Five weeks ago, before I started this whole experiment with hot compost, I had a small pile of brush, dried leaves, and old dirt. There had been a few worms and lots of pill bugs, but the pile's general inaction was the whole motivation for trying hot compost. I started adding huge bags of market waste, shredded cardboard and junk mail and dry leaves from the park, but I wasn't sure if the old stuff was slowing down the new. And I also have to confess that after that first euphoric day of 58°C, the pile rarely got up past 40, and mostly was in the low 30's. What was happening? I wasn't sure. There are so many variables. Am I putting in the right stuff in the right proportions? Is it too wet or too dry? Have I aerated it sufficiently, or maybe too much? Is the dirt from the old pile cooling down the new one?

And even though each morning when I opened the compost pile it was sweating and compacting, I had a bit of the syndrome of the man with the goose and the golden eggs: this is great, but I want more! Plus, it's Spring and it's time to plant and transplant all sorts of things and I didn't have any potting soil. So, I could kill two geese, as it were, with one stone. I decided to dig down to the bottom of the compost bin and see what was going on in there.

These compost bins have removable pins on the sides that make it theoretically possible to open up the bottom door only (see photo). But it's really hard to get it closed again. Plus, there's no way to get to the finished compost that's in the back without all the upper layers falling down on top. Instead, I dug the top layer out and put it in a big cardboard box. This top third of the pile still had non composted material: greens from the market from last week and some cardboard (see photo).

The second third was almost completely composted and you couldn't see any of the multiple bags of greens I had put in there over the last month. It was really remarkable how much everything had broken down. But it still didn't look done, so I set it aside in the second box (see photo).

Once I got to the bottom level, the goose with the golden eggs metaphor fell apart completely. There was tons of dark, rich, and sweet smelling compost and it was chock full of worms. I think some of it came from the old pile, but the old pile would never have gotten to this point without all the new hot compost on top of it. I filled two large buckets and three wooden wine boxes with rich, nutrient packed black gold.

Then I dumped the old top layer with the still green market waste on the bottom of the bin, and put the middle layer back on top of it. I shredded the box in gratitude and put it on top. And tomorrow I will return to the market for more greens.

But yesterday, I still wanted to plant. I had seen a 'recipe' for potting soil on one of the instagram accounts I follow, but couldn't quite remember the proportions, so I just improvised, mixing two of the boxes of compost with some coco fiber and vermiculite and also the dirt from some old pots of basil that had long gone to seed. I picked out most of the worms and sent them back to work in the compost. Look at the picture. This homemade potting soil is beautiful.

The next big job was to organize all of my seeds. The only thing I have more of than seeds is yarn and fabric! I collect seeds when I go on walks, and when my own plants go to seed and when I visit my friends' gardens, and sometimes ahem, public gardens, and when I go to garden centers... Sometimes I even buy seeds in actual packets.

Finally it was time to plant. I brought out all of the little plastic pots that I've collected over the years and filled them with soil and seeds. And since I don't always have very good luck starting seeds in dirt, I also used an idea from a new video series on Barcelona urban gardening which entails wrapping seeds in paper towels or napkins and then in foil (to keep out the light). It's a great, quick, easy way to start seeds with little investment, and then once they sprout, I'll plant them as well.

Tomorrow I will return to the market for more greens for the compost. I've also invested in new Bokashi bins which I'm really curious about. Bokashi is a way of fermenting food waste before adding it to the compost to speed up the process and let you compost practically anything. It's also supposed to help get your compost really hot. I'll let you know how it goes.

Overall, the hot composting experiment has been a pretty good success. Five weeks and five big containers of compost. Not too shabby. And the goose is still alive!

Now that I've got my seeds organized, it's time to share! I'll be sending out a few to my subscribers soon! You can find subscription options here. Thanks for your support.