I have inherited a very large (2mx3m) compost heap, that last year we cleared our jungle garden that had been left to grow for 12 years, into.

I piled all the fresh leaves and cuttings (unknowlingly) onto some old compost, that hid lots of woody raspberry stems and all sorts of oddness.

I have been turning it over each month for the last few months, so it is now working ‘ok’, and it is all visibly composting down and more soil like. But we still have the damn woody stems and some stuff that just seems to not want to rot down.

Has anyone had success with worms to speed it up?
My father suggests a bag of horse poop, or urinate on it myself (not an option as it is overlooked by the rest of the housing estate! 😯 )

Pee in a bucket then take it to the compost heap. Have you got a good mix of types of composting material?

No help, but ours isnt working well either, the stuff has certainly halved in bulk, but its just going to a stodgy mess rather than compost.

Odly some parsnips are growing in it!

Aye. Wee wee is meant to be good for kicking it off.

They woody stems will take forever to rot down. Pee and grass cuttings, both to add nitrogen, might help.

Buy a juicer > use it daily > discard remnants in compost bin. Job done. Our bins have gone positively compostastic as a result.

A proper wormery ftw, I built one a few years ago (left over decking planks and a few plastic trays and a plastic tap, layers have been added over the years) and it’s great. Neat and tidy with no smells, way quicker at composting, brilliant liquid fertiliser off the bottom, great compost, easier to manage with the layers which can be switched about and topped up, no rodents to worry about.

as above urinate on the heap to get it started – works wonders

also think about adding shredded paper, most compost heaps are sodden black messes due to far too much nitrogen

research “hotbox composting”

I have been adding all the guinea pig sawdust, pee and poop weekly. This has dried it out from stodgy mess, and I think one of the reasons it has started working. The sawdust rots really well.

I was hoping I could buy some maniacal, hyperactive worms that would eat their way through the woody stuff.

You can buy ‘compost starters’ but I just throw on some ammonium sulphamate, seems to work.

Just dig out the good stuff and put all the part composted stuff back in to carry on. Make sure you keep the balance of carbon and nitrogen right, most people use too much green leafy stuff and grass cuttings and not enough woody stuff. Bog roll inners, old cardboard packaging that can’t be reused, newspapers straw etc are all great for keeping a balance.

Fwiw you may be better splitting it into 3 heaps, one for fresh stuff, one for part composted and one for ready to use, then just turn one into the next as it does its thing.