What is this pending freeze going to do to my new compost pile? Does frozen and thawed material break down faster once things warm up again?

Curious Carl

If you doing batch composting and created a proper pile, then the outside temperature won't matter, and the pile will cook just fine. The pile will insulate itself and maintain its temperature.

Invest in a good compost thermometer. There are some available that are on about a 3 foot probe. Keep your pile the dampness of a wrung-out sponge and turn often as possible to keep the heat going.

Malcolm Beck has an interesting story about a turkey and a compost pile!

The "pile" is actually a Mantis ComposTwin unit. I am turning it every day and right now I have both sides full. Left side contains the boxes that the unit came in, cut up into 2 - 4 inch squares, about 40 pounds of coffee grounds from you-know-where, kitchen scraps, and a few slices of a straw bale. Side 2 contains most of the rest of the straw bale, another 40 lbs of coffee, and is being fed more kitchen scraps. I can feel some heat from side 1, more than from side 2. Side 2 is heating up nicely now though. I don’t know that there is enough mass to retain good insulation but the warm weather we are having helps.

With a little of the snow we had, it looked like this: