All kinds of nasty

Bucket #1 there are holes on the bottom

Bucket #2

Today was warm but cloudy and tremendously windy. I thought we would have a thunderstorm so I left my plants inside. In the evening, I decided to "turn" my compost before going to the gym. I have two 5-gallon composting buckets (urban organic gardener link --> has great info on starting a compost bin). I drilled holes on the bottom and sides of one bucket (bucket #1) and was too lazy to do the same for the second (bucket #2). I figured it is a small bucket so it would be easy to turn the compost around to aerate it (wrong, with a little shovel, it is hard to get to the bottom). The compost in bucket #1 had no smell (well, smelled like dirt/soil). The compost in bucket #2 was smelling a little like horse radish - nothing too bad but definitely like something was going on in there.

This bucket should be fabreze'd

I decided that I should empty bucket #2 and get some air to the bottom of the bucket. And after dumping half of the compost into the bucket I got a whiff of something nasty, real nasty...like the kind of smell you get when you walk into a porta potty at a summer festival kind of nasty.

I panicked, starting running around not sure of what to do. I was so glad it was windy otherwise I probably would have killed my neighbors with the stank. I quickly drilled holes on the bottom and sides of bucket #1. Scurried into the house, grabbed some scrap paper, shredded it and put the stanky compost (if I can call it that) back into the bucket - layering it with the shredded paper. I am still unsure of when the compost is "done". I guess I should wait until I can't identify the food scraps. I hope I can figure out this composting thing, it is such a great way to reduce waste and save money on compost.