Need some advice, please.
Attacked my mum's compost area a couiple of weeks ago. Her rotting compost bin arrangement (wooden sides, divided into 3, old carpet on top) had been put up many years ago by a gardener, and was falling to pieces. She never seemed to get much compost from it, either.
Had 3 new big plastic compost bins - heavily subsidised by the council - ready to replace the current arrangement. Attacked & shovelled stuff in the old bin(s) to one side, trying to clear a spot to get the first new bin in place... and... what did I hit? Sulpherous sludge, and plastic. Not just a single layer of plastic either, but 3-5 layers of old builders bags, carefully arranged to stop the garden & kitchen waste from ever contacting with the ground! What an amazing smell. Got gloves before carrying on with the excavations. Retrieved and burnt oodles of very slimy rose and shrub trimmings, and lots of other dubious stuff - stopped counting at 7 barrow loads - then shovelled the rest back into the new bins.
So my question is: Given that a lot of this 'compost' has been there for years, without much in the way of worm or drainage activity (although a few weird worms were meandering about just above the sewagey-sludge layer)... will it actually compost properly now that it is in contact with the ground and has some aeration? Or is it better to call it a day, and shovel the stuff onto her beds as a mulch? There are putrid grass trimmings (over a year old), some okay semi-composted kitchen waste, grey sludge, leaves in various stages of decay (more than one year's worth, going from the layers revealed in a vertical spade slices), and we simply tore the whole lot apart with spade and fork, and then tossed it into the new bins.
