Composting - the kind without worms

What has my life come to? I currently give more thought to what I'm going to feed my dirt than I give to my own food. I guess in the end it all comes full-circle, but for lunch today I had a microwaved frozen corn dog. My compost pile is getting premium grade coffee grounds. Here's how I got there:

Pile of Grass

When we bought our house in October there was a pile of grass in the garden. I've not been sure what to do with it, but now that I'm planning my garden, and I've been researching like crazy, I've decided it's time to make a compost pile. I saved a large bag of mulched leaves from the fall in my shed (who saves their leaves?) and I've got an arrangement with my local coffee shop so I get their spent coffee grounds. I threw it all in a pile in the corner of my garden and waited.

My pile

What You Want

When composting you want organisms to build up in your pile, generating heat, as they decompose your yard waste and kitchen scraps. In fact, the heat is generated from the bacteria reproducing (insert dirty joke here). This process requires 5 elements:

1. Carbon
2. Nitrogen
3. Water
4. Oxygen
5. Volume

Carbon is also referred to as Brown Materials. This includes dry leaves, cardboard, paper, and some people use hay bales. 

Nitrogen is also referred to as Green Materials because they are, for the most part, green. This includes grass clippings, weeds, and kitchen scraps. Coffee grounds also fit into this category. 

To include water and oxygen, your compost should be damp, but not dripping wet, and you should frequently "turn" the pile to add oxygen. Most people recommend adding a shovel or two full of soil to introduce the organisms that get compost going.*

Your compost pile does need to get pretty voluminous in order to get going because only the inner 2/3 of the pile will actually heat up and decompose. If your pile is too small, there won't be enough material to get decomposition going. People I found recommended your pile be at least 3 feet high, 3 feet wide, and 3 feet tall. That's three 3's, so hopefully, you can at least remember that part. 

This all gets way more complicated when you start calculating nitrogen content, ph levels and acidity, but I'm not going there because I don't understand all of that. The rule of thumb I'm operating under: use equal parts carbon and nitrogen. 

Why isn't my compost heating up?

I piled everything up in the corner and left it for a couple days. Then I checked on it and the pile was as cold as the air around it. I took to Reddit (r/composting is an actual, active subreddit), and a composter whom I'll call VROF (because that's their Reddit handle) told me about the Berkeley Method of Composting. Check it out! This is an ultra-fast composting method that can turn your waste into compost in 2-5 weeks. Seriously, those Berkeley folks really know what they are doing. 

While researching the Berkeley Method I realized my pile was probably too dry, and might have been too small. I completely opened up my pile again and cleared the ground under the pile. Then I put it all together again, making sure all materials were consistently damp. I also added another bucket of coffee ground and a few more leaves to bulk things up a little more. To finish it off I poked some holes in it with the handle of my rake to provide some extra air and I put a covering on top of the pile to help it retain heat and moisture.

The pile - reformed

It's Hot!

The next day I stuck my hand in one of the holes and it was hot! I don't mean warm, but hot. Probably 120 degrees F or more. I waited one more day and turned the pile, moving the outside materials to the inside of the pile and the inside materials to the outside of the pile. After letting it sit for a day I stuck my hand in a hole again, and it really hot. It felt well above 120, probably more like 140, but I couldn't actually get myself to put my hand deeper in the pile because of the heat. It should now be reaching its peak temperature and from here on out I'll be turning my pile every two days. Hopefully, within a couple weeks I'll have some fresh compost to use as I start planting my garden.

*If you decide to follow the Berkeley Method of composting, they recommend not adding soil in this  leaflet produced by UC Davis.
"Materials which should not be added to a composting pile include soil, ashes from a stove or fireplace, and manure from carnivorous (meat-eating) animals. Soil adds nothing but weight to a compost pile and will discourage the turning of the pile which is necessary for the rapid composting process."