn some then work in the garden for a bit for a rest, turn some more, garden, repeat until it was completely turned. Now I turn some then not anymore for days.

I need to clean it, those stick are annoying. I like the rebar idea.

How about goose poo for the pile. I started using it last year when the house across the street sold. The new owners became fast friends and they have to rake their lakeside beach a few times a year ending up with bags and bags of goose poo. Anyone else use it or hear any positives or negatives about using it?

I would take the temp from deeper in the pile where most of the action is taking place Also, I like to do my piles in layers. I don't get all scientific about greens to browns ratio, but doing each in layers helps me "eyeball" how much of each I'm putting in. I spray each layer as I go. I use rods similar to llama mama's rebar. They are electric fence posts, and I just stick 3-4 vertically in the pile and every day or two remove one, giving it a little wiggle as I pull it out to make a little vent. I turn and water my piles once a week.

From what I have seen if you want to kill weed seeds, you have to get the compost hot, however that takes away a lot of the nutrients.
My compost seems to stay at 100 degrees and is full of worms and bugs.

The solar heater thing, I was thinking more about something to stick all your weeds in, which I think is what she is talking about.
I have a worm farm and if I want to get rid of the worms, I shine a light on the top and they all go down below. I think that that is what they do when the hot compost starts to get really hot, they just go down below.

To kill weed seed and various unsavory microscopic organisms a sustained temperature over 130F is desirable. I have had my compost up to 145F+ and I have found that the worms will move down into the ground (my pile sits on the dirt) when the temperature rises... I also believe that my compost remains quite nutritious for even at that or higher temps.

By the way, to the SFG Forum, neighbor!!!