cold starting compost pile tips?

It is winter in the NE with temps around freezing. A month ago I chopped up my first garden and the collection cooked for a bit then stopped. Since then, I have chopped up all the leaves "leaving" a damp pile around 4' diameter. The leaves weren't cooking so I added in some Urea fertilizer ( 45-0-0 about 3lbs) for nitrogen and wet the mix while stirring. Is it too cold to start cooking? My efforts aren't producing much heat but the leaves are very slowly turning black. Did I add enough nitrogen? The previous little cooker did not stink and I didn't add the entire 5 Lb bag as I wanted to avoid a problem. Would it make a difference if I could jump start it with some heat? I am thinking of reflected sunlight, or greenhouse effect... I would not simply want to add heat for the entire process though. It would eventually have to be self sustaining.I am also thinking that a winter compost pile may require an insulated container, but this would only work if I could get it started in the first place.

yes compost needs heatlet it sit it may take off again

It's outright tough to make compost when the temperatures are freezing. I think it will compost, with your added nitrogen, but you still can't expect miracles here. I don't think composting piles really do much until the weather is quite a bit warmer than now, although I've really had them steaming when I added enough nitrogen, too.

What makes a compost pile heat up is all the activity of the microbial life inside the pile, such as fungus, bacteria, nematodes, protozoa and so on. They must be active and feeding on the carbon sources, in your case the leaves. First, they must be there. There probably weren't enough on the leaves themselves. When you first start a compost pile, you should add soil because all of these microbes come from the soil. Second the pile must be turned frequently so the microbes, like bacteria come in closer contact with the fresh organic matter.Lastly, since it is so cold it will just be a slow pile during the winter. As the temperature drops, the microbes either die or are so inactive that they don't work. If the pile does not stink, you might want to add some organic nitrogen. The microbes don't need a lot of it, but you want it to be spread throughout the pile. The urea might not be enough to be distributed through out the pile.

I am in Illinois. Last year I started a compost pile with a load of horse manure in sawdust. I got the manure shortly before first frost. My compost bins are 4'x5'x4'. I can get around 1000# of manure in one. My bins are not covered, so they got all the rain and snow last year. It froze solid. In the spring after it thawed and the weather warmed, it started heating up great. It finished breaking down by July. The size of your compost pile makes a difference. It won't heat up as much or at all if it is too small. Turning it helps decomposition, too. I turn mine every 2-3 weeks, once the heat starts to dissipate from the middle. Compost piles that are working right can get upwards of 150F. This is good, because it breaks down weed seeds and bad bacteria and fungus. Just keep adding your kitchen scraps to your pile or container. Come spring, it will start working again. And adding nitrogen will make it stink. If you want to try hastening the decomp., use bloodmeal.