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Pro tip: I stopped treating my compost like a trash can and started treating it like a sourdough starter
Two years ago my compost bin was basically a garbage disposal for banana peels, and every spring I'd dig out this slimy gray brick that smelled like a wet dog died in a swamp. Then last April a guy named Dale at the community garden in Boise handed me a soil thermometer and said the pile should run between 130 and 150 degrees, and if it's not, it's not composting, it's just rotting. I started weighing my greens and browns on a $12 kitchen scale, aiming for about 30 percent kitchen scraps to 70 percent shredded cardboard and dead leaves, and turning the whole thing every three days like I was folding dough. First batch hit 148 degrees on day two and stayed hot for 11 days straight, which I never got close to before. By June I had finished compost in 6 weeks instead of 8 months, and my tomatoes went from sad little golf balls to fruit the size of softballs. The weird part is I now check the pile temperature before I check my phone in the morning, which my wife thinks is a problem. Any of you run a hot pile in a cold climate? I want to know if it holds temp through a Boise January or if I need to build a box around it.
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shane_clark6d ago
Reminds me of keeping a campfire going all night, gotta feed it right or it dies lol
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