Cooking the Compost
You know you have a good mixture of greens and browns when your compost pile is cooking. This means that it’s slightly moist and literally warm or hot – at a higher temperature than the air around it. Sometimes you’ll open up the lid and even see steam escaping when you stir it. You can test the temperature with composting thermometer, or just stick your hand in and dig around.
If your compost is not warmer than the outside air, you probably need to add some more greens or some water and give it a stir. Alternatively, if your compost pile is starting smell foul (like rotting eggs), it’s probably time to start a new project in the wood shop because you need to add more browns, dry it out a bit, and give it a good stir to aerate it.
If you actively attend to your compost, stirring it up once or twice a week, then you can get some good compost in just a couple of months. If you’re more laid back like me, just stir it up when you think of it, and then “harvest” it maybe once or twice a year. I use a large plastic composting bin, so when I harvest my compost, I open the bin up (leaving the pile of compost on the ground), move the bin over a few feet, and start shoveling the parts that aren’t cooked enough back into the bin. What’s left over is a rich, earthy compost that goes into the garden or onto the lawn.