Guy at the farmers market told me my compost was too wet and it fixed everything

I’ve been trying to reduce my food waste for about a year now, but my compost pile just smelled like rotten eggs no matter what I did. Some older fella selling heirloom tomatoes said it was too wet and I needed to add more brown material like dried leaves or shredded cardboard. I threw in about 20 pounds of stuff from last fall and within a week the smell was gone. Has anyone else had trouble balancing green and brown waste in their pile?

2 comments

2 Comments

gavin_kelly916d ago

Has that smell been gone for good since then? I had the exact same problem with my pile last summer and it turned out I was adding too many kitchen scraps without enough dry stuff to balance it out. I started keeping a bin of shredded newspaper and dead leaves right next to the kitchen door, and I just toss a handful in every time I add fruit peels or coffee grounds. It made all the difference for me too.

christopher_wells46d ago

Oh @gavin_kelly91, did you notice the smell came back right away if you skipped the dry stuff even once?