My Compost Smells Bad
After spending months building up your compost pile and looking forward to using it to enrich the plants in your garden, it can be disheartening to find that it smells bad. When you make compost correctly, it has very little odor, so a bad smell indicates a problem. Several factors can influence the success of making compost. Because the decomposition process is chemical, you need to follow a few simple rules about what to include in your pile, what not to include and how to take care of it. Does this Spark an idea?
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Dry your compost pile by covering it with a tarp or sheet of black plastic: smelly compost is often wet compost. Although compost piles need a certain amount of moisture, too much dampness can cause anaerobic decomposition to occur, which means the pile is too wet for oxygen to enter, circulate and promote decomposition.
-
2
Add dried plant material or wood chips to increase the carbon content in your pile if it smells like ammonia but does not appear to be overly wet.
-
-
3
Turn your pile with a pitchfork to introduce more oxygen if it has a smell resembling rotten eggs or sulfur.
-
4
Stop odor quickly by covering your compost pile with topsoil or compost that has completed its decomposition process. In this case, do not turn your pile: cover it and let it sit for several weeks. When you dig into it later, the bad smell should be gone.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
When you build a new compost pile, include alternating layers of dried plant material with fresh, chopped up green plant material. Keep the percentage of dried material higher than the green material, turn your pile once each week, and cover it if the weather includes large amounts of rain.
Do not add meats, fish, cooking oils, pet waste, dairy products, tofu, charcoal ashes, human waste, glossy paper, lime or sand to a compost pile.
References
- Photo Credit Photos.com/Photos.com/Getty Images
