Building the Pile
The ground underneath the pile should be loosened to a
depth of 12 inches to provide good drainage. Next, lay
down roughage (brush, tree prunings, cardoon stalks, or
other woody materials) 3 inches thick, if available, for
air circulation.
One recipe for GROW BIOINTENSIVE compost is, by
volume, 45% mature (dry) material, 45% immature
(green) vegetation (including kitchen wastes), and 10%
soil. Each layer should be watered well as it is created.
This 45/45/10 recipe will give you a carbon-to-nitrogen
ratio in your built compost pile of about 30 to 1, and
will produce compost with a signi9cant amount of high-
quality, short-term humi9ed carbon. The result will be a
hotter (thermophilic 113° to 149°F) pile with faster-
releasing cured compost that generally releases nutrients
over a 3-month to 2-year period. A lot of the carbon in
this type of compost pile is lost, however, and the
resulting cured compost only contains about one-third to
one-half the cured organic matter that a cooler
(mesophilic 50° to 113°F) 60-to-1 compost pile will
produce.
A 60-to-1 pile is built with approximately 8 parts
mature material to 2 parts green vegetation (including
kitchen wastes) and 1 part soil. The result of this pile
will be a slower-releasing cured compost that generally
releases nutrients over a 3-month period (and up to