Hot Composting: Build Compost That Actually Works

I get this question a lot, so I took it straight to someone who actually knows: William Bond, The Permaculture Consultant.

William grew up in the preparedness world before moving into homesteading and then permaculture. He earned his Permaculture Design Certificate through The School of Permaculture in Texas, studied under Geoff Lawton at Zaytuna Farm in Australia, apprenticed with Earthship Biotecture in New Mexico, and took Dr. Elaine Ingham's courses on soil biology and microscopy. He's spent nearly a decade consulting on everything from urban balconies to 2,000-acre plantations. When it comes to soil, this is the guy.

So here was the question: "I make this compost, I put it in the garden, and still nothing really grows that good. Why is that?"

And William's answer wasn’t what I was expecting—you're probably wasting your compost.

Here's what he walked me through.

Why your compost isn't working

Most folks make what they call compost by piling up a bunch of organic matter, letting it sit for a year, and calling it good. That's cold composting. And the problem with cold composting, William says, is that it never goes through the thermophilic process. The thermophilic process happens when the center of the pile heats up. Once you hit 131 degrees, that's when weed seeds die. That's where the pathogen microbes go to die. But the good guys that help your soil? The good guys survive those temperatures. Cold composting skips all of that. You never eliminate the bad guys, and you never set up the conditions for a whole ecosystem of microbes to move in. So you're not building soil. You're just piling up matter.

Get all three parts through the heat

Here's the part many people miss. You need all three parts of your compost getting to that hot temperature—not just whatever's sitting in the middle.

Then you let it sit. You monitor the moisture. You monitor the temperature. And you wait for it to cool down.

William says you don't need a microscope to figure out if your compost is ready. After it comes down to the ambient temperature, give it two more weeks. After those two weeks, he guarantees you've got it all: the bacteria, the fungi, the protozoa, and the nematodes. Everything you need for good, healthy soil is present in that compost.

That's the difference between compost that feeds your garden and compost that just sits there.

The 30-bucket method

Now that's where you've got to do the flip. And William says if you use the 30-bucket method, it only takes two flips. Flip it twice, and you're done. There's very little guesswork, which is why, for beginners, this is the one he'd tell you to start with.

Measure it out in 5-gallon buckets. Instead of counting percentages out of 30, just count in tens and run that same batch three times into one pile.

Going into warm months, like we are right now, one round of ten looks like this:

• 6 buckets carbon

• 3 buckets green

• 1 bucket high nitrogen

Going into cold temperatures, one round of ten looks like this:

• 6 buckets carbon

• 2½ buckets green

• 1½ buckets high nitrogen

Run that same ratio three times, and you've built a full 30-bucket pile with the same proportions every round, and scaled up. Doing it in three passes of ten keeps the mix right without trying to measure out all thirty at once.

That extra nitrogen in the cold mix isn't an accident. The high nitrogen is what kicks the temperature up and drives the pile through the phases. In the warm months you don't need it, so you pull it back.

It’s the same carbon base: your dry, brown material like dead leaves, straw, wood chips, cardboard, or shredded paper, high in carbon and low in moisture. That stays the same. You adjust the green and the nitrogen for the season.

Do the work

Good compost isn't luck. It's heat. It's timing. It's the flip.

Build it hot. Let it finish. Feed your soil.

And a big thank you to William for breaking it down.

Y'all stay safe, stay ready.

#homestead #composting #permaculture

About William Bond — The Permaculture Consultant

William Bond is a permaculture designer and consultant who trained under Geoff Lawton at Zaytuna Farm and studied soil biology with Dr. Elaine Ingham. He teaches his own Permaculture Design Course and consults on regenerative systems from backyard gardens to working farms. Find him at The Permaculture Consultant on Instagram and YouTube, and catch him teaching at the Mountain Readiness Expo.