Composter Test Run

So I lost this last battle with the composter. It started out strong. It was outside, so there weren't any problems with odor or wetness. I had loads of scraps to toss in. It was churning, I was cooking and all seemed well at the start.

The entire project could have been cursed from the beginning. I didn't let it run for the full week, per the instructions. I added unwanted Chinese food which gave it a strong Asian odor, yet did seem to be happily composting way. But think what really messed me up was adding some slightly moldy green things from the bottom of the vegetable drawer. Your see, it wasn't long before there was some white fur trimming the edges of the compost mixture.

I tried to ignore it at first. Pretend that the white furry stuff wasn't there, by mixing it in, adding more veggies and doing some crossed fingers business. The fuzz didn't mind getting mixed in to the good stuff. It too about two weeks to fully ripen & bloom. Two weeks ago I lifted the lid of the composter to find a dusting of white fuzz that looked like frost on the edge of some rocks, but the frost had mutated and grown a beard. It was also complaining about being full and I noticed that it had "dropped a load" into the "done" collection tray.

It was raining and I was about to leave for a long weekend in Southern California, so I just let it go. The deposit trap stayed open and the mixture was exposed. The bottom bit was no longer kept warm & mix so that it began to ooze & melt. The top bit, was the stuff caked around the edges did stay warm, yet was stuck there and it fell pray to the mold.

When I lifted the lid today, the area around the top was black with a silver crust. The deposit tray was hosting a primordial swamp and I was tinged with a guilt that I might halt the evolution of life on this planet if I were to clean out the unit, as I intended.

But my guilt was blasted away by the odor of the sludge. I had to get rid of the sludge. I couldn't bear throwing it away, as that would be the antithesis to the entire composting project. I decided that it would be best to bury this batch, as to leave it out to would be to invite them to roll in the fragrant soup of future life. So, I dug a whole in the sandy soil, shoshed, dumped and shook as much as I could into it and then recovered it. Deep down I harbored a hope that, like a pig cooked in a pit of embers, so might my compost be reborn into useful soil.

The composter got a good scrubbing and it now drying in the garage. Tomorrow it will get a spray down with some 409 before I restart the project. I'll need to find me some good dirt with energetic spores and then save up 2 days of veggie remains to add. I'm excited. Third time might be a charm.