Turning a pile of Woodchip into a Hotbed

[MyWifesBrassicas]

update;

It's been almost 6 weeks since I built a large compost heap style wood chip pile to be used as a hot bed.
There's no manure added however, to feed the composting microorganisms I've added fertiliser and fed with a weak watered down glucose solution.
It's maintained a steady 60 C for all the 6 weeks and still going, perfect for hot bed growing. It's germinated a whole load of salad, radish, lettuce and brought on early growth of strawberries.
I thought that i might have needed to turn the pile in order to maintain heat, it's not been necessary.
I'll update when it starts to cool off

[MyWifesBrassicas]

Swiss chard growing really well on the simple wood chip hot bed

[MyWifesBrassicas]

10 weeks after building my wood chip compost heap style hot bed inspired by VC, it's finally started to cool down. The thermometer is reading just over 40C, stayed a 60C for over 9 weeks without manure, fed it once with a very weak 10/10/10 fertiliser and glucose solution.
Stayed warm for far longer than i initially thought it would.

[MyWifesBrassicas]

Further update;
For the last 5 weeks, the wood chip hot bed has remained between 40-45C
There has been no mixing/turning, no further watering and no additional material/nutrients added.
Can't help thinking that if i'd turned it and added more nitrogen based plants, it would've stayed 60C for longer

[MyWifesBrassicas]

2 days ago, i decided to add some nitrogen in the form of chicken pellets and grass to my wood chip hot bed as the temp was beginning to drop. My theory was that as it's mostly carbon (I reckon 300-1 carbon to nitrogen) and that i need to feed the thermophillic bacteria some nitrogen to get going again.
It's a huge pile, approx 4-5 tonne and as i don't have enough chicken manure to mix throughout, I decided to mix in the chicken pellets to the top 18" or so then I watered it in, so good so far.
This is an attempt to get it a little warmer as I'm growing my squashes, courgettes and pumpkins on top, trying to keep it above 10C
However, today when I looked, there was an overwhelming smell of ammonia indicating to me a nitrogen overload. The fumes have burned a lot of the leaves which i think has knocked them back a bit, they seem be be still ok, so i decided to give it another dowsing of water to disperse some of the excess nitrogen further into the wood pile. On the plus side, the hotbed has risen to 50C.
Anyone else had issues or heard of ammonia fumes doing this to plant?

[MyWifesBrassicas]

Update:
The 5 ton pile has finally started to cool down, since filling a construction of pallets to house the pile back in Dec 18, it's remained around 60C for all this time, that's 10 months of heat.
There are periods when it began to cool, but when turned and mixed with nitrogenous material, it soon heated up again.
I've turned it 5 time in the 10 months, bit of a pain, but it didn't take too long and as time progressed, the pile became smaller, it's approximately reduce by at least a half.
It was VC's ideas that got me started on this road to wood chip hot bed and its certainly maintained heat.
There is definitely scope for this method and a fair bit of tweaking with a construction and we have a long term hot bed

[MyWifesBrassicas]

Just out of interest VC, what was the compost like from your wood chip pile?

[veggiechicken]

It broke down well, just a surface layer of wood chip remained. I've moved the pile now as I needed the ground it was on. Used some of the compost for planting and mulching.