Dinah wrote:
Hi there

I am thinking about starting my own compost bin.

At present, all I find is a wet smelly heap - is this to be expected, or
are there any tips

Thanks

Dinah


all excellent advice. I have two serious compost piles myself, but
also had them when I had a small lot in the city. the brown stuff is
important. I've started using shredded paper (not glossy paper unless
it's soy based inks) as a brown material. Leaves might not be easy to
obtain right now as it's spring. some spoiled hay would be awesome, if
you could get your hands upon it. I live out here where there's cows
right next to me in the pasture to the west and go cow pie
picking.......I was going nuts after the town parade for Christmas
because the locals all have a wide variety of drawn displays, ie: LOTS
of horses..........buggies, carts, etc (this is a young, but old town by
OUR standards, rural, and it was neat to see Santa being pulled on a
most impressive red wagon with six working horses wearing reindeer
antlers! LOL) all those ranch and farm type folk who were dressed to
the nines in riding gear on their horses, the wagons and such....and
then seeing all that wonderful horse muffins just laying there......I
wished I'd brought my shovel! LOL but seriously.......smelly means too
much green stuff. dumping your coffee pot? better to dump that on the
base of the roses..........you could tear newspapers into strips or
shred them, go round to barber shops to get the swept up hair (excellent
source for compost!) and even dog grooming places......I tend to brush
the cats that like brushing and put the clumps of hair out for the birds
to use to line their nests, but a lot of it goes into the compost piles.
my hair too (when I brush it, and clean out the brush, I have these
odd little "hair balls" that I roll up and don't toss in the waste bin,
I put them in the garden outside the door..........) paper towels are
good as they will break down too.....crush your egg shells first, cut up
the rinds of the citrus before you toss them in the pile......believe it
or not, pine needles will break down eventually and be a perfect ph of
6.5 and if you do use branches, it's not good unless they're
chipped...they take much longer to decompose. I've done composting now
for well over 25 years now....so much so that the old man (hubby) called
one day while he was out on the road and staying in a motel and was
telling me that as he took out the coffee grounds from the motel
provided coffee maker, he was looking around for the compost can! LOL
said I'd ruined him........he'd miss me if he were gone!

is there a community site where chipped branches and such are dumped for
the people's usage? I'm not sure of your capabilities where you are,
but everyone has given you good ideas to make your compost corner work.
keep us informed. I'd like to know how you do (I worked in a school
cafeteria and was allowed to bring home scads of peelings, egg shells,
leaves, etc and my pile was enviable at one point.....I miss that pile!
(I moved over here to Eastern Tennessee, but here I have COW POOP! LOL)

madgardener up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler, overlooking English
Mountain in Eastern Tennessee contemplating gathering a few bucketful's
of cow pies as I write...............g