hot composting update - wk 15

This morning it's a quick visit with Margot and Marcus, back to the hot heap in the pottager to assess how it's going and measure the temperature.  First stop is the cold heap in the veggie patch for comparison and that reads around 30 ish degrees on the thermometer stick.

Margot knows to dazzle us with her best smile for photos now!

Over at the pottager hot heap - Marcus says he witnessed great plumes of steam arising from it over the weekend - hence his interest in getting an accurate reading today. We plunge the stick in the centre where it's hottest and watch the thermometer climb. The two star pickets in the centre are hot to touch and it's so hot you are not able to leave your hand inside the heap for any length of time.

Checking the new heap.

Finally the thermometer stops rising and 70 degrees is recorded. From what I can tell Marcus is happy with this heat - but not too much more. It would be interesting to find out exactly what temp is too high and will kill off the good bacteria as well as the bad stuff (weed seeds etc.....) From discussion I surmise it is anything over 75 degrees and the optimal temperature of a heap is somewhere between 60 - 70 degrees.

This heap is a little larger than the first one we built and the extra volume is touted as the reason for the increase in heat. This heaps is at least 1.5m high by 1.5m wide. Meanwhile our smaller hot heap that we made a few weeks back has been turned once again and is starting to break down very nicely. Probably one more turn and it's done.

The first hot heap is breaking down nicely.

While we were there in the pottager we thought it would be good if we measured the temp of the soil in a bare bed - which reads around 7 to 8 degrees, versus the temp of the no dig beds we prepared the week before which come out at 13 - 14 degrees. This extra warmth in winter will surely help the plant's growth along nicely. Another good reason to incorporate no-dig gardening into my home gardening system.