okay. this is my first year with the whole composting and organic vegetable garden. i love everything about it. its very relaxing and also rewarding to see my garden with tons of veggies. my compost bin is in a ten gallon paint bucket with no holes. the lid is a piece of heavy tile (i lost the real lid..oops!) i put in stuff like dead leaves, green leaves, fruit, coffee grounds, old veggies ect. it looks really wet, like soupy and dark brown and gross. it molds over on the top and when i stir it, its just brown watery stuff with chunks of old rotton food floating around…what did i do wrong!!? im going to start over and maybe add holes? what about dirt and newspaper or printer paper? what can i do to keep the consistency normal and make good compost for my vegetable garden? what should it look like? thanks for your help!
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You need to have drainage. What you have is an anaerobic situation, meaning little or no oxygen and so it can’t decompose properly. Drill half a dozen 3/4 inch holes in the bottom and sides and turn the contents regularly to incorporate air.
Wow, what a mess! No, I’m just teasing. I’m very glad you’re composting, but you do need some pointers. First, in order to make compost effectively, you need more volume. A pile about 3′ x 3′ x 3′ is the minimum size for good decomposition and heating. Yes, it should heat up. You are only using a bucket, surely smaller than 10 gallons, maybe 5. This is too small. It has no holes, so you have no aeration. Compost needs oxygen, and it shouldn’t be so wet. You have created an anaerobic situation, so the microbes that are present are not the ones you want. It is just putrid, right?
Here’s what you should do:
Gather as much organic matter as you can, with most of it being brown stuff like dry leaves, pine needles, straw, and shredded paper. This needs to combined with green stuff like fresh grass clippings, green leaves, raw fruit and veggie scraps, and MANURE! But no dog or cat poo, and no meat or grease. Try to make a pile the size I said, and layer this stuff with a little soil, and moisten it as you build it up. It should be MOIST, but NOT WET. Cover it with a tarp if you like, to keep it from drying out. Then you can speed up decomposition by turning it every week or two, mixing it up so everything has its turn being in the middle. It will shrink a lot; that’s OK.
You can do all this in a loose pile, or make a container for it with pallets or wire, even concrete blocks. My composter is three concrete bins, so I can turn from one bin to another when I remix it. And I always have an empty bin to start a new pile in.
Even if you can’t gather this much material at once, you can build it up gradually, and it will still be OK.
There is a book called Let It Rot by Stu Campbell. I haven’t read it, but it seems to be popular. See if you can find it at the library.
Have fun, and happy composting!
way to wet!
drill or punch a few drainage holes about 1/2 or so from the bottom allow to drain well
dump out refill using 3 or 4 inches of dry grass, leafs or hay in the bottom, refill and restart your composter
Way too wet!
It should only be moist.
Add holes to the bucket for air and to release some of the heat. You can use any sort of paper.
Let me know if you need more info.
Alex is right. I’m also a new gardener this year and I also love it. I found this guy on youtube that has awesome how to videos and he will answer any questions for you.
It’s too wet and doesn’t have any air getting to it. What you’ve got going there is anaerobic decomposition, and as you’ve noticed, it’s a mess!
First of all, your bucket is too small. Compost piles need to be fairly large (1 cubic yard or so) in order to keep enough internal heat. You can compost in a large trash can, but you have to drill lots of 1/2 inch holes in the sides, bottom and lid of the trash can, and stir the composting materials up once a week or so.
Second of all, you have too much water and not enough air in there. The compost pile should be sort of dampish but not sopping wet. If you’re using a trash bin, it needs drainage holes at the bottom. I prefer to use a cylinder made of a ten-foot length of hardware cloth (wire mesh) with the ends connected. Stand the cylinder up and fill it with materials, and soon enough, you’ll have compost.
Third of all, most of the materials you have in there are greens - high nitrogen sources with lots of water in them, that get messy and stinky when they rot. You need to mix them with browns - paper is the easiest to get, any kind of shredded paper or cardboard will do, but dried leaves and grass, straw, sawdust, dryer lint, and so on are also good. Try to put as much different stuff in the compost as possible to get varied nutrition. I advise saving this year’s fall leaves in black plastic bags (use the vacuum setting on a leaf blower/vac to collect and shred them). Then you can mix them with next year’s greens to make good compost. or just use them as mulch. Fallen leaves are like gold in your garden; don’t let the trash man take them away!
You don’t need to put in dirt, though it helps if the compost pile is built in contact with the soil. All the micro organisms that you need to make the compost get there through the air, rain, or are on the materials to begin with.
Try adding some biochar it will help some.
