I have been composting since late winter (March) and have enjoyed myself immensely! As I turn the pile, I sometimes find a hot, ashy looking grey substance on the hottest material. This is the fastest area of decomposition. When I buried wet newspaper in layers in this hot area, with green materials, they simply disappeared.

However, now my pile is not heating up like it was a few weeks ago. The wind seems to dry it out (Oklahoma wind, go figure). I would like to try to add cardboard and more newspaper to my pile, but they do not seem to be disintegrating as quickly. I don't have a shredder, but I try to cut or rip the pieces into small pieces, wet them and cover them with green materials (grass clippings, green leaves).

Should I invert the pile to the get the hot stuff from the bottom to bury the cardboard and newspaper? Would that help? I get a lot of these materials from my work. We recycle them, but I'm interested in building up my compost goodies. Should I load it with sugar substances? I like to turn the pile once a week- but I'd like to turn it more often- maybe once a day. It's summer and school's out...It's so relaxing....Is that too frequently, or will my microbes thrive on aeration?

Sasha

Compost piles rich in greens and browns, naturally heat up and cool down over time as the microbes digest the organic matter.

Compost is ready to use when it is dark (not necessarily black), mostly homogeneous, pleasant smelling, not hot, and crumbly.

Keep in mind that all paper products are high carboneous materials, and they can cool down or slow up your hot piles, if you don't raise the nitrogen and water moisture levels of the C:N ratio in your compost pile.

If the pile is not ready yet, just keep adding high nitrogen teas (like compost, manure, or urea teas) to the pile to heat it back up again. If you like turning it, fine, if not fine. The extra aeration will definitely heat it up.

Dry molasses is another idea for faster decomposition and internal heating in the pile. But all sugars are high in carbon too like paper products. The main difference is that sugars are the only "browns" that are easily digestible by all microbes, real fast. Adding more nitrogen and water is much better and faster for a better, balanced, C:N levels in the pile during decomposition.

Other than that, just sit back and wait, and let the microbes and nature do the rest of it, to produce your mature compost.

We are moving into a brand new house with no back yard in place and relatively sandy soil. Since we do not have a compost pile in place yet, is there a source readily attainable until my pile gets going? It will be several weeks before I'll get to a point where I can dedicate myself to preparing the yard.

There are several sources of nice compost in the DFW area. Neither your post or your profile indicate where you are located. It would be easier to recommend a source for you if we knew where you are at