Compost situation

I've been using my compost tumbler for about 2-3 months now and I've gone through a few ups and downs with it.

Recently I added some pine animal bedding pellets.  However, it ended up being too much brown (it expanded to be about 2/3 of the total compost).  During that time, the previous compost (1/3 of the tumbler) was beneath that pellet sawdust.  I wasn't sure what to do so I just kept adding greens in the form of food scraps and coffee grinds.  But I think the compost beneath that was semi-done but went anaerobic.

I removed a bit of the sawdust and kept adding greens.  But now, after having tumbled it a few times over the past couple of weeks I've noticed that the compost that was beneath the sawdust has basically become little balled-up clumps of stuff - primarily made up of small leaves that still haven't decomposed, and other mushy food stuff (misc greens).  At least they are damp, so moisture levels seem okay.  When I break those little clumps up, they smell strongly ammonia-like and putrid.  Seems to be the "anaerobic" smell.

I broke up as many of the clumps as I could find and used a hand trowel-rake to mix the compost up as much as I could and tumbled it another dozen times or so to better aerate it.  I've also read that those pine bedding pellets, after they've expanded, should be more of a 1:1 mix with the greens since they take longer than other browns to decompose (due to their higher N:C ratio).

I'm guessing I should add more browns.  However, does this end up properly killing off the "bad" (anaerobic) microbes and encourage good ones, or is there something else I should do to facilitate "good" microbe production?

For example, would it be wise to add in some kelp meal liquid and maybe even some worm castings at this point in an attempt to kick-start the good microbes, or would that just feed the bad microbes?

goodtogrow wrote:I'm guessing I should add more browns.  However, does this end up properly killing off the "bad" (anaerobic) microbes and encourage good ones, or is there something else I should do to facilitate "good" microbe production?

For example, would it be wise to add in some kelp meal liquid and maybe even some worm castings at this point in an attempt to kick-start the good microbes, or would that just feed the bad microbes?

Doesn't sound like it needs more browns if the majority of the contents is already browns.  You should not need either kelp meal or worm castings in the compost.  If it were me, I'd break up as much of the balls of greens as possible, and tumble to mix. If there is still too much brown to the amount of greens, add some alfalfa meal and tumble again to jump start it.

Those balls of uncomposted material normally form because it was too wet.

Thanks.

I removed a lot of the browns, though, so I don't think there are too many browns anymore.  And I've added more greens since then, as well (especially coffee grounds).

Why does alfalfa meal jump start the process, in particular?  Does it have something specific in it?

Thanks again, OhioGardener.

goodtogrow wrote:Why does alfalfa meal jump start the process, in particular?  Does it have something specific in it?

From some of my old notes on composting:

Alfalfa meal is made by fermenting adult plants and seeds of the alfalfa plant. It works by using micro-bacteria to breakdown elements in the organic matter. This accelerates decomposition of the trace minerals contained in the meal. Rhizobacteria found in the meal continue to process the nutrients it contains.

Alfalfa meal's NPK ratio is 3-0.5-3.

Thanks, OG.  I'll see if I can find some.  I still have some "compost accelerator", and have used it, but I'm not sure what's in it.

OhioGardener wrote:NPK ratio is 3-0.5-3.

I'm curious, I've not seen NPK expressed like that - usually only as 3 numbers, such as "5-7-0".  Is "NPK ratio" another way of describing how much Nitrogen/Phosphorous/Potassium something contains?

goodtogrow wrote:

OhioGardener wrote:NPK ratio is 3-0.5-3.

I'm curious, I've not seen NPK expressed like that - usually only as 3 numbers, such as "5-7-0".  Is "NPK ratio" another way of describing how much Nitrogen/Phosphorous/Potassium something contains?

That is expressed in the standard 3 NPK numbers, it is just that the middle number, "P", is 1/2 (0.5) as opposed to a whole number.

Ah, gotcha. Thanks.