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I started composting 2 years ago. I have been adding leaves to my gardens for years. I grow mainly tropical plants and I use leaves to mulch them up for winter. This way I am able to leave other wise temperate plants in the ground. Each spring I spread the leaves around to make a 2 to 4 inch layer and then add a thin layer of mulch to keep out the weeds. Over the last two years I have been getting more and more leaves. It seems my sign out by the road is working and this year it seems to be working almost to well.
I have been contacted by 5 commercial leaf removing companies and they are all now dumping leaves on a regular basis not to mention the home owners who are dumping bags of leaves daily. I am moving the leaves with a bob cat and have found that even with the bob cat this has become a large task. I spent 4 hours moving load after load onto my compost pile. Currently my pile has around 20 wheel barrow loads of old compost in it as well as 48 wheel barrow loads of green leaf type compost. Now I feel I am getting far to many leaves. It is not sense I have so much brown leaves in the mix. I have been trying to find a source for more green type substance but with no luck. Last year I was able to add around 4 - 10 gallon buckets of coffee a week but this year I have not been able to add any. I am looking to start adding coffee again. Is their anything else I could add to get it hot again?
Here is a pic of my current pile. I have a 20 foot tall pile of wood chips but I am not sure I will mix many of them up with my leaves. I also have a pile of leaves around front that may double this current pile. Any suggestions would be great. I have thought about adding some pure nitrogen?
Click the image for an enlarged view.
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