120 Degrees
October 22nd, 2009 · No Comments · Posted in garden
The compost pile is heating up
Peeling back a layer of our compost pile this morning to deposit some kitchen scraps I was hit with a blast of heat.
“I wanna see the steam! I wanna see the steam!” daughter shouted when I returned to the house to tell what was happening in our garden.
She approached the compost pile warily, holding her nose.
“Compost doesn’t smell,” I assured her. “Here, stick you hand in here.” I had dug a hole where the steam was billowing.
“What makes it steam?” she asked
I explained that the heat came from billions of bacteria busy at work, digesting all the stuff we’d placed in the compost pile.
“But I thought bacteria were bad,” she said.
She’s so smart. In fact, lots of bacteria are bad. They cause disease. But other bacteria are helpful. They chew up dead things and turn them back into soil. Without those bacteria, we’d be over our heads in garbage.
I came back with the compost thermometer, which registered just north of 120 degrees. That’s not bad. We started this pile a little over a week ago, but it was raining and in the 40s for days. Usually our compost will heat up to 140 degrees. The coffee grounds and horse manure we layered in there–along with shredded straw and garden debris–does a good job of heating up the pile, which makes decomposition occur quicker.
Now we can add to the pile with more coffee grounds and manure. With leaves beginning to fall, we might take advantage and start a second pile.
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