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| HELP! A couple of years ago we purchased one of those black egg shaped compost barrels on a stand which can be turned. We tried it and nothing happened. The kitchen garbage just sat there. I turned it, I watered it when it was dry. Nothing happened.... Well, that's not quite true. It did grow a dandy cabbage! But the garbage stayed looking and smelling like garbage. We compost our horse's manure and old hay and it works just fine, but we do it in a large fenced area in our pasture. We even tried adding a little of the old hay and manure to see if that would help. It didn't. We finally dug a hole and buried it.
So I quit using it for a while. Recently my husband decided we should try again. We had a bag of grain for our horses that had mildewed so he started it off with that. We added garbage and some plant clippings and now we have a really smelly barrel with a lot of flies. What are we doing wrong?? As I mentioned we can compost horse manure without problems. And in the past I did some worm composting and that worked well. Annie in Washington State on the Olympic Peninsula. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by maryrecord (My Page) on Mon, Aug 22, 11 at 2:43
| It sounds to me like you have a shortage of browns. Are you adding leaves, shredded paper or something of that nature to your kitchen waste? |
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- Posted by belgianpup Wa/Zone 7b (My Page) on Mon, Aug 22, 11 at 3:54
| Use your horse manure, old hay, old grain, and garbage and mix it all together in the composter, or at least layer it. Don't add too much water, it should just be damp, not soaking. Maryrecord is right, you probably need more dryish materials. Too much high-nitrogen stuff tends to ferment more than compost -- you can tell by the smell (stink). More dry old hay would be just fine. Or dry weeds. Or straw. Sue |
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- Posted by vermontkingdom 4a (My Page) on Mon, Aug 22, 11 at 5:09
| I agree with Mary and Sue. When you put together grain, garbage and lawn clippings, you assembled things that are all high in nitrogen. Horse manure composts well because it contains some nitrogen (urine/feces) but lots of carbon (either sawdust or hay/straw). Try your barrel again with an eye towards providing about three times as much carbon as nitrogen. |
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| Your kitchen waste, garbage, is mostly material with a low Nitrogen to Carbon ratio, too much Nitrogen and not enough Carbon. Adding manure only adds more Nitrogen to a mix that already has too much. Plus kitchen waste tends to have a very large amount of moisture in it which helps keep air from the bacteria that will be digesting that material. You need some dry, high Carbon material to mix with that kitchen waste in a ratio of about 3 to 1, straw, shredded leaves, even paper would work. |
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- Posted by joepyeweed 5b IL (My Page) on Mon, Aug 22, 11 at 11:24
| You may want to read the FAQ link at the top of this forum. Its a great place for beginners to start. Your manure is composting well because of the larger volume and its mixed with straw. I use shredded junk mail as the carbon additions to my kitchen scraps. |
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| Good sources of browns: dried grass clippings or leaves loose hay or straw (available free at feed stores if you sweep it) torn household paper waste: facial tissues, dinner napkins, coffee filters, cereal & cracker boxes, toilet paper rolls, etc Make it simple & easy for the family to collect for you. What really worked to increase our supply of browns was to set a step-on trash can next to the usual kitchen garbage. Now along with kitchen waste we're dropping in the paper napkins & other papers that were just thrown out before. In the bathrooms I added separate receptacles for paper waste first using a small paper sack, then containers lined with paper to remind us to throw the paper in there. :o) The paperboard boxes from cereal, crackers, mac & cheese, etc. are flattened after emptying & slipped next to the trash for tearing up later. My teen son & friends can tear them up quickly while watching a movie and put them in a paper sack or box for me to take to the bin. They no longer ask me if I want paper for composting & just put it in the containers for it. If they tear up first I'm comment, but if not I just tear up a bit when adding to the bins outside. It may take a bit longer if the pieces are large, but I don't fuss too much with it & it still makes compost eventually. |
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