Hi all ... I have JUST started gardening and know practically nothing. I started a compost bin about a year ago when I moved into my current house. I have been putting in mostly grass cuttings and a few hedge trimmings. Now I discover that I should have been adding a little bit more to it.
It stinks, it is VERY wet, it is very sludgy, comes out of the bottom on a spade looking like a mud cake! I now know that I should have been putting in other stuff like paper and cardboard.
Is there anything I can do to save it or do I have to throw it away and start all over again. I would love to save it if I can I have two large bins half full of the smelly mess.
Please help if you can.
Paul
Hi Paul
Get it out of the bin and allow it to dry out - grass can be a disaster in a compost bin unless you use it very sparingly.
You need to put in a good mixture of kitchen vegetable waste, egg shells, tea bags etc (but never meat waste) also a mix of your garden waste with the addition of a some soil - say a spade full of soil to 12 inches of compostable materials. This will introduce micro organisms to aid decompostion. Aim for a reasonably open mix that will admit air. The problem with grass is that it will over compact and also it holds to much moisture - hence your soggy mass.
Take a fork and give the contents a stir when loading more waste. Compost bins tend to make us lazy, but all compost need agitating frequently to speed up the process.
[url]https://www.raffia.plus.com/gn/thecompostheap.htm[/url]
Get it out of the bin and allow it to dry out - grass can be a disaster in a compost bin unless you use it very sparingly.
You need to put in a good mixture of kitchen vegetable waste, egg shells, tea bags etc (but never meat waste) also a mix of your garden waste with the addition of a some soil - say a spade full of soil to 12 inches of compostable materials. This will introduce micro organisms to aid decompostion. Aim for a reasonably open mix that will admit air. The problem with grass is that it will over compact and also it holds to much moisture - hence your soggy mass.
Take a fork and give the contents a stir when loading more waste. Compost bins tend to make us lazy, but all compost need agitating frequently to speed up the process.
[url]https://www.raffia.plus.com/gn/thecompostheap.htm[/url]
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hendi_alex
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Checkout the compost forum at this site. There are several threads that describe different approaches to composting. I agree with the previous poster that you need to remove the compost and place such that it can dry. Good compost incudes a mix of brown and green ingredients. So if you have access to some brown matter like last years tree leaves, hay, pine straw (only in limited amounts of 10% or less), most anything that is dead and brown. Also anything added to the pile does better if chipped or shreaded. For grass and weeds a mulch mower does pretty well. They can go in as clumps but make turning the pile much more difficult and they will decompose much slower.
Remember the essential ingredients for a compost pile are organic matter, oxygen (air), and a moderate amount of water/moisture. To achieve this the pile needs to be relatively fluffy, therefore the mix of browns and greens and the occasional turning. If the pile's density is good then the excess moisture will likely drain out and keep the compost pile's biological activities going steady. With the heavy compacted condition presented by a pile of all greens, the air is drecreased, the moisture gets increased, further decreasing the air, and anaerobic activities take over. The pile begins to stink and to putrify.
Hope this general overview is helpful. See the compost forum, as many very knowledgeable posters are over there. I'm a lazy composter and follow only the most basic rules of maintaining a compost pile.
Alex
Remember the essential ingredients for a compost pile are organic matter, oxygen (air), and a moderate amount of water/moisture. To achieve this the pile needs to be relatively fluffy, therefore the mix of browns and greens and the occasional turning. If the pile's density is good then the excess moisture will likely drain out and keep the compost pile's biological activities going steady. With the heavy compacted condition presented by a pile of all greens, the air is drecreased, the moisture gets increased, further decreasing the air, and anaerobic activities take over. The pile begins to stink and to putrify.
Hope this general overview is helpful. See the compost forum, as many very knowledgeable posters are over there. I'm a lazy composter and follow only the most basic rules of maintaining a compost pile.
Alex
Last edited by hendi_alex on Sun Jul 13, 2008 10:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
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applestar
- Mod
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- Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)
This thread should really be in the COMPOST forum...
Like the previous posters said, immediate Rx would be to lay the contents of the piles on the ground to dry out a bit (do this when you're not expecting rain, obviously). A few hours~half day should be sufficient.
After that, rebuild your compost pile by layering with BROWNS and shovelfuls of good dirt (I like using the leafy mulch under shade trees). It sounds like the GREENS are wet enough that you won't have to add water. If you want to get a bale of straw, that's great. (I keep bales of straw around the compost pile -- what I have now are left overs from last year's Halloween decorations and are pretty much spoiled -- growing mushrooms after rain, etc.) Handiest BROWNS available around the house would be brown paper bags (not printed) and toilet/towel/wrapping paper cores, paper egg cartons, etc. Some fast food restaurants offer pressed pulp trays that also make terrific BROWNS.
It's best to tear them up a bit. I haven't tried but maybe you COULD run them over with a mulching mower. 
Hmmm. What if you toss these paper stuff on top of the sloppy greens on the ground and ran over them with a mulching mower? I wouldn't do it with straw because that would most likely tangle around the blade.... This is not a recommendation, just thinking out loud....
If you can't lay out the old pile, I guess the next best thing would be to start a new pile, layering as described above.
Good luck!
Like the previous posters said, immediate Rx would be to lay the contents of the piles on the ground to dry out a bit (do this when you're not expecting rain, obviously). A few hours~half day should be sufficient.
After that, rebuild your compost pile by layering with BROWNS and shovelfuls of good dirt (I like using the leafy mulch under shade trees). It sounds like the GREENS are wet enough that you won't have to add water. If you want to get a bale of straw, that's great. (I keep bales of straw around the compost pile -- what I have now are left overs from last year's Halloween decorations and are pretty much spoiled -- growing mushrooms after rain, etc.) Handiest BROWNS available around the house would be brown paper bags (not printed) and toilet/towel/wrapping paper cores, paper egg cartons, etc. Some fast food restaurants offer pressed pulp trays that also make terrific BROWNS.
It's best to tear them up a bit. I haven't tried but maybe you COULD run them over with a mulching mower. Hmmm. What if you toss these paper stuff on top of the sloppy greens on the ground and ran over them with a mulching mower? I wouldn't do it with straw because that would most likely tangle around the blade.... This is not a recommendation, just thinking out loud....If you can't lay out the old pile, I guess the next best thing would be to start a new pile, layering as described above.
Good luck!
More browns: used paper towels (without chemical cleaners, though), shredded newspapers and junk mail (I run mine through a standard shredder), even shredded tag board (like cereal boxes) and cardboard. I think a small amount of colored ink would be fine just to get your piles established.applestar wrote:Handiest BROWNS available around the house would be brown paper bags (not printed) and toilet/towel/wrapping paper cores, paper egg cartons, etc. Some fast food restaurants offer pressed pulp trays that also make terrific BROWNS.
Another tip: when fall rolls around and neighbors start buying straw bales for decoration, take note of when they toss them out with the garbage. Free straw bales! They are handy in compost, as a garden mulch, and they store easily for future use as it doesn't matter if they are partly decomposed when you get around to using them. Good luck!