Composting

In the rainforest I have a six bay compost bin.  This allows me to build three compost heaps and turn them back and forth as needed.  The majority of my compost material comes from weeds that are pulled out, the remainder comes from horse manure, tree clippings and soil.

The idea behind a compost pile is to speed up the decomposition of organic matter in a small area, resulting in high quality soil available for use in planting beds.  Organic material is gathered, normally greens and browns.  Greens are usually weeds or kitchen scraps and browns are tree cuttings, branches, wood chips and other material with a night C/N ratio.  Add water and oxygen to a layered mix of greens, browns and manure and aerobic bacteria will break down the material and leave you with super-rich soil for planting.  Some internet sources say it can be done in as little as a month, but a normal timeframe is more like four months.

Bacteria will heat the inside of the pile based on how much nitrogen is available to them.  Too much brown material and they won't have enough N.  Too much N and it'll get too hot and waste material.  The ideal temperature for the inside of a compost pile is 160 degrees F.  Weed seeds will be killed at that temperature.

At some point, the bacteria will use up all the oxygen in the immediate vicinity (due to compaction) and anaerobic bacteria take over.  This is bad.  The temperature of the pile will drop and it will start to smell like rotting versus ammonia.  This is the cue to turn the pile to re-aerate it.

My compost pile is sitting at 120 degrees right now, indicating that I need more nitrogen in the mix.  When I turn the pile on Friday, I will add some chicken manure.

New experiences in the last seven days:
1. Chopped the head off a snake to see what the two lumps were inside. (They were baby rabbits)
2. Shot and skinned a rabbit. (I actually watched as someone else skinned it, but who's counting)
3. Saw the new iPhone announcement and discovered what coveting really means.
4. Added two geese to the rainforest.  (My rainforest)