I purchased a compost bin from the council last year but the grass cuttings etc have not composted down.?

Question

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

You need to keep it moist and mix it every few days and the rest will happen by it's self.

Answer 2

Keep it moist & don't just put grass cuttings in it. Weeds, bits of small twigs, vegetable peelings & even shredded paper etc. all help. Grass cuttings on there own tend to sort of melt into a soggy mess. The compost needs to heat up to help decompostion, it should work well in warm weather but this summer hasn't helped! You may need to tip the whole lot out, spread it around a bit as it also needs air to work, then add some compost accelerant like Garrotta
There's an art to compost making!
http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/organicgardening/compost_pf.php

Answer 3

You have to put other organic stuff in with the cuttings, potato peelings, vegetable skins too. Also empty your hoover every so often into it -no, I'm not crazy - if it was good enough for Alan Titchmarsh then it was good enough for me! You have to keep it slightly moist ( a bucket full of warm water and wee) give it a good mix with a fork then cover with a piece of old carpet and try to leave in a warm part of the garden. Every 4-6 weeks give it another mix and keep adding stuff to it. By this time next year you should have some wonderful rich compost.

Answer 4

Compost CAN be made within 2 months - if you turn it over every week, make sure it is not too wet/dry, introduce enough oxygen.

For we earthly beings though, make sure you have a good mixture of stuff, dry - straw, shredded paper, shredded twigs, dried up stems of old plants; damp - green stuff including vegetable discards from your cooking, leaves, dead plants from the garden (no seed heads though!)
Layer them into your compost bin if possible - sticking a load of wet stuff or dry stuff in will just do nothing worthwhile - mixing them will encourage them to rot down together.
Turn them occasionally - weekly would be best - but the rest of the world has a life - so monthly?!?!?!
IF you turned that lot weekly (good mix) you would have usable compost in 2 months. Turn the mix monthly - 6 months. Don't turn it - 2 years. Don't make a good mix & don't turn it - forget it - you just have a lump of slimey old grass cuttings!

Answer 5

never used a council compost bin.
make sure their are holes in the bottom.
worms and othe insects will find their own way in when conditions are right.
add some soil, manure or well rotted compost as a starter.
empty it out occasionally, mix it up. put it back in.

Answer 6

you additionally could make a solid compost from a mixture of dry components and green components.. Dry cloth • Dry leaves • previous, dry vegetation (no seeds) • Chopped sticks and prunings • Sawdust • Shredded newspapers & cardboard • Used paper towels & tissues • Straw • chilly wood ashes • wood chips green cloth • clean weeds (no seeds) • green vegetation and prunings • Vegetable peels, vegetable scraps, espresso grounds, tea leaves, tea bags • Grass clippings • fowl or cow manure • Hair • Seaweed DON’T USE those • Weeds or grasses that unfold by using roots • Weeds that have produced seed • Meat or nutrients scraps with intense fat or oil content cloth • large branches • canines, cat or human faeces (could be sickness source) • BBQ warmth bead ash • Gloss or lined paper products • Plastic, glass, metallic or stone • Compost activators – you purely don’t want them! good success with gardening that is a genuine facinating international.

Answer 7

silly question, but you have put the grass cuttings into the compost bin haven't you...?
what exactly are you expecting your grass cuttings to turn into, grass cuttings on their own will only really turn into a slimmey mess.. after just a few weeks...

Answer 8

Making a compost pile work is a balancing act between adding 'brown' leaves with 'green' kitchen waste or fresh grass and garden trimmings to generate a an optimal carbon to nitrogen ratio. The pile is effectively built out of just two elements, carbon-C is the brown and nitrogen-N is the green portion. It is the balance between these two in the presence of invertebrates, fungi, and bacteria that allows an exothermic (hot) reaction to occur and produce the final decomposition. Yard and kitchen scraps are layered with manures or dirt to achieve a C:N ratio that is close to 30:1.

If your compost is mostly fresh grass cuttings you have to much nitrogen, you needs to add a balancing amount of carbon.
Example
For 1 part of grass you need 5 parts shredded fresh leaves OR 4 parts dry shredded fallen leaves.
Or
For 2 parts of grass you need 1 part shredded newspaper plus 1 part straw plus 1 part shredded cardboard.

Shredded office paper with no colored ink will work very well. For 1 part of grass you need 1.25 parts paper.

All of this needs to be wet but not dripping. If the pile is dry you need to turn it and add the other ingredients wetting it as you go. If you have layered the carbon to nitrogen to the ideal 30:1 the pile will shortly begin to heat up. There will be a steady rise in temperature for a day or two. Normally the pile will continue to rise until it reaches 120 to 149 degrees F. If it stays up, fine. If it drops, turn again checking to be sure it is moist or wetting as needed. Once it no longer rises in temp after being turned it is complete.

Compost Mix Calculator
http://www.klickitatcounty.org/solidwaste/fileshtml/organics/compostCalc.htm
http://www.klickitatcounty.org/solidwaste/fileshtml/organics/compostCalcAbout.htm

A rule of thumb on C:N ratio is make roughly 1⁄4 - 1⁄2 of the pile green nitrogen materials and 1⁄2 - 3⁄4 brown carbon materials.
Green ingredients include grass clippings, weeds, kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, seeds, fresh soft green prunings, seaweed, & animal manure (sheep, poultry, horse, rabbit & cow)

Brown ingredients include dead leaves, straw, hay, wood shavings or chips, egg cartons, & non-colored newspaper.

Since you can never know the actual contents smell and temperature are the best gauge of your composts activity level.
1 - If it smells fresh like turned soil it is working properly.
2 - If you get it to wet it will begin to decompose anaerobically and produce hydrogen sulfide, the rotten egg smell. The best thing is to turn it and get air in. Possibly layer in fresh dry ingredients to absorb excess moisture.
3 - If the pile has an ammonia odor, you have too much green material (grass clippings, food scraps, green plant material) and not enough brown (dry leaves, woody prunings, pine needles, dried out plants, saw dust). Add more brown material or a shovel of soil and turn it.
4 - If it just sits &/or you see ants then the pile must be to dry. Everything should be moist but there should be nothing dripping. If you piled it to dry, its own heat dried it or the summer weather dried it then you must turn it rewetting the layers as you go.
5 - If it just sits there and won’t heat up despite being moist you have to many browns. Too much carbon prevents the pile from heating. Go to a coffee shop and get some coffee grounds, any grain, seed or meal is a good source of nitrogen. Add some grass clippings in thin layers or get a neighbor to donate kitchen scraps.

Answer 9

As the others have mentioned, you need to add some earthworms, soil and other yard waste to promote decomposition of the lawn clippings.

According to this article, it's best to use a mulching mower to spread the clippings over the lawn & soil. http://extension.missouri.edu/explore/agguides/hort/g06958.htm

Details on How to Compost: http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1189.html

More information:
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/ID-182.pdf
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/DG3915.html

Answer 10

You have to put other stuff in there too or it will just become a smelly mess. Try shrub cuttings, veg peelings, little newspaper.
It does take quite a while tho. Think you have to turn it with a fork too.
Well done for being so environmentally friendly!

Answer 11

It takes a long, long time for things to turn to compost. Be patient. A year isn't quite enough.