When its smoking, its just right according to the taliban!

Add some shovel fulls of ordinary garden dirt, and the bacteria in
dirt will help a bit, also add some blood and bone.
If you dont add dirt the system wont work normally. Also there's
usually some worm castings in the dirt, which all goes to help.
Let us know how you get it right!
PS a lot of compact stuff is not a good idea. You should use mixed
sizes of compost to allow air into the system....But that may not
aplly to a rotary composter.
I have had this idea for a drum type composter with small wind
assisted rotation attachment.
Will get around to it one day I guess!



0tterbot wrote:
hello,
the first batch of compost i made in my new! tumbling! composter!! was
absolutely tops. this second batch is not going well at all - would anyone
have any thoughts?

at first, it dripped profusely out the holes. then, it heated up. my
goodness!! i had inadvertantly made an incendiary device (don't tell john
howard) and it was actually smoking. i cooled it by turning it often &
leaving the lid off for 4-5 days until it cooled. after it cooled, it
recommenced to drip profusely. now, several weeks later, it's too cold & the
composting stuff has merged into big wet gobs about the size of two fists, i
can't get it heated & the gobs won't break up naturally & to do so with my
hands is extraordinarily unpleasant (whereas i don't normally mind _what_ i
put my hands in, so it's really not nice at all). i added some lime to no
effect. it doesn't smell bad - it just doesn't smell like anything at all
(certainly not that lovely composty smell).

my idea was that tomorrow i'll empty it out & break up the lumps with a
spade, & then put it back in for a while with some more lime & some
partly-decomposed chicken-pooey straw (for carbon with a poo-boost) & see
what it's like after a week. if still no good i might just dump it out to
break down on its own & start again.

does anyone have a better idea? does anyone know what went wrong? i strongly
suspect the materials were just too wet & nitrogenous (iirc it was mainly
fruit peels & such, from the cafe) & not enough carbon, even though there
was quite a bit of paper in there.

thanks for any thoughts!
kylie