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ajay8912

Help! I've created putrid mushroom compost--what do I do?

AJay8912
10 years ago

I got some mushroom compost from Mountain Meadow Mushroom farm in Escondido CA, which gives away spent mushroom compost. This particular compost has very good reviews on Yelp as being a good growing medium. That was about 3 1/2 or 4 weeks ago. I wasn't ready to use it yet--I'm going to combine it with some other compost and the other component's of Mel's Mix for square foot gardening. So I just left it tied up in black garbage bags.

Well now that I open it I see my big mistake. I don't make compost (hence why I was acquiring it elsewhere). I do make bokashi, but it's a different process. I had this nagging thought that maybe I had to provide air for the compost since it still had mushroom stalks in it, so I guess it was not completely ready to use.

I dumped out all the garbage bags and now I have two big stinking piles of wet, horrid, putrid stuff (the most vile smell ever). It's just sitting there now.

I also added one bag to the Mel's mix I was making. Then I added a few ounces of effective microorganisms (EM), the kind I use to make bokashi, hoping maybe they would rebalance things in a nice way.

Now I am really worried and wondering what to do--

1. What do I do with this stinky stuff. How can I save it? Should I cover it and add some EM and hope it completes its process anaerobically, which has obviously already started?
2. Have I done something really terrible by adding some of it to my Mel's mix? Do I need to fix it? And how?

Thanks!

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