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How to Make Compost, a Composting Guide http://www. compostguide. com/ The speed with which you produce finished compost will be determined by how you collect materials, whether you chop them up, how you mix them together, and so on. Achieving a good balance of carbon and nitrogen is easier if you build the pile all at once. Layering is traditional, but mixing the materials works as well. Shredded organic materials heat up rapidly, decompose quickly, and produce a uniform compost. The decomposition rate increases with the size of the composting materials. If you want the pile to decay faster, chop up large fibrous materials. You can add new materials on an ongoing basis to an already established pile. Most single-bin gardeners build an initial pile and add more ingredients on top as they become available. The temperature of the managed pile is important - it indicates the activity of the decomposition process. The easiest way to track the temperature inside the pile is by feeling it. If it is warm or hot, everything is fine. If it is the same temperature as the outside air, the microbial activity has slowed down and you need to add more nitrogen (green) materials such as grass clippings, kitchen waste, or manure. ~~''~~~ ~~~ I t ~~ Use a compost thermometer to easily see how well your compost is doing. They are inexpensive, and quite convenient to have. If the pile becomes too dry, the decay process will slow down. Organic waste needs water to decompose. The rule of thumb is to keep the pile as moist as awrung-out sponge. • If you're building your pile with very wet materials, mix them with dry materials as you build. If all the material is very dry, soak it with a hose as you build. Whenever you turn the pile, check it for moisture and add water as necessary. Too much water is just as detrimental as the lack of water. In an overly wet pile, water replaces the air, creating an anaerobic environment, slowing decomposition. Air circulation is an important element in a compost pile. Most of the organisms that decompose organic matter are aerobic -they need air to survive. There are several ways to keep your pile breathing. Try not to use materials that are easily compacted such as ashes or sawdust, without mixing them with a coarser material first. People who build large piles often add tree branches or even ventilation tubes vertically into different parts of the pile, to be shaken occasionally, to maximize air circulation. A more labor-intensive way to re-oxygenate the pile is to turn the pile by hand, using a large garden fork. The simplest way is to move the material from the pile and restack it alongside. Amultiple-bin system makes this efficient, in that you only handle the material once. Otherwise, you can put the material back into the same pile. The object is to end up with the material that was on the outside of the original pile, resting in the middle of the restacked pile. This procedure aerates the pile and will promote unifonn decomposition. This is an excellent tool for aerating and mixing compost. The following information is for the highly managed pile and the optimum finished compost in the shortest amount 6 of 10 4/19/2007 2:47 PM