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new to composting. I thought these black fancy bins were supposed to work faster? not! How do I get it to "heat up"?
sis brought me a black bin composter. we filled it with fallen leaves, browned and fresh weeds, veggie scraps, aged horse manure (a bit of fresh, too) and fresh lawn clippings. added more oak leaves and fresh weeds all summer whenever space permitted. Weeds wee growing out the aeration slots!
end of summer, I lifted the bin and re-forked everything back in in reverse order. my version of turning it. I do scratch about a bit to rearrange the top, but can't go too deep, when I add new material. my shoulders can't take torque. after every rain I poured in any collected water. It did get dry once.
there are glorious weeds growing out the sides again. when I turned it last fall, it hadn't made much progress, maybe and inch or two of 'black soil" which I put back in to help restart.
so? is there something I"m not doing or doing wrong, some reason weeds are growing and "black dirt" isn't? a year later, I still see fibers intact.
Am trying again with a 4' wire fencing circle. do I need to grind everything up? no shredder. does it need more water? have shoulder problems from hauling buckets. Please don't tell me it needs more sun - it's already got a partial sun space, almost the best I have available. only once did it feel warm.
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