Ensure your compost mix is correct. The contents need to be balanced. You need greens and browns. Greens are soft grassy, leafy, kitchen waste, veg peelings and the like. Browns are the twiggy things, shrub prunnings, scrunched up newspaper, egg boxes, straw, cardboard tubes (loo roll insides).

Turning the top spit (nothing energetic!!) once a week will help, so will male "night water".

So where should I put my bin?
Your bin needs to be near enough to the house so that the habit of diverting kitchen waste from the dustbin becomes second nature. It should be placed directly onto soil, to allow access to worms and other soil organisms. Ideally the bin will also receive some direct sunlight; otherwise the composting process will progress more slowly.

A bin that smells is most likely to have an imbalance in its three main ingredients: air, moisture and materials.

A lack of air causes the composting micro-organisms to be replaced with ones that work anaerobically. A by-product of this is a smell of rotten eggs. Re-introducing air into the bin should resolve this problem.

An excess of moisture, (which can be caused by too many “greens”, as these have high moisture content) can clog up the pore spaces which would allow air to circulate and may produce a strong smell of ammonia. Adding more “browns” should resolve this problem.

Arh, my compost bin doesn’t heat up.
The heat in a compost bin is generated by the activity of the composting bacteria. If they stop producing heat it is usually because they are waiting for some more material to be added. If material is added regularly then the problem is usually insufficient air.

The balance of greens and browns is also important, as too many greens will quickly deplete the oxygen available and too many browns will prevent the decomposition process from getting started.

Finally, a compost bin which has been allowed to dry out will see little activity. Slowly adding water over a number of days should bring it back to life. The compost bin’s contents should feel as damp as a wrung out sponge.

Have fun,