Composters

[morpheus83uk]

Hello,

Does anyone have any advice on composters?

I currently have a normal one which was left by the previous owners however the door continually falls off from the compost weight no matter what I do it just keeps coming off. Also it seems to be falling apart so I am looking for something which is easier to make compost in and I have found the tumble ones but they look expensive although state that they make compost in around 6-8 weeks. As I only have a small to medium sized garden to look after what would people recommend? The one I have currently is 220L ecomax.

Thanks

James

 

[morpheus83uk]

Does anyone have any ideas on this?

Thanks

James

 

[wrathkeg]

I haven't used a tumble composter, but as I understand it you need to have a load of stuff to put in at once to get compost at anything like the speed they suggest. I find the plastic bins a bit useless really: as soon as you get heat in them you start to get condensation on the inside, which turns into water as it cools, then drips back down as cold water onto the very thing you are trying to heat up. For me, a simple two-bay timber construction works fine: one is rotting down as I am filling the other one up. It takes a while to rot down (months) though I am sure I could speed that up if I turned it more often.

 

[peterchichester]

I've got one of the normal, a bit conical, ones. The door doesn't fall off but it seems overly hard to get the compost out of it. I just lifted the whole thing off the compost, dug in the decent compost and put the rest back in for next year. I don't see the point in going to complications and expense, mine works ok and I only use it once a year anyway.
At my old house which had a much bigger garden I made bins out of pallets with a bit of carpet on top, they worked fine too.

 

[morpheus83uk]

I have one of the normal ones and I move it around as much as is possible it seems to make good compost however it seems like a lot of hard work. If I am not turning it then it seems to take forever to do anything I was thinking the tumbling composters would be easier just rotate them a few times every week or so.

I see your point about getting the compost out as I do have issues with this too but by the same rule I also have the problem of keeping it in so if a tumble composter is no good I may make a bin or two like you have suggested to make life a bit easier and just turn it.

When making the bins I presume these are covered and treated as they are outside?

Thanks

James

 

[peterchichester]

Gosh no. I found a place that was getting rid of the non-blue pallets, i.e. the ones without a value, and some from Freecycle and tied them together with baler twine to form a square (I ended up with several bins in a row). I put an old bit of carpet on top to stop it getting too wet. And that's it.
I never turned it, seems like hard work. Once a year I'd dig the compost into the veg plot and fork it into the borders. It was good stuff.
Pallets are quite big. You need a lot of stuff to fill a pallet compost bin and quite a lot of land to dig it into.

 

[morpheus83uk]

Hmmm thanks for that the issue I have is that I don't have much room to make anything quite as big as the normal composter just sits where it can do can that's it. I could cut them down to size but I think she may want something ascetically but I can always ask and go from there.

Thanks

James

 

[wrathkeg]

It can be any size you like, really, though composting times will depend on how large it is and how full you can get it. If you only have a relatively small amount of waste and don't have much space you can easily knock something up of a size to suit. The norm is for each bay of a timber domestic bin to be about 3'x3'x3', but it really doesn't have to be: I've certainly built smaller successful bins. Virtually any timber will do, including the timber cut from old pallets.