No; not by spring.

You say it was already decomposing for a few years. How tall is it? Sounds like it's a pretty big circumfrence. I'd expect it to take a few more years, but it will speed the process.

If you really want it gone, at least the part that's visible above the surface you could try a controlled burn. Hollow out the center a bit and build a small fire in there. Use it like a fire pit a few times and see what happens. Smother the fire w/ some soil or similar and let it smolder when your going to leave it unattended, and keep a hose or buckets nearby.

I think I'll just leave the bin over the top of it a couple years then. I live on a 1/4 acre lot in town so I'm a little leary of burning it out. All I need is to have someone call the fire department or something. It's also awfully close to the neighbors wood fence to even think about burning. Next spring or summer when the compost in this bin is ready and I put it into my new raised bed garden I'll see if the stump has gotten soft enough to dig out with a shovel. If not I'll just put the bin back on and keep composting over the top until it is soft ebough or black dirt. Either way works for me.

Drilling holes helps to get moisture into the wood. That's the important point, keep it continually moist and let the fungus take care of it. That is, if you can wait.

sounds pretty hot to me!

My neighbor pours sugar into stumps & waters it in & keeps it watered to speed up decomposition.

I'm trying to remove a newer hardwood stump from our front slope by colonizing it with edible fungi. This involved ordering mushroom-spawn colonized wooden dowel plugs (inexpensive) for the desired mushroom likely to work and drilling holes all over the stump and pounding the dowels in. I'm doing this with the onset of cooler weather and keeping sweet potato vines covering the stump for shade and I also occassionally sprinkle it. If this works, which could take a year for fruiting so they say, I'll have removed a really difficult stump with no nasty work adding fabulous soil to the garden and enjoying delicious and attractive lion's mane mushrooms, ummmm snarf snarf snarf.

I cut a stump off as close to ground level as I could. I tried drilling holes and pouring KNO3 in them, trying to keep the holes wet etc to speed the decomposition. After a couple of years, I finally just gave up and drilled a bunch of holes that I filled with dirt and planted grass seeds in so the stump isn't as noticeable.

My dad once had to cut down a huge tree with a stump that was several feet across. He had to hire it done for liability purposes and asked the workers to cut it off about three feet from the ground. He sanded it as evenly as he could, painted a checkerboard on it, cut checkers out of some of the branches, devised some stools out of some of the larger branches (or maybe narrower parts of the trunk) and applied a nice coat of varnish to everything to protect it so he could have a nice table where people could play checkers any time they wanted.

It rotted away in a couple of months.

This is probably covered in one of the corollaries to Murphy's law.

How about buying a 20.00 axe and chopping on it a little everyday 'till it's gone. It's quicker and good exersize.

Ya the axe thing sounds really good. Something to take your frustration out on. :) But if you want to do it some other way the compost bin should work. I don't think it will be gone by next spring but when spring comes empty out the compost bin and check it out and maybe chop it up a little more or put a few more holes in it. It will eventually go a way.

OK. I think I'll see where it is by next spring. I had the holes drilled, filled with fertilizer and covered with a small pile of grass since about June and when I put the compost bin over the top of it spots were starting to get soft. If I it's not soft enough by spring to dig out I guess I'll just have to borrow my dads chopping and splitting ax and go to town. It's really not a huge concern. the back yard will just be a little nicer without a 3' diameter sugar maple stump.

I have made at least 3 planting beds over stumps. cut as close to the ground as you can, add soil and lasagna layers, and plant. The wood will break down like a hugelkultur method. It's worked well for me.

Spring of 2015, maybe.

Stump grinder.

Axe works well---feels good after a day at work for getting rid of, well, you know! Last one I did was about 3 1/2' and hade it gone in under a week.

Pee on it

Takadi makes me laugh.

From what I hear, he's right. Pee on it.

Urine has nitrogen and potassium in it and that's what the stump needs to break down quickly. So, go out there and pee on it. Right now.

I tried that and the compost bin broke down before the stump did.

It's probably obvious, but why not hire a stump grinder? Unless they can't get the machine to it, they will make quick work of it for probably not a huge amount of money. Use the chips for composting or mulch.

heimert In one of his posts he mentions that is close to his neighbors fence and him being on a small lot. So I bet you can't get one back to it. Plus some people (and probably more these days) can't afford even the little bit it cost to have it ground out. yes that would be quick and easy but sometimes we just like to do things the harder or longer way. :) Maybe it's because we are cheap. :s

One time, instead of having a stump ground out, my sister insisted that she'd take it out with an axe. It was a big stump and she worked and worked on it and was so proud. Then one day, one of our really helpful town employees came around with a backhoe and took the rest of it out for her, then brought us a load of soil to fill the hole! I was thrilled... but Wendy was really POed. Haha.. they stole her thunder. I was just happy the stump was gone.

If I could get my dad's backhoe into my back yard and didn't care about tearing up my yard it wouldn't be any kind of issue. To tell you the truth it's not much of an issue anyway. I'm content to wait the stump out until I can get most of it with an ax or shovel. It was rotten enough before I put the bin on top to rip some descent sized sections off of it. Taking stumps out with a backhoe is pretty messy anyway. I've taken a couple large stumps out with it at my parents house and you need to dig a pretty impressive hole to get the whole thing or have one monsterous machine. I took out one ash tree stump where the weight of the stump was enough to make the backhoe start to tip backwards while lifting it out of the hole.......It's a 11000 lb backhoe.

1) Remove 2' of earth in narrow trench at base of stump. Drill 4" diameter hole into stump, below main mass.

2) Insert one (1) stick of dynamite into hole. Tamp.

3) Light fuse and step away promptly.

4) When stump is blown into the air, quickly wheel wood chipper beneath falling stump.

5) Start wood chipper.

6) Catch stump in wood chipper intake bin. Place buckets to hold wood chips as extruded.

7) Compost wood chips (a brown) with plentiful supplies of high-nitrogen materials plant (greens) over the winter. Spread finished compost on garden areas in spring.

Note: Flying wood chips can cause permanent damage to the eyes. Use of protective eyewear is strongly recommended. Garden safety first!

All the best,
-Patrick

Somehow with those steps that eye protection would be the least of your worries. :)

I don't have any dynamite would plastique work instead?

C4? LMAO

Our stump was at the edge of the property, so the guys with the backhoe took it out from the road and didn't mess up the yard. It was a massive hole... I'm glad they brought dirt to fill it in. I think in your situation composting is best and probably won't take all that long.