In July I set up a compost bin for a mixture of grass clippings, veggie scraps, and dirty litter from my coop (roosts are too low for deep litter; had a chicken that couldn't jump onto them, long story). I took a spare 10ft roll of hardware cloth and made a circle out of it to hold everything.
My pile is steadily consuming all of the "green" that I add from rotten bananas to grass and appears to be leaving the "brown" almost untouched. It will heat up when I give it grass clippings or veggie scraps, but then it cools down a few days later and eventually all I find is shavings when I turn it. It's always moist/wet but not saturated when I dig around in it. I read that it might need to be full to work properly, but I also can't seem to get it more than halfway. I add more and it just compresses back down in a week even if I turn it. For a long time the pile was sustaining around 15-20F above ambient daytime temperature for most of the time, which meant it got up to 90F a few times but mostly was lower. Today it's just dropped to ambient temp.
This is what it looks like. There is grass on the top because I recently added some.
There is also some grass in places around the sides about halfway down, but it doesn't extend to the middle. Early on there was a brief hint of ammonia when I turned it, but that's been gone for a while.
What am I doing wrong with this thing? Will it actually cold compost like this or am I going to just have a bunch of washed shavings when the snow melts in the spring?
This is my first time trying to do compost. Nearest I've ever done to compost to date is an indoor potted tree were I throw veggie scraps and indoor plant trimmings in the pot and a pill bug colony breaks it down.
My pile is steadily consuming all of the "green" that I add from rotten bananas to grass and appears to be leaving the "brown" almost untouched. It will heat up when I give it grass clippings or veggie scraps, but then it cools down a few days later and eventually all I find is shavings when I turn it. It's always moist/wet but not saturated when I dig around in it. I read that it might need to be full to work properly, but I also can't seem to get it more than halfway. I add more and it just compresses back down in a week even if I turn it. For a long time the pile was sustaining around 15-20F above ambient daytime temperature for most of the time, which meant it got up to 90F a few times but mostly was lower. Today it's just dropped to ambient temp.
This is what it looks like. There is grass on the top because I recently added some.
There is also some grass in places around the sides about halfway down, but it doesn't extend to the middle. Early on there was a brief hint of ammonia when I turned it, but that's been gone for a while.
What am I doing wrong with this thing? Will it actually cold compost like this or am I going to just have a bunch of washed shavings when the snow melts in the spring?
This is my first time trying to do compost. Nearest I've ever done to compost to date is an indoor potted tree were I throw veggie scraps and indoor plant trimmings in the pot and a pill bug colony breaks it down.
