Testing Compost Tumblers

You have often seen the advertisements: "You can now have dark, wealthy compost in a couple of days!" How much of an appealing message. Regardless of whether you grow flowers, veggies, herbal treatments or houseplants, compost is "black gold" within the garden. We not have enough, and should not allow it to be quick enough. Compost tumblers, the advertisements say, can provide us a stable supply every few days.

Designed so that you can crank, turn or roll the container to show and aerate the compost, tumblers are available in several dimensions.

Prior to runing out and purchase one, however, remember that individuals head lines are advertising hyperbole at the best. Within our tests, tumblers didn't produce finished compost any quicker than a properly-handled compost bin or open pile.

To be certain, the elements seem to be composting faster because you'll probably turn the contents more frequently inside a tumbler, thus presenting air — among the four vital elements (others being nitrogen, carbon and water) — that's essential to turn vegetable matter into compost. But when you build a wide open pile exactly the same size like a tumbler's capacity, make use of the same elements both in and switch outdoors pile if you rotate the tumbler, they'll produce compost within the same general time period. So, why wouldn't you purchase a compost tumbler?


Last summer time we carried out a area test of numerous compost tumblers versus open compost piles. Although the majority of us at MOTHER use cold composting techniques (replacing here we are at the job of maintaining a warm pile), we went a warm pile like a control.

Under our environment conditions, both open (hot) pile control and also the tumblers produced wealthy, finished compost within 10 days — far in the fourteen days a few of the producers claim. The tumblers were certainly simpler to make use of than turning a wide open pile having a pitchfork, but they didn't substantially boost the speed of production when in comparison to some correctly handled open pile. Easy turning is most likely the primary benefit tumblers offer, but because you will see below, many are simpler to show than the others.

Even though the decomposition time isn't elevated, compost tumblers will have advantages additionally to help ease of turning. Generally, they're clean, neat, inconspicuous, pest-resistant and odor-free. Due to this, tumblers frequently may be used in urban and suburban areas, where local laws and regulations or limited covenants may stop open compost piles.

One enjoyable surprise throughout the testing, with what switched to be considered a drought year, could be that the enclosed tumblers maintained moisture much better than outdoors pile, which needed to be watered frequently.