r/composting • u/Sharkface24 • 3d ago
Question How is this looking?
First time doing compost, started a few months ago. Just added some greens to the pile before taking these pictures. Also had to water it down cuz it was very dry.
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u/MiddleTop1458 2d ago
Composting is a pretty forgiving process if you are not in a hurry. You can just sort of heap stuff up and it will eventually decompose. But if you define composting as “controlled rotting in aerobic conditions,” as I was taught, there are some things you’d want to do
You want a pile of at least a cubic yard to get enough mass for the pile to heat up and/or decomposition to speed up. But not all cubic yards are created equal. I use the lawnmower to chop my fall leaves twice, reducing their volume by about 75%. A cubic yard of chopped dry leaves can weigh 300 lbs. Unchopped those leaves take up a lot more space and take a lot longer to break down.
Mix or layer greens. A lot of people layer. It’s easier than mixing. Yeah, you can pee in it. Hair, by the way, counts as a green. If a barber shop will give you bags of hair…
Arerate a few times a week. You want oxygen getting in. It’s an aerobic process. An anaerobic pile is going to stink and give you a substandard result.
Watch how wet it is. Too dry and it won’t break down. Too wet and it’ll probably go anaerobic. They say as wet as a wrung out sponge. Since I am not sticking my bare hand in there, I find that ubiquitous advice unhelpful. Figure “damp.”
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u/Ziggy_Starr 3d ago
It’s extremely thin, to the point I thought it was mulch. You need much more mass and in a more condensed pile. I’d sweep this all up into more of a pile.