I have a question about composting. I am in East Central Miss. Zone 7b. We have had some of our coolest weather in the last week along with a nice 3in. snow fall (rare). After the snow finally melted I checked the compost piles and they have lost their central heat. Maybe I should have covered them up? They are moist in the interior. I am sure they will recover once we get some warmer weather in a week or two. My question - do I keep up the moisture content?
HELP!!!
I have yet to start a compost pile and so can’t answer the question, but I bet Diana can!!!
“My question - do I keep up the moisture content?”
Depends upon how quickly you want it to decompose. If warmer weather is coming (anything above 40 degrees and a good stir once in a while keeps compost piles breaking down) you can wet it down if you need to.
I have four bins (about 4’ tall, 4’ wide circles of pig wire) which I completely ignore, other than to throw “browns and greens” into them. Every year, we dump over the oldest bin, and use that, then that oldest bin becomes the youngest, etc.
Since they’re under yards of snow right now, they’ll have plenty-o-moisture to start up again when we get steadily back up to the 40’s (April, if we’re lucky.)
I compost on the very north west coast of Cal and we have very wet winters so my piles always turn cold and soggy. My bins are 4X4X4 and I have plywood covers for them to deflect some of the water. I don't worry about them until spring when I uncover them. If they are smelly I turn them and add fresh horse bedding from the public stables nearby and I may add some straw that I keep on hand.
I had the bins built of 1"x1" square tubing at a muffler shop and I wrapped them with 1"x1" mesh wire. We have a large yard and I take my composting serious. My First Wife mows about 15,000 sf of lawn that produces lots of clippings, plus I get 3 or 4 pickup loads of bedding and several bales of stray for 2 to 4 bins here and 2 bins at the Church where I am the chairman of the compose management one man team. Not much else I want to do at 74.
I used to fret about the coarseness of the compost as I uncovered it in the spring but I find once it gets oxygen it finishes in the soil in a couple of weeks after applying.