Ooooh! That's so cool about the compost piles Anwen. I just redid my father's non very well functioning piles this month.

He lives in Montana, East of the divide where it's quite dry, and he was using chicken wire silos that weren't very large because he heard they needed heat and air. Only it's so dry here, they barely did anything, mostly just dried up.

I built a larger wooden slated 3 sided box, about 6 feet by 4 feet, and piled everything in there with a bunch of chicken manure. I've got him watering it on a regular basis and we throw a couple pieces of plywood over the top to loosely keep the sun off.

It's working great! When i thrust my arm down in there the other day it was too hot to keep my hand in!!

I'm pretty happy about it. Thanks for your post. I'm excited you're posting about it this stuff! My gf is into plants and Permaculture too, I'm trying to get her on here =)