Tuesday, October 12

Making hot compost

Hot Aerobic Compost
is a method to make a lot of compost in a fairly short space of time, it involves an optimum "Carbon Nitrogen Ratio" and because of the "heat" it kills weed seeds and pathogens, which is particulary useful if the source of any of your ingredients is questionable. The heat in this process is created from microbial production, as the little single celled bacterias eat and reproduce they create heat. If they create too much heat and there is not enough oxygen for them to breathe the compost goes "anaerobic" and thus this method is quite labour intensive as you need to keep an eye on it's internal temperature, or if you have a special compost temperature probe this makes life easier. If the compost is too hot or too cold, the entire pile needs to be turned. A pitch fork is good for this. The ideal is 55-65•degrees.
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The compost our group constructed (as seen in photos above) consists of
6 month old compost (which hasn't completely decomposed)
straw
grass clippings
hand harvested weeds (nettles, grasses, mallow)
dried chicken manure
wood chips we found in a pile that had some fungi growth
400 liters of water

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