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Ohio

How warm does it have to be before your compost starts cooking again after a long cold winter. Just above freezing?

3/18/2005 3:25:39 PM

Montoursville, PA

It never quit completely. The afternoon sun is being effective right now. Help it out with a dose of molasses right now and turn the pile if you can.

3/18/2005 3:50:35 PM

[email protected]

Have a compost pile that never went below 55 degrees F. even when our temperatures were minus 35 degrees.
The top 6 inches froze pretty hard.
I have a remote thermometer in the compost pile, and actually the outside temperature today is 28 degrees F. and inside the pile it is a balmy 66 degees. The compost inside the pile will be my water heater next summer, (thanks Doc for the idea) as the copost is sitting on top of 100 ft of plastic pipe.
eddy

3/18/2005 4:12:14 PM

Montoursville, PA

Yep Eddie...........and if you can somehow collect that menthane from decomposing waste it burns a pretty clean blue flame. Hee haw! But Eddie please be well advised.

Said another way.......most piles have some menthane which is a dangerous gas. Some intellegent use, of menthane, has been documented as have dead amateurs been recorded, at the bottom, of their menthane holding tanks.

3/18/2005 5:12:28 PM

Ohio

Maybe my compost was just froze the first 6 inches like yours eddy,when i turned the pile today and sprayed with fish and sea weed, the middle was almost as black as coal and still damp.

3/18/2005 5:41:58 PM

Ohio

also sprayed it with molasses Doc :-)

3/18/2005 5:43:14 PM

White Plains, NY

Two cast iron radiators. One in the center of the large compost pile the other in the greenhouse. Connected by insulated garden hose and covered with hay and boards. A small circulator pump and almost free heat. Put "Doc's" molassas in the pile to increase your heat.

3/18/2005 8:46:28 PM