Hi all,

My compost all of the sudden started having this WICKED sour/pungent smell. I mean, this kicks you in the face, it's that bad. The only thing I can think of that I did differently was put some buckwheat flour in there and some wheat bran left over from milling flour. It has rained immense amounts here lately, and the compost is kind of wet...should I just dump it out of the tumbler and let it dry out? Or is there something else I could before I do that...or else I'll have to get a gas mask or something.

Thanks!!

I don't really know the answer to your question, but I recently put a sandwich roll in the compost and it had a little mayo on it. The same thing happened. I can sympathize. Oooh. It smells awful.

Maybe leave the door off until it rains again, or add some very dry stuff like straw or leaves to offset the moisture. I know how you feel. Makes you wanna hurl

When that happens and I don't have enough dry things to add, I shred all my junk mail and add that. I love shredding junk mail

My guess is you've gone anoxic. Needs a stirr and maybe some extra browns.

Lotsa rain can do that.

Thanks all. I do tumble that puppy just about every day. I'll try adding some shredded paper. Got wayyyy too much of that hanging around. Stupid credit card offers....

Thanks!

Your compost got too wet ans is in anaerobic digestion and that is why if stinks so bad. If you do not have any dry material to put in to absorb the excess moisture you will need to dump it and allow it to dry out.

Quick question: what do you all think about seafood in the compost? Can that work in a tumbler when you are adhering to the right ratio of greens & browns? Or is this unwise? Thanks!

My husband is taking my barrel of compost to the dump as we speak. The stink was unbearable, and I was concerned that the neighbors would complain. I think I'm going to stick with composting in a ditch from now on.

There's quite a few companies here in Maine who make seafood compost. When I got a couple bags of it earlier this year it had little pieces of mussel shells and sea urchin shells and such in it. No idea about what to call it (green vs brown), though.

And thanks all for the responses. now that we had a dry day yesterday, things are a little less pungent.

With over 30 years of successful odor-free composting under my belt, I have always made it a non-negotiable point to never add meat(& that includes seafood), dairy, or leftover seasoned &/or cooked food products (like sandwiches , pasta, etc.) to my compost piles.

End result? No vermin problems & no smell (other than the earthy smell of normal compost production).

I know that many folks out there will pooh-pooh my particular rules, but to each his own.

I would think that if you can't compost meat, seafood would be unwise, also. Since seafood smells even stronger than meat, I'd be afraid of how it would smell, too.

Whether any meat or seafood might cause a compost pile to smell bad would depend on the volume of that material, and the volume of the other material. I have added meat and bone scraps as well as seafood (fish, bones from fish, clam shells, etc.) to my compost bins at various times in the past with no odor problem, because the volume of that material was not great enough when compared to the rest of the material to overwhelm the composting operation and that material was buried in the pile not simply dumped on top.
Given the very small volume that most of the tumblers I have seen permit adding any meat or seafood probably would not be a good idea becasue there simply is not enough volume to hide that material.