Hot composting with chicken bedding and garden waste

[aart]

How bout 4' of snow, and a LOBSTER?

OhChit!!! That is tempting!
I haven't been able to enjoy lobster since being in Maine....it's just not the same.

 

[vehve]

Moose with maple syrup? Now that's just wrong...

 

[vehve]

Darn it, again the temp started dropping. +28C was this mornings temp. On the right side I've got sprouts growing in there... the longest shoots are 6-7 inches by now. I doubt they will survive very long with the lid only being open a few minutes each day, and it's better that they grow now and get it over with, but seriously...

In weather news, we should be entering thermal spring pretty soon, in other words the mean daily temperature should be above 0C for good.

 

[vehve]

@aart Just caught your interview, it was a nice read. I must say, I had jumped to conclusions about your gender, you're always in such a engineering mindset that I thought you were a man. Silly me.

 

[aart]

@aart Just caught your interview, it was a nice read. I must say, I had jumped to conclusions about your gender, you're always in such a engineering mindset that I thought you were a man. Silly me.

Thanks vehve.

LOL I think there will be a lot of those, kind of get a kick out of it....but gender roles, behaviors and assumptions are kind of a drag. I've never been a girly girl.

Males have often stop or change the way they converse with me once they know, I hope you're not one of them.

 

[vehve]

No worries. Your gender really doesn't make much difference to me. I can use you as a sounding board regardless of that.

Any thoughts on oxygen consumption during hot composting? I've been thinking maybe I should get some more air into the box. The drain pipe is probably pretty clogged by now, so I thought I should start experimenting with leaving the lid slightly open to allow more air in. It's probably leaking pretty much at the moment too, but I'd still like to see it get a lot hotter than it is. Come spring I need to clean that pipe. Of course, I could just take a peek into it already, and see how much stuff has accumulated in there. One idea would be making air intake vents somewhere in the front, but I think I should experiment with the lid a bit first.

 

[aart]

I wonder if gender role expectations are less discriminatory in your country than in mine?
Probably not a discussion for this board or thread.

You'd be combating/balancing adding cold air with providing oxygen this time of year I would think.
Are you still just measuring the air temp in the box or do you have a probe thermometer to stick down into the pile?
Are you still turning the pile?
Maybe add perforated pipes down into the pile to get oxygen down where it needs to be...or just poke some holes down into it with a piece of rebar.

 

[vehve]

Maybe slightly... at least when it comes to politics. In business the higher positions are still male dominated.

The probe thermometer I made gave up after a few weeks. Maybe I should take some readings from the middle again, it's been a while. I think I'll do that immediately.

Pushing in some piping isn't a bad idea, I could perforate some electrical pipes and push those down. They would provide some more air.

 

[aart]

The probe thermometer I made gave up after a few weeks. Maybe I should take some readings from the middle again, it's been a while. I think I'll do that immediately.

Pushing in some piping isn't a bad idea, I could perforate some electrical pipes and push those down. They would provide some more air.

You were unable to procure a 'real' compost temp probe IIRC?

The perforated pipe thing is pretty common way to infuse oxygen into piles.......then you could leave the top closed to keep the infused air warmer.

 

[vehve]

Yeah, I don't know why I haven't done that before.

I keep forgetting to get a proper thermometer. I found a place that sells them for about 15 euros, but they wanted another 10 for shipping, and I haven't had any business close by in a while. Plus, somehow that still feels a bit expensive to me.

Now I used a meat thermometer wrapped in plastic. The plastic probably brings the measured reading down a bit, but I measured 43.4C close to the middle, that's about 110F. Not that bad really. Outside temp is about 3C, and the inside air temp in the bin was 27C. So that should almost be in the seed killing range. Ideally, it should still go up about 10-15C though to be sure that not much survives. With the amount of moldy grains from our sprouting trials I've been dumping in there, I really need the stuff to be properly cooked, otherwise I'll have a mix of oat, wheat and barley growing in everything I plant.

From the tables on killing seeds I've seen, an hour at 60C will kill most plants (or 90% of their seeds, so after 3 hours, one seed out of 1000 should be left). 45C might not be enough for everything, even though a prolonged exposure to that temp will get rid of a lot of seeds.