Three years I've been composting wrong

I've been dumping kitchen scraps in my backyard bin since 2021, thinking I was helping. Last week I pulled out the bottom layer and it was just a slimy, stinking mess. A friend who actually knows what she's doing took one look and pointed out I had zero brown material in there. Turns out all those coffee grounds and veggie peels need dry leaves or cardboard to break down properly, not just rot in a pile. I've been basically making anaerobic sludge instead of soil for 36 months. Anyone else been unknowingly making garbage instead of compost?

3 comments

3 Comments

wendy_jackson1mo ago

Same thing happened to me with my first batch, except I used way too many citrus peels and basically pickled everything instead of composting it. The smell was so bad my neighbor called the city thinking something died back there. Now I keep a pile of shredded junk mail in my garage so I never run out of browns.

xena_fox391mo ago

Honestly I always thought the browns ratio thing was overblown until my pile turned into a slimy science experiment lmao. Now I hoard cardboard like its gold.

thea_mitchell201mo ago

@wendy_jackson lol pickled compost that's a new one. So wait did you just toss your whole slimy pile or did you try to fix it with browns?