Compost frustrations? Wood chips?

I’ve been composting kitchen scraps and yard waste in a black bin provided by the city for about 7 years with a lot of success. The main challenge I’ve encountered is not having enough browns.

So I got a free whole chipped maple tree this fall and it’s been awesome—used some for mulch, gave some away, briefly used the steaming hot pile for some lazy sous-vide. And topped up my compost pile.

Now it’s just super dead. The moisture seems right, but it’s cold and unchanging (it is winter here, but that doesn’t usually slow my piles much). I thought maybe too many browns so I’ve been adding lots of kitchen scraps…but they literally just sit there. Like perfect-looking kale leaves weeks later. I do seem to have a lot of little grubbies? Anyone seen this problem? Any advice?

If you're into thinking about the carbon:nitrogen ratio of the components of your compost pile, wood chip is just about as brown as you can get, at  400:1. If you put in any substantial amount, it could take a lot of high-nitrogen materials to get back to something that decomposes in a reasonably quick timeframe.

If I had just put a bunch of wood chips in my compost and wanted to get it cooking along again, I might try adding some readily-available high-nitrogen liquids into it, and turning it frequently to stimulate aerobic activity. But, in my experience, that still might be enough, because wood chips tend to be fairly large pieces that don't break down that quickly, even when I build a compost pile with the "ideal" mix that heats up really fast and breaks most things down fast. I think it has to do with their relatively small surface area to volume ratio.

When I'm turning compost piles on top of ground that has a layer of wood chips, a small quantity of wood chips and sticks usually get mixed in, and they don't really break down at all, even if the compost pile is otherwise cooking along very well. I either sift them out of the finished product, or just use the compost with the larger woody material still present. A year later, it gets a lot more fungal breakdown involved (which I think may be the only way to actually get wood chips to decompose, no matter how much nitrogen you add to try to make compost out of them)

Regarding the grubbies, those look like beneficial Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL). Those are highly desirable to have in your compost, rapidly chew through vast quantities of all sorts of food scraps you might add, do not spread pathogens, and help reduce the incidence of other less desirable flies. You can also feed them to your birds or fish.

Those little grubbies are black soldier fly larvae and they are ferocious eaters for kitchen scraps especially the meaty and greasy stuffs. if you have a lot in the pile, they might have consumed lots of high nitrogen scraps and slowed down the composting process.

If you just want to get rid of kitchen scraps, BSFL will be great for the job and you don't need to bring in the browns and turn the pile. They are nutritious grubs and chickens love them. There are quite a few posts about BSFL here in permie maybe you would be interested in finding out.

I think that wood chips are better to put on the surface of the soil.  They cover the soil, so that it doesn't wash away. When the worms are ready for them, they will take little chunks down into the soil.  I add wood chips about once per year.  As Timothy said, they are pretty extreme carbon inputs in your compost.  Brown is usually brown leaves. A few sticks, sure, but not a lot of wood chips.  That's why I think it is crucial to be strategic in the fall when leaves are falling down in your area.  Gather and store them, so you can use them for free during the rest of the year.  

John S
PDX OR

Others have already covered the main points.

Black Soldier Fly (BSF) larvae are great to have! I wish they were present in my climate. They rapidly - like 48 hours rapidly - eat food scraps, converting it to larvae. The larvae are used for feeding other animals like chickens.

Here is a time lapse of them eating fish carcasses.


You might even consider setting up a dedicated BSF bin, to grow and harvest the grubs - assuming you have something like chickens to eat the product. For residential settings they are highly desirable as if well designed they should be rodent proof, and food waste is digested very fast to avoid putrefaction. If the box is suitably insulated they will stay active through winter as well.

We use woodchips in our garden a lot. They are used for mulching paths, with a fresh layer spread each year. We also use them for a deep litter bedding for the chickens, and when well rotted we top garden beds with them. I don't like apply fresh chips to growing areas, because from past experience they tend to suppress plant growth a bit. People seem to have differing experiences on this though.

For the past 12 months we have been using wine cap mushrooms in the woodchips as well, which speeds breakdown and gives an extra yield.

Bottom line; chips are great to have, but are better used not in a compost heap.

Hi Louise,

To me, wood chips are a long term solution.  They are not going to just break down back into topsoil in one season unless you really bring some biology into play.  But just sitting on the ground they should break down nicely over several seasons, yielding up a nice, dark material.

If you were so motivated, this is a great way to make use of mushrooms, especially Wine Cap mushrooms which can break down chips in one season, give you nice, fertile bedding and give you mushrooms.

If you are still interested, I can point you in the right direction.

Eric

Thanks so much, all. This is really helpful and all makes a lot of sense. I pulled out the few remaining food scraps and the larvae into their own container and holy cow they're fast! This also had the side benefit of entertaining my toddler for an entire afternoon "sorting wormies"

If you were so motivated, this is a great way to make use of mushrooms, especially Wine Cap mushrooms which can break down chips in one season, give you nice, fertile bedding and give you mushrooms.

If you are still interested, I can point you in the right direction.

Thanks so much, Eric! I'd definitely be interested in more info--I've still got an abundance of chips and everyone here love mushrooms!

If you don't feel like setting up ramp or collecting buckets for BSFL, simply put down bundles of corrugated cardboard, they will hide in there.

I'm peeing on my wood chips to help them melt down more quickly.

Christopher Weeks wrote:I'm peeing on my wood chips to help them melt down more quickly.

I have another pile I dump the rinse water from pee diapers on. I figure, it’s already in a bucket 😂