îÃÂô âÃÂïÃÂï

^^If that does not say "Welcome", blame Google's translation.

Yes, you can start now. The freezing and thawing will help break up the material in the piles.

If so how long does the process take to complete?

That's the hard question to answer, because it depends on many factors:

A: The moisture level in the pile. This is the most important factor. It should be damp to the touch, like a sponge you have squeezed as dry as possible. If it is too wet, you get anaerobic rotting instead of aerobic. Too wet is slimy and bad-smelling instead of damp and earth-like smell.

B: The size of the materials in the pile. The best pile has a mix of coarser and finer materials to keep oxygen levels up. The usual mix of twigs, dead leaves and kitchen scraps works well.

C: The mix of materials in the pile.

D: The size of the pile. Too small and it is hard to keep it moist and get it to warm up. Too large and it may spontaneously combust. 1 to 1.5 meters in diameter and a meter or more tall is a good size for a beginner.

E: The rot-resistance of the materials in the pile. Some materials decompose faster than others.

=====================
If you begin now, with a pile of mixed plant materials that is 1 to 1.5 meters in diameter and a meter or more tall you can have compost by next planting season.

To make this happen quickly, build the pile in layers approximately 20cm thick and moisten each layer before adding the next. Use a variety of materials in the layers, with some higher nitrogen materials like animal dung or coffee grounds.

Check the pile moisture content every week or so and add water if it is dry a few centimeters below the surface.

In the spring, you should have a pile with dry uncomposted material around the outside and a center of nicely decomposed materials.

Remove the compost that is ready to use and the unfinished material becomes the start of your next pile.

Oh, thanks so much for the warm welcome and such useful and complete answer to my question.
Some other questions if you don't mind.
Can I make a mass of materials on the ground and cover it with plastic?
Is it good to add some cow or sheep manure to the mixture?
And is it possible to use compost instead of peat moss in gardening?

Make a pile on the ground, but cover it with burlap or something that lets air through it. If you seal it in, it will rot anaerobically instead of composting, and it smells very bad.

If you are piling it on the ground, you want the pile to be about a meter high and as steep-sided as you can make it. A fence of branches and twigs to keep the pile in place could work, if wire mesh is not available or is too expensive.

A woven barrier like this would work. It is branches and flexible twigs or vines.
{{gwi:311027}}

A few layers of cow or sheep manure would be good additions. The sheep manure could also be spread on the garden area now and left over the winter. In the spring, till it in and plant.

Have you discovered the composting techniques called "sheet composting" and "lasagne gardening"? With them, you spread the layers of material on the area you will be gardening in next spring, watering them thoroughly, then cover them with straw or burlap or branches to slightly protect it. In the spring,till the garden and plant your vegetables.

As you can see, composting is not a precise science. About the only serious errors are to have it too wet and to prevent air exchange in the pile.

Minus 15C (about 5F) is getting downright cold, however compost piled up now may be pretty well digested before you get to those temperatures.
Many of us started composting simply by piling material up with no containment so it can be done.
Animal manure would be a good addition to a compost pile. Alternate vegetative waste (about 15 cm) with the animal manure (about 5 cm) until a height of about 1.2 m is reached, and as lazygardens indicated moisten the material, about as wet as a well wrung out sponge. To hurry the process along some you could turn the pile periodically, some track the internal temperature and turn when it reaches about 60C while others simply turn every 3 or 4 days.
The linked composting tutorial may be of some help, although you may need to do some temperature conversion.

Here is a link that might be useful: Composting Tutorial

Living also in a cold climate - like weeks of -20C - the only negative thing that will happen is that stuff will compost slower. It also makes it a little harder to bury stuff in the pile, because the pile is frozen. It is probably a good idea to add some shredded cardboard on top in layers if you continue to add kitchen scraps during winter.

As soon as it gets warm, however, it will start composting again. I find turning the pile over completely _after_ it has completely thawed, just to ensure air is in there. Plus add water at that point as needed.

The only thing in a compost pile that would freeze is the moisture, the water. If a compost pile freezes there is too much moisture, water, in the mix. Over many years of composting there have been a few when the edges of the pile have frozen when the temperatures dropped to around 0C, but activity in the center was still enough to generate some heat.

kimmsr, at minus 20-30C most compost piles will freeze straight through, and even at minus 15c the 'frozen edges' can easily be most of the sides and top. I don't think those are issues of it being 'too much water'.

Granted, I've also had piles that kept cooking / generating heat for far longer and in colder outside temps than I thought likely. But at some point, the piles freeze. No big deal, when they thaw they get right back to work.

If a compost pile did freeze all the way to the center then in the spring as the air temperatures warmed the outside of the pile would act as an insulator and slow the warming of the center. Since the only substance in a compost pile that can freeze is moisture (water) limiting the amount of water in a compost pile can help prevent freezing and keep the bacteria working which can generate some heat. One reason why there are systems that could be put into a compost pile to help heat ones house.
There are some that come here that insist that there is other stuff in compost piles that freeze but they cannot name what those might be.

I don't think anyone's claiming that there is something other than water that makes a compost pile freeze up into a giant popsicle. Speaking just for myself, I don't want novice composters to worry too much about what's happening in the pile in winter. Of course moisture should be regulated when possible, but living in a cold and wet climate, sometimes my pile gets wet and freezes up in the winter. I don't worry about it too much. In the spring it eventually thaws and I turn it and everything is fine. I agree that if you're trying to keep a pile 'cooking' through winter, it shouldn't be too wet. But this is true any time of year.

This post was edited by toxcrusadr on Thu, Oct 30, 14 at 10:39

Toxcrusdr, well put. Personally I don't think it's worth worrying about the pile freezing at all - unless you're really trying to maximize throughput or speed. And in deep cold, 'fast' is at best a relative concept.

I try to get newbies composting and worry about the fine tuning later, and avoid overwhelming them with details, even if they are technically correct.

"If a compost pile freezes there is too much moisture, water, in the mix."

Still wrong.

Lloyd

There is no problem with freezing, you just carry on after it warms up, if anything it will help to speed things up and break them down.

The conversation is interesting and useful.
Thanks all to share your experiences with me.
I have built a compost pile
The new question in my mind is that rain or snow can make the pile too wet? and I should cover the pile to prevent rain to get through?

I like my piles to get rain, because it's good water without all the salts there are in hose water, and also because it brings down the N that is increasingly accumulating in the atmosphere.

And if there's some leaching, well it feeds the garden and maybe the good stuff gets trapped in the heavy clay underneath.

I guess snow would insulate it, hence not a bad thing to have.

But then I live in a dry climate so rain is always welcome.

By the way hesamaf, I enjoy you using the metric and Celsius systems, funny how it seems so much clear and so easy to remember ! I get lost with inches, foot / feet, and farenheit :-)

How much rain do you get in a year? Does it come in a short time or spread throughout the year?

Thank you Francoise
Toxcrusadr, through mid fall to late fall we have rain at least once a week and then we have snow instead until mid winter and in early spring rain again.

It sounds a lot like the middle of the US. :-] If your pile gets very wet you can put a 'hat' on it during the winter, but in the end, everything leads back to compost sooner or later.

Ok thank you