15/06/2024
I'm currently taking a course in biologically complete aerobic composting with Dr Elaine's Soil Food Web School. It is intense but fun! It's my first compost and my recipe needs adjustment, but I have managed to build a pile with a bit of help and it did get HOT - it reached 77 °C/ 165 °F! Not ideal for promoting beneficial organisms, but practice makes perfect (I hope!).
There are various methods of composting and I hope to try out different methods to compare the end results, but for this course, I am doing thermophilic composting. That is a compost that gets hot. This is to kill w**d seeds and pathogens while promoting beneficial microorganisms. The idea is to learn to produce an end product that is teeming with beneficial bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes, which I will be checking for later.
Sharing portions of a video I made for the course in case you are interested in what it looks like when building a 50-bucket pile (1 bucket = 5 gallons or 19 liters) which adds up to 950 liters in 53s. Thinking about editing the material and explaining the process better, but thought it could be fun to share the video as is for the time being.
Short video of building a thermophilic (hot) compost.
