Does anyone have advice to offer on the smaller composters that can be ordered from many of the gardening catalogs? This is an example. There are both pyramid and tumbling varieties that I would be interested in but I’ve been told that they are not large enough to generate sufficient heat within the compost so that it can break down in a reasonable amount of time. We have a good bit of kitchen and yard waste that I hate throwing away but not enough room in the yard for a big compost pile. Has anyone had success with these smaller composters?
We have the pyramid style, and even in Canada, where it’s cooler for longer periods, we have no problem with our composter. When it was below freezing it was warm in the composter - steam was coming out!
One tip though, check with your city to see if they subsidize composters. Calgary does, and we got ours for something like 80% off the retail price.
I would love a tumbling composter but cannot persuade myself to put out that kind of money. Currently I use three wooden boxes I got from the grocery store. You stack one on top of another and put the stuff in the top box. As it starts to fill up some of the rottin- er, compost falls through the slats into box # 2. when box 1 is full you dump all the contents into box 2, stack empty box 3 on top, and set empty box 1 out in the sun to dry out. Repeat.
Possibly I will make tumbler this summer, I am really shamefully cheap.
I’ve got a ComposTumbler ®, and like it a lot. I do throw in a couple of buckets of cow manure when I start a batch, and I think that helps. Remember, a compost pile doesn’t have to be hot to work – it just works faster that way.
I have a pyramid one, kind of, which I got for nearly nothing thanks to a promotion by our waste disposal company. it is no bigger than the ones shown, and works great. I don’t take the results out all that often, and we put tons it, but it compacts just fine.
Ours does not have the little door on the bottom which is now standard. I wish it did. But composting isn’t rocket science.