You said you didn't add any greens, but that's about all you've got. You need to add more carbon (brown) to that in order to get it to stop stinking. Leaves from last fall, shredded paper, sawdust, things like that are good carbon sources.

It's possible to get compost in 3 weeks, but it's not something that happens often and rarely for somebody's first attempt. There are also a lot of people who recommend letting compost sit for a while after it cools down, especially if it was made with manure.

NCG

I haven't used any of the ingredients you used so I don't think I can help you much. I was wondering where that 'recipe' came from? Was it recommended by someone?

As Brian pointed out, there isn't very much in the way of C in that mix. What kind (wood shavings? straw? sawdust?)of bedding is with the manure and is there much of it?

Lloyd

I didn't add any brown at all...there were wood shavings + sawdust in the horse manure but not a lot.

I have almost no brown... I was trying to make strong fertilizer that was manure based... I created the recipe myself.

If it smells *this* bad is it salvageable? Can I still take some out + add some straw and tumble it around?

Could you get some leaves? Or if straw is all you can get is it possible to shred it? Some people have used paper but I shy away from that myself.

I'm gonna guess that you need to have around 2/3rds of the tumbler filled with a C material to balance all the N material you have. But that is just a WAG.

Lloyd

I might have enough leaves around...

I don't have access to a shredder but I may be able to purchase some straw pre-shredded.

I guess my best bet is to take out about half of what I have and replace it with a dry carbon source like leaves or shredded straw.

So much for beginners luck! An expensive lesson about going by the book...

Thanks for all the tips so far!

You can shred leaves with a lawnmower.

Usually compost that smells bad is compost that is too wet and is in anaerobic digestion. You may need much more dry material to counteract all the water you added.

I'm not an expert even as amateurs go, but everything you put in your compost tumbler sounds like something I would spread directly on my garden, and all of it is intensely green/nitrogenous.

I need help from all the other members here, but if I were in exactly your situation...

I'd consider flat out buying plain old sugar--like ten pounds. It's pure carbon, and as compost ingredients go it might tame your mess better and quicker that anything.

What's the general opinion? Would ten pounds of sugar save this nitrogen bomb?

For some reason I don't think sugar would work very well but for the life of me I don't know why I think that. Maybe the bacteria dudes need a longer lasting carbon source? Sorta like feeding one kid sugar and another kid oatmeal. Might get a bloom of energy but in the long run, phhht!

What about a few bags of those pine shavings one gets for gerbils or other rodents? Mix a couple in and then layer some on top?

I still prefer leaves, better assortment of micronutrients for the finished product.

Lloyd

With the exception of the aged horse manure, none of those items requires any composting before application. I might have used the tumbler just to mix the stuff up and fully incorporate all the diverse ingredients, but I wouldn't have added any water and I would have applied it immediately after mixing. And composted the horse manure separately for use later, with suitable additions to achieve a proper C:N ratio.

The sour smell is the result of too much nitrogen (compounded most likely by excess moisture) and lack of aeration. I like Lloyd's idea of the shaved pet bedding. Adding sawdust would work just as well and will break down faster due to a smaller particle size. And any dried leaves if you have them (from last season - nothing that is still green). And keep that tumbler moving!!

FWIW, sugar is sometimes recommended as a compost activator, but I'd still include a good proportion of browns in addition - I don't think sugar will do it all by itself.

Hello! I am getting my first large garden ready for planting and have a large compost tumbler I am using.
I intended to make very strong compost fertilizer to spread thinly over my soil and till in. To do this I used about 1/3 aged horse manure mixed with stable bedding and the rest I filled up with new supplements. I added in:

50lb Cottonseed Meal
50lb Kelp
25lbs Bat Guano
1 bags composted chicken manure
2 bags steer manure
2 bags gypsum
4 bags mixed dairy manure.
3lbs Natural Compost Activator
Take out the horse manure , hay, and compost activator and you would have a great fertilizer in it's own right. The amounts you mixed in are huge! If you filled your bin with some great C, leaves would be my choice, but hay would work too, your mix will burn itself down in no time. Hay's lignins will take some extra time to breakdown unless it is cut very short - 1" or so. Leaves in this hot of a fert mix prolly don't need to be chopped either.

Most of the elements you listed above should be used as fertilizer - not as a compost mix.Thats in my homble opinion of course. Good Luck. TiMo

"What about a few bags of those pine shavings one gets for gerbils or other rodents? "

I've used that when I didn't have other sources. There are large bags available at places like Wal Mart and K Mart for pretty low cost.

"Most of the elements you listed above should be used as fertilizer - not as a compost mix."

I looked at the list and thought the same thing. The mix could be allowed to dry and use as an amendment by itself...

Blutranes

Awesome tips!! Thanks a lot!

With potted plants indoors I have used manure mixed in with additives and thought that the carbon ratio was for "proper" compost to be mixed in heavily with soil. I attempted to make more of a composted fertilizer that benefited from being broken down by the microbes. What a mess...

I will take out 2/3rds of what is in there and replace it with carbon material and go from there.

Can the rotten materials in the composter be taken out and dried in the sun then spread as fertilizer on the lawn or are should they be composted at this point because of the rot?

Thanks for all the input! I hope to get a healthy garden off the ground here soon :)

Sorry, one thing I should have asked right off the get go, how aged is the horse manure?

If it was more than a 4-6 months, take all of the material out of your tumbler, mix in some carbons (leaves or straw) and make a pile in the middle of your garden area. Let it compost for the 3 weeks and then spread and till the whole batch into the soil for a week prior to planting.

The only questionable item is the HM and if it was aged before you put it in the tumbler, I'm guessing it is not that much of a risk. It would be even less risk if you can get the temperature of this pile up into the pathogen destruction range along with a couple of turns.

If you go this route, leaves or straw would be better than sawdust or wood shavings.

Worth a thought anyways. Good luck.

Lloyd

The horse manure is ultra-aged.

Came from a pile that was years old and then I have it in many big garbage bags for about a year. I laid it out in the sun for a day before I tossed it in the composter.

It seems like taking it out + mixing in leaves + laying it out in the garden may be a good idea. It still rains here every few days...

If I mix leaves + lay it all out in a pile for 3 weeks, should I turn it at all with a pitchfork? Should I aim for more surface-exposure to the sun or more of a pile to sustain composting heat?

Thanks a lot for the advice Lloyd!

"The horse manure is ultra-aged."

Now I feel like a doofus! I should have asked that right off the bat, the first rule of my real job is to establish all the parameters of a request. I missed the aged part in the first post! :(

I'd pile it and see if any heat developed but I would thoroughly mix in some leaves as I built the pile.

Lloyd

What do you think about covering the pile with black tarp to help build up heat? Should it be left uncovered to help air out some of the excess moisture and dry bad bacteria?

-NCG

If you cover it, you run the risk of cutting off the air supply. As it starts to decompose, it'll generate heat on its own.

"With the exception of the aged horse manure, none of those items requires any composting before application. I might have used the tumbler just to mix the stuff up and fully incorporate all the diverse ingredients, but I wouldn't have added any water and I would have applied it immediately after mixing. "

This is what I was thinking too. This is a collection of fertilizers and already composte materials for the most part. Don't pile it up, your problem is you don't have enough air and it's loaded with nitrogen esp. from the bat guano. The reducing conditions that result are decomposing the gypsum (calcium sulfate) into hydrogen sulfide which smells horrible. OMG you've created a monster!

Spread it out to dry and put it on the garden and mix lightly into the surface, is my advice. No heat necessary.

Wow!

I'm no expert in fertilizer but I would be very careful about spreading too much of your mix on anything. You have a very strong mix there. I would image that the nitrogen count would be quite high on that one. I would only spread a very thin layer if you are not mixing it with alot of dry (brown-carbon) material to dilute it some.

Don't become too discouraged, we learn from our mistakes, even more from the ones we fix and move on from. Remember for the next time filling your tumbler, it should be close to 1 part source of nitrogen to 2 parts source of carbon.

Good luck and good gardening, Mary