Maxgardener
Newly Registered
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2018 2:27 pm

New to gardening! Composting help... it all turned liquid!

Hello Everyone,

I'm new to gardening and have a few questions regarding composting.

I've been collecting fruit and veg scraps from my kitchen in a bin in my garden. It took me around 4 months to fill up the entire bin and in that time nearly all the organic matter had turned to a dark smelly liquid.

Unfortunately, I didn't aerate it very well over the 4 months (only when id add some more scraps), so I was wondering if this liquid is now unusable as I read that it might harm my plants?

I'm following a guide to making compost tea and I currently have a bucket outside with the liquid, scraps and filtered water.

If I stir the mixture once or twice a day is this enough aeration? (The bucket is wide and without a cover)

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I live in a developing country where its hard to find any information or products around composting.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

Sounds like you only had kitchen waste which are all greens and no carbon. The waste has a lot of water and the bin does not sound like it had any holes. It smells from the decomposition, ammonia and anaerobic condition.

If you want to do worm composting with kitchen waste, you need worms. You need a bin, bedding material = shredded newspaper= carbon, the bin needs air holes and usually a drain or second reservoir to capture the worm juice. You can build your own or purchase a bin.
https://www.amazon.com/Factory-Composti ... oster&th=1
wormcompostinghq.com/how-to-use-worm-compost/how-to-make-compost-tea-with-worm-castings/

Yak_NN
Newly Registered
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2018 11:00 am

I'm not the OP, but thanks for the clear explanation ; would freshly cut grass (or dried grass), straw or something along those lines work as a source of carbon, or does it have to be shredded paper or cardboard?

User avatar
applestar
Mod
Posts: 30514
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Freshly cut/dried grass - aka hay - is considered nitrogen/green. Carbon/brown would be plant matter that has naturally depleted their chlorophyll like straw (stems/leaves after matured dried seedhead/grain such as wheat, oats, rice have been harvested) or fall leaves.

Fresh shrub tip trimmings is a combination leaning towards green, especially with plenty of green leaves still on them, but twiggy winter trimmings with no leaves are brown.

imafan26
Mod
Posts: 13961
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

I had a hard time understanding some greens and browns
fresh grass is a green dried grass could be a brown
fresh leaves is a green dried leaves are browns.
I found a place with an explanation that finally made it easier for me to tell the difference
Greens are fresh organic matter with a lot of water and high nitrogen content. Most will be the color green, but not all. Manure, coffee grounds, kitchen waste, animal byproducts(blood meal, feather meal,fish meal or emulsion, crab meal- animal parts are protein and proteins have nitrogen as well as carbon) Greens include fresh cut grass, alfalfa meal, and soybean meal. There are also green manures that you plant to increase nitrogen in the soil like buckwheat (biomass) legumes like cowpeas, vetch, sunhemp, and crimson clover.

Browns are mostly brown and contain dried organic matter. Some may be high in lignin. Harder parts of plants stems and branches, dried leaves, dried grass, hay (may contain weed seeds) straw, wood chips. Newspaper and cardboard should be used sparingly. Browns should be shredded or chopped into small pieces as they will breakdown slowly.
https://www.homecompostingmadeeasy.com/c ... ratio.html
https://ucanr.edu/sites/mginyomono/files/170818.pdf
I also found out that brown can be stockpiled, greens cannot. The pile gets hotter faster if it is built all in one day. 2 parts green and 1 part brown (especially if the browns have a high C:N ratio). Parts are determined by C:N ratio and weight.

If you are composting mostly kitchen waste and don't want to start a large pile in the yard, consider vermicomposting.
You can use wet newspaper for the carbon source (C:N 170:1). You can put wet newspaper shreds in a container and add the composting worms. Feed vegetable scraps once or twice a week. It all depends on how fast the worms eat it. Some things should not be fed to worms, like dish soap, bones, meat, and papaya seeds. Feed them only enough scraps that they can consume in a few days. Freeze the rest for later. Thaw before feeding. The more worms you have the more they will consume. The bin should not smell like ammonia, if it does you are feeding them too much. You add newspaper as the worms use it up.
The bin should have holes and a second catch chamber to collect the worm juice which is also good for the garden. As long as the bin is in a cool place and not directly in the sun, it can be kept out in the garden. Harvest the vermicompost every 3 months or so and the bin should be flushed with water to remove toxic buildup and the worm juice tapped off. You need air holes for the worms to breathe, but put a screen under the cover to try to keep other critters out.
https://lancaster.unl.edu/pest/resource ... t107.shtml



Return to “Composting Forum”