The Compost Conundrum

We decided to try our hand at composting. The husband and I had talked about it for a while, so I did a little research (emphasis on the "little") and went for it. I figured it couldn't be too difficult, right? I took the husband's drill and drilled holes in a plastic garbage can with a twist-lock lid. We then began collecting our kitchen waste (banana peels, egg shells, non-meat food scraps, etc) and yard clippings and started adding them to the compost bin. The problem we encountered was that we didn't pay attention to Compost Rule #1- add equal amounts of "green" material and "brown" material. Green material is food scraps, lawn clippings, etc. Brown material is shredded newspaper, dead leaves, etc. We added essentially 95% green material. Let this be your warning- you MUST add brown material to a compost bin to balance out the green, unless your ultimate goal is to have a steaming pile of foul yuckiness that will attract every fly in town along with his brother. We learned this the hard way. Our backyard was... well, quite rank for a while. Fortunately, the neighbors don't hate us. After adding about a week's worth of shredded newspaper, and giving the bin a good turning or two, the stentch was significantly reduced. So now we have a nice balanced compost pile that is "cooking" quite nicely that will result in some good fertilizer for our garden in the spring. And you would not believe how much compostable food scraps we produce as a family. We keep an empty plastic ice cream tub under our sink, and it needs to be emptied into the outdoor bin every other day (sometimes every day, depending on what we eat). We've learned to add at least one day of shredded newspaper (junk mail also works nicely) every time we empty the bucket, to keep the stank away. And wow, between composting, recycling, and cloth diapers, our garbage bin has hardly anything in it on trash day. And that makes me feel very accomplished. It may make a stink, but I'm trying to do my part.