Composting -- Doing it in a Big Way:

Te is the magic number for a comt pile, especiy in a quick comt system. In order for it to work well it needs to be te t, te t wide and te t long. For m people this translates into a comt bin te t on a side or a pile te t in diameter. What about the times when you simply have too much erial for a sm pile?

You could make more bins but that cs time and money and will likely leave you with lots of empty bins once the wind f of organic ter is over. Lots of little piles are a sibility but there is a much faster and simpler solution. Go long.

One of my first comt piles came after buying a new home. The back half acre of the property was hugely overgrown with weeds and grasses. There was no real time to deal with the problem until f so I let them grow, ure and dry. Come f I a half acre of field about 3 t high in half dried grass and weeds.

Basicy I cut and raked the erial into sm piles around the half acre. My wife was not impressed with the look so I began a comt pile. My aim was to be te t high and wide, but as long as I needed. This turned out to be 20 t. So I ended with a pile 3 x 3 x 20. The height and width are necessary but the length is a 3 foot minimum.

The pile heated well. After te days I turned it to find that it started to break down. Grass has a tendency to form clumps of ter and this , but they were reasonable to break up at this time. For a pile like this it is best to simply have room to one side and turn it to the side. Try to get the outer ter to the center of the new pile. It was still 20 t long and a lot of work to turn.

The next turning was about four days later. Again the heat been good and it was starting to cool down. Material was much darker and the grass was no longer 3 t in length nor was it clumping as bad. I simply flipped the pile back onto its first footing, trying once again to get the outer erial into the interior of the new pile. I l about 3 t of length due to the uring of the pile. It was a lot of work to turn.

Each successive turning was easier. After the fourth turning I a pile about 15 t long but still 3 high and wide. It taken about te weeks. I sifted the comt leaving me a starter pile still about 3 x3 x 3. The rest went on what would be next spring's garden. These turnings were much easier simply because the ter was breaking down so well. It was hard to tell what started as grass and what as weed. Clumps broke as the fork went ough. Sometimes it is simply necessary to make a large pile and work it. Incidenty, very few weed seeds made it ough the hot comting process.