My compost pile had gotten up to about 120 degrees a few weeks ago; I was pretty thrilled that it was working just as planned! It had gone down to about 90 degrees, so I though it was time to turn it. I've since reread my info and found that you turn it when it either gets up to 160 degrees, or when it starts needing more oxygen. Perhaps this wasn't the time to turn, as the temperature dropped to 5 - 10 degrees about ambient temperature over the next few days and then gradually tapered down. Hmmm... what went wrong here... I had watered it a little as I turned it all over; maybe I watered too much, I though. By process of elimination, that looked to be the most probable cause of the temp not going back up again.

Today, I turned it all again. No harm done since it isn't hot now anyway, and it probably needs oxygen. In looking at it, it isn't overly wet, so I'm not sure why it isn't getting hot now. Actually, I thought it might need a little more water! It doesn't smell bad; on the contrary, it has that great composty-smell to it, even though I continue to add kitchen veggie scraps to it. I probably have enough and will start another pile soon. Oh well; I'll watch it and see what happens.

A hint for making temperature readings easy: I got a small indoor/outdoor digital thermometer down at Harbor Freight and I keep the probe end of it stuck in the very middle of the compost pile and the readout under a small lid (to keep out rain) on top of the pile. This makes reading the temp a cinch.